Waltz with Bashir

Well, from Ari Folman, the creator of this compelling animated documentary, actually. An interview with Marshall Fine of the Huffington Post, gives us a glimpse into the mind of writer/director Ari Folman who made this film against all odds and gained worldwide success. He has almost philosophical views on war, forgiveness and politics but those have no place here on an animation blog. What I really want to share here are 5 invaluable lessons gleaned from the interview with this unconventional film-maker. I hope our aspiring animators and film-makers who want to make their own films will take these lessons to heart.

Lesson No. 1: It is all in the story-telling

With a controversial but factual story about war combined with real, archival footage, who would have thought the film would catch the fancy of people across the world? A dark, disturbing subject like war has been tackled innumerable times before so what sets apart this film? The answer lies in the telling of the story. Can you create interest in the minds of the audience? Can you get them involved in the lives of your characters? Can you hook them, grip them, enchant them, make them suspend disbelief and lose themselves in your story? THAT is the power of story-telling, no matter what the subject is.

Lesson No. 2: Believe. In yourself. In your story. In the medium.

A lot of people questioned Folman’s decision to make a film on this subject. They felt his choice of medium was inappropriate as well. He did not have a background in animation either. But he believed. In the story he had to narrate, in the medium of ‘animated-documentary’ and most of all, in himself. The strength of his conviction ensured that the film got made.

Lesson No. 3: Never give up. Keep trying.

The task was daunting. The film was almost experimental and most people had rejected his pitch. Yet he went on undeterred. He not only worked on the film himself, he also went around trying to raise funds. He did everything possible to ensure the film was completed. He had a vision and a task. He went all out to make it a reality, not giving up even once.

Lesson No. 4: Innovate

Sure, there were problems. Unforeseen ones as well as expected ones. With a budget that was limited, Ari and his team reiterated the proverb - Necessity is the mother of invention. When you have a goal, you cannot let anything stop you from achieving it. Try with whatever is within your means but also push the limit whenever you can. Experiment, innovate, turn your shortcomings into advantages, push the envelope.

Lesson No. 5: Do it for YOURSELF

Folman did not make this film to prove a point. He did not make it to win accolades for the animation. He had a story that he wanted to narrate which he wanted to take to people across the world. He was not thinking of audiences or jury when he was making the film. He made it the way it best enhanced the story. He was focussed on the task at hand and gave it his best. That is something most of us do not do. We lose track thinking of the grand prize awaiting us at the finishing line. Do not make the film because it is your class lesson, or project, or perhaps your job. Do not do it for the ‘money’ or ‘awards’. Do it for your own sake - because you have a story that deserves to be told in the best possible manner.

I will leave you with the trailer of Waltz with Bashir and a parting thought. There is so much to learn from the experiences of others. Our animation/filmmaking students sometimes suffer because they do not have good teachers at their schools and institutes, but what stops them from learning outside the classroom?

2008 was a year of a lot of frenetic activity on the industry front.

AnimationXpress.com held a series of AITF (Animation Industry Technology Forum) and IAI (Industry Academia Interface) sessions, announced a print magazine, a quiz competition and new awards of excellence and also ventured into something never done before - Animation tourism. Its my sincere hope that it does not lose its original vision in this juggernaut of diversification.

CGTantra.com took its LIG (Learn, Inspire, Grow) seminars to several cities across the country. It held the first ever (and I must say, mighty successful) CGT Expo in Mumbai, launched many new features on their website and finally ended the year with a bang by celebrating its 4th anniversary by confering “CGT Community Honours” on people from various sections of the Indian animation industry and community.

TASI - The Animation Society of India - organised valuable seminars and workshops all year around - ranging from Animation for those who cannot Draw, Music for Animation, The Making of taare Zameen Par, Preproduction, Acting for Animation and the gem of the year - A Masterclass with the Master - Ram Mohan Sir himself! And how can I not mention TASI’s Anifest India 2008 - the 3 day festival at IIT, Mumbai, that saw a phenomenal turnout of close to 3000 people who attended over 15 workshops and sessions. The icing on TASI’s cake was a neat write-up that appeared in Times Of India in August about the sincere efforts of TASI members to give something back to the Indian animation community. (Don’t take my word for it, I am a committee member of TASI this year too after all. Just ask any one who has attended the TASI sessions and I am sure they will vouch for us)

ASIFA India celebrated the International Animation Day with great gusto across 13 cities in India this year. I attended the one in Mumbai and for me the 2 highlights of the day were the opportunity to interact with Gitanjali Rao and watch clips from her latest film ‘Girgit’ and the screening of the Pixar Documentary which I had been dying to see. (It is now available for everyone to watch - on the Wall-E DVD - and I recommend all aspiring animators to watch it)

The proof of the potential of India’s animation industry lies in the fact that the Annecy Festival chose India as the country of focus. The ever-popular animation festival held every year in the beautiful town of Annecy in France put India, its animators and their animation in the spotlight. This was the year when one could not afford to miss out on the festival if one had anything to do with Indian animation. Unfortunately, I was unable to go.

Of course a lot else happened in the ‘industry’ - mergers, acquisitions, partnerships, splits, break-aways, law-suits, launches and shutdowns, but I will not discuss those here.

Then there was the formation of NAGFO and BAGS. What’s that you ask? NAGFO aka NASSCOM Animation and Gaming Forum is NASSCOM’s endeavour to brign together India’s animation as well as gaming institutes and studios under one umbrella to further their cause, improve standards and benefit everyone within the industry. BAGS is the Board of Animation and Gaming Standards that is emerging from NAGFO that will set guidelines amongst other things for the betterment of the industry.

Industry events that happened this year included FICCI Frames 2008 which was held in Mumbai (which I attended) and NASSCOM Animation and Gaming India 2008, Hyderabad (which I was unable to attend thanks under unfortunate circumstances).

And then there were the films. The Good, the Bad and the downright UGLY!! Enough has been said already about the UGLY aka Icy n Spicy (refer this blog) and I won’t waste anymore webspace writing about it. Gladly noone seems to remember the movie anyway!! Dashavatar and Cheenti Cheenti Bang Bang did not do very well at the box office for different reasons. The effort was sincere but did not show through and both did nothing for the Indian animation industry. Everybody waited with bated breath for Roadside Romeo the first Big Banner Bollywood film - helmed by Jugal Hansraj and produced by Yash Raj Films. The creators did push the envelope quite a bit and I have to credit the animators for doing a good job. The tragedy was that this film too failed to excite Indian audiences enough. Partly the fault of the producers who hardly promoted the film and partly the inexperience of the director who is not an animator to begin with. The hype was limited to within the industry and ultimately, neither the voices of Saif and Kareena nor the sincere efforts of the animation team got their due. The film found its audience neither in kids nor in adults. It was wrong to expect Disney/Pixar quality - we pinned our hopes too high. A toddler must first learn to crawl, then walk, then run. Yet, I reaffirm that Roadside Romeo was a giant leap for Indian animation in more ways than one. (I won’t bring up Jumbo because it is not an Indian animated film to begin with and the  only Indian connection, the voice-overs, sounded so awful in the trailers itself that I shall give it a miss!)

Whew! That wraps up this lengthy post. I know I might have missed out a couple of things, if so, you are most welcome to add them in the comments below. I will sign off by wishing all of you a very happy, peaceful, successful, fun-filled and ANIMATED 2009!!!

Masterclass with the Master himself!

A REMINDER: TASI is organizing an interactive workshop on Character Design, Concept Development and Production processes on 5th December, 2008 from 3 pm to 6 pm at Whistling Woods International, Goregaon, Mumbai.

The Father of Indian Animation, Ram Mohan or ‘Sirjee’ as he is fondly called will be conducting the workshop and this is a session which should not be missed.

Ram Mohan needs no introduction. Any Indian animator who has not heard of him should not be doing animation!

So make sure that you are there with your sketchpads and pencils to learn from the Master himself - for details of the workshop and to register online go to the TASI website (click here)

Description as found on YouTube and posted by Sara Benincasa…

A long-forgotten 1951 classroom film from Medium Large’s educational library (”Bake Your Way to Marriage!” “How to Cripple a Bully” “Polio: God’s Judgment Against Gays” ), this short exposes the chilling, horrifying, alarming truth about comedy in a fun, fact-filled format. The movie was made possible with a grant from “Buick: The Cadillac of Cars.”

Written, drawn and directed by Francesco Marciuliano. Edited by Sara Benincasa.

For more from Francesco “Ces” Marciuliano, please go to http://medium-large.com or http://francescoexplainsitall.blogspot.com

Since one needs to be a registered user of The McKinsey Quarterly to be able to read the complete article, here is the link to a very nice review and concise version of it from Gigaom.com by Carleen Hawn. It begins like this:

This week The McKinsey Quaterly asks: what does stimulating the creativity of animators have in common with developing new product ideas or technology breakthroughs? Apparently, a lot.

In Innovation lessons from Pixar, McKinsey writes:

Brad Bird makes his living fostering creativity. Academy Award-winning director (The Incredibles and Ratatouille) talks about the importance, in his work, of pushing teams beyond their comfort zones, encouraging dissent, and building morale. He also explained the value of “black sheep”—restless contributors with unconventional ideas.

Read the complete aticle from Gigaom.com here.

If you would like to read the original article that came out in The McKinsey Quarterly, go here.
A quick look at what the original article says:

• Pixar’s Brad Bird makes his living fostering creativity. In an interview, this director of two Academy Award–winning animated films (The Incredibles and Ratatouille) describes how he pushes teams of animators beyond their comfort zones, encourages dissent, and builds morale.
• Bird’s experiences and anecdotes hold powerful lessons for executives in any organization seeking to nurture innovation.

The article also contains an interactive feature including audio clips from the interview, stills from several of Bird’s projects, and a brief biography.

It is a special treat for all those who can’t seem to have enough of Disney. It’s an article by Walt’s brother and business partner, Roy Disney, that appeared in the Reader’s Digest in Feb. 1969 (much before many of us were born!)

Click on the thumbnails below to read the original article.

Hear it from the maker himself…

Dhimant Vyas talks exclusively to All About Animation

and shares photos from Taare Zameen Par’s clay animation sequences.

See the Photos

Read the Interview

AAA - First of all, congratulations on being the first animator to use Clay animation in a Bollywood live-action feature film. How has the response been?
Dhimant - Yes, the response is overwhelming and very positive!! Thanks to Aamir for choosing the clay animation style. It is a craft with a human touch to it so it also tugs at the audience’s heartstrings. It works well with the main film because the story needed this kind of feel to it. The scenes depict Ishaan, the main protagonist’s imagination so the transitions had to be smooth scene and convey the dream-like quality. we used transitions like morphs, camera moves, elements appearing and disappearing, or you have one element dragging you to anther scene, so there is not cut till the end. And you do not realize when the three minutes pass by.

AAA - How did this project come about?
Dhimant - I had created the caricatures for the Lagaan DVD (Special Anniversary Edition Three Disc DVD box) I had shown Aamir some of my work which he had really appreciated. So when he decided to use animation for TZP, he approached me. Aamir initially wanted to use the classical animation style with a painterly quality. I suggested we try the clay animation technique. I showed him some samples. He liked it a lot and we decided to go ahead with clay animation.

AAA - Why clay animation?
Dhimant  - Aamir showed me the completed film and we discussed the use of animation. The sequences where we planned to use animation were mostly dream sequences, where the boy is lost in his own world of fantasy. There are a lot of transitions from one fantasy to the other. Aamir did not want to use human characters in the animation. He wanted elements from nature - fish, animals, birds, plants, flowers and so on. I created a few samples for him of which he liked the clay animation the best. There is a certain tactile quality to this technique. As children, all of us have played with plastecine or modelling clay and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. There is an organic feel to the medium which is not achievable through computer generated animation. Clay is something that everyone can relate to it easily.

AAA - But the animation doesn’t come across as ‘childish’ in the film as it is film about children.
Dhimant - No. Aamir made it very clear that though it is part of the protagonist child’s imagination, there must be no childishness to the animation. He wanted a beautiful and polished effect which we tried our best to deliver. The elements are bright and colourful, just the way a child’s world is but it flows smoothly into the story. It is not animation just for the sake of animating something. There is a purpose and that is to carry the story forward. It is a subtle way of giving the audience a glimpse into the child’s inner world and the animation captures that perfectly.

AAA - Aamir is known to be a hard task master. How has the experience of working with him been?
Dhimant  - Aamir’s thinking is crystal clear. He knows what he is looking for and conveys it exactly. It is up to us to realize his vision. He is a perfectionist but at the same time he respected my knowledge and experience with clay animation. He gave me full freedom, only giving his inputs from time to time but leaving the responsibility of the work squarely on my shoulders. Having the director’s trust in your ability is vital.

AAA - Who came up with the concept for the animated sequences?
Dhimant - I visualized the entire sequence. I first presented a couple of concepts to Aamir which we discussed and finalized before beginning the actual animation. We had a very narrow deadline of a month and a half to complete the entire animation from concept to modeling to execution and compositing. I showed Aamir the storyboards. We removed some elements, added a few others. It was an enjoyable process. I had 3 model makers working with me including Arvind Chudasama. The cinematography and lighting was done by Satya Prakash Rath who has worked on stop motion projects before so he has the experience to handle this kind of work.

AAA - There is some cel animation and CG animation as well in the movie?
Dhimant - Yes. Vaibhav Kumaresh’s Vaibhav studios handled the 2D animation while Tata Elxsi worked on the CG animation as well as the visual effects and compositing besides putting credits on the sequence and adding some effects in my clay animation sequence. The 3 teams were working simultaneously but in isolation from each other. Aamir and his production team were the contact points.

AAA - Tell us about the technique.
Dhimant - I use my own technique which I like to call embossed clay illustration. It is different from typical clay animation, as the clay figures don’t stand upright but are laid out flat on a smooth surface. It is technically easlier to animate in this manner as it requires less planning than when armatures are used. Light is used to give the almost 2D surface the look and feel of a three dimensional one. The illusion of depth comes from the play of light and shadows. But the light has to be planned carefully or else it will throw unnecessary shadows. This steals the volume. So the challenge is in creating a model that looks three dimensional under the camera. You have to cheat a lot. When you look at the model by itself, its shape looks odd but when looked at through the camera lens, it is perfect. The camera is set up to film the animation from the top. We used 2 cameras - a web cam to check the animation frame by frame and another Canon digital SLR for capturing the final hi-res stills.

AAA - This is a technique you have developed on your own?
Dhimant  - Yes. I haven’t seen anyone else use this technique. This is just the third time that I have attempted to use it. Before this I had tried a few clay illustrations for my own work and later to create “Happy Planet”.

AAA - What other challenges did you face during animation?
Dhimant - A very important thing while animating is to be able to maintain correct timing. Each element has a different speed and a unique style of motion. Sometimes, one shot has 20 to 25 items moving. For example, there was a scene with 2 groups of fish. One small mistake means everything needs to be redone. To add to that, there was a very tight deadline. But timing is something that you learn with experience. There were no cuts in the 3 minute sequence. Sometimes we used morphs, other times there were pans, but the flow is always continous. It was physically stressful but creatively most satisfying. I thoroughly enjoyed animating it.

AAA - Tell us about the title sequence.
Dhimant - The title where the name of the film Taare Zameen Par morphs from English to Hindi to Urdu, the movement of the octopus, fish and parrot was shot against a blue, red and then a green screen placed under the glass. The team at Tata Elxsi composited those shots.

AAA - Could you please share some clay animation tips and tricks with us?
Dhimant - Sure. For certain scenes, instead of modeling directly on the table, we made replacements beforehand and used them to speed up the actual animation process. But in other scenes, like in the scene where the peacock turns into a flower, we had to sculpt on the table. Everything was animated on one layer rather than multiple glass layers as is generally used for this technique. We left very little work for post-production. Only the bee’s and bird’s wings were created using Photoshop. The scene where the Hippos is entering the water also needed to be done differently.

AAA - What about the music and the soundtrack?
Dhimant - Luckily the music was superimposed later or else it might have been even more tedious to animate.

AAA - What else would you like to tell our readers?
Dhimant - Work very hard and have a passion for the work that you do - it could be anything. Enjoy your work, don’t just think about the money, it will follow if you do your best. Keep your eyes open and try to learn new things, experiment, try to be perfect and stick to your deadlines. Love your work and teach others! I think that is a lot of advice. Bahut ho gaya!!  Enjoy the movie on the big screen.

Remember, you saw it here first!!

Stop motion animation veteran, Dhimant Vyas and Aamir Khan Productions have generously shared photos of the making of the Clay Animation sequences from Taare Zameen Par.

Also read the exclusive interview with Dhimant Vyas where he explains the technique he used to animate these sequences and chats with us about his experience of animating for a Bollywood film for the first time ever. Taare Zameen Par or ‘TZP’ has made Bollywood history by being the first Hindi film to extensively use clay animation in the movie.

All the images below are copyright protected. Please DO NOT use them without prior permission. If you want to use the images or extracts from the interview, email us first.

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