"We’ll see more animation films after Arjun" – Arnab Chaudhari

Read More">“The key remains in bringing a new experience to the viewer” We are capable of churning out quality work if given the investment and time. Pixar Studios take upto five years and their budgets are pegged at over a hundred million dollars for their intense detailed animation productions. The growth of the animation industry isRead More

"The key remains in bringing a new experience to the viewer"
We are capable of churning out quality work if given the investment and time. Pixar Studios take upto five years and their budgets are pegged at over a hundred million dollars for their intense detailed animation productions. The growth of the animation industry is exponential, and the difference is noticeable with the content that was streamed ten years ago as compared to today. The situation with mythology is that a large number of people connect with it but although this is an advantage for a filmmaker, the key remains in bringing a new experience to the viewer.

"When too many safe bets are made, you land up with safe products"
In 1937, Snow White was called Disney's folly, by then Walt had already gained fame and fortune through the short films he made. He persisted on making a full length theatrical feature and banked all his money on it, eventually he faced bankruptcy. It was called his folly, although his era of obscurity changed and it rose. There are not many safe bets made on animation here as nobody wants to take a leap of faith, but if we see this here then the number of animation releases in India will increase. When too many safe bets are made, you land up with safe products and its growth is limited. Arjun is one of those big animation announcements but in India we have not been having any big animation announcements especially theatrically. We have a healthy economy that drives the animation TV production. Animation in the west has been around for over a hundred years while in India, its bared crossed forty five, so it is not very big in the country. Although, we will see more films following after Arjun's release.

Do not take the latest entrant for granted for this is not your usual run of the mill mythological feature. It is the first venture coming from the stables of the recently merged Disney and UTV. Directed by debutant Arnab Chaudhuri, Arjun: The Warrior Prince revolves around Arjun, Read More">a nine year old boy and hisRead More

Do not take the latest entrant for granted for this is not your usual run of the mill mythological feature. It is the first venture coming from the stables of the recently merged Disney and UTV. Directed by debutant Arnab Chaudhuri, Arjun: The Warrior Prince revolves around Arjun, a nine year old boy and his transformation into a warrior; it explores his journey with his brothers, his training and education, and discovering the warrior within. Tata Elxsi's Visual Computing Labs (VCL) has executed the animation of the film with a work force of seventy five artists, spread across three grueling years to accomplish the film. VCL has worked on Jodhaa Akbar, Rang De Basanti, Roadside Romeo etc. In addition VCL's Hollywood contribution includes Ironman, Spiderman, Indiana Jones etc. Talking about the look and feel of Arjun, Creative Director of VCL, Pankaj Khandpur says, "Arnab wanted this hand painted 2D feel which makes the film look very unique, but we wanted to do this in a 3D space, as it gives maximum flexibility to work on. Using Pixar's Renderman, we developed a shader which allowed us to give a 2D look to the 3D elements and we did the entire process all through the film's production." Arnab is no stranger to animation, his tryst with moving pictures goes back to '89, he has worked on claymation using bolex cameras and no computers. As an animator he has worked with Channel V, Cartoon Network and Pogo for many years in Hong Kong. Bollywood Hungama's Philip Bode meets up with animator and debutant director, Arnab Chaudhuri to talk about creating a hybrid fighting style for the film, people taking too many safe bets, quality of animation in India and working with VCL to churn out, Arjun: The Warrior Prince.

“Multiple scenes were being worked upon at the same time” “UTV came to me in 2006 with the notion of making Arjun, as an animated feature film. As I dabbled with animation for many years, Read More">I jumped right in since I have always wanted to make a spectacular Martial Arts film. The project was aRead More

"Multiple scenes were being worked upon at the same time"
"UTV came to me in 2006 with the notion of making Arjun, as an animated feature film. As I dabbled with animation for many years, I jumped right in since I have always wanted to make a spectacular Martial Arts film. The project was a perfect combination of ideas and we rolled out with pre-production in early 2007, where in the production pipeline was divided into three phases. The first was the design and story phase in which the techniques were asserted and the screenplay finalized, this process took over three months. In phase two, as a test we produced a single five minute scene. This process in the course of six months helped us weed out the loopholes and understand the project better, according to the pipeline designed. Thereafter we hit production on a massive scale where-in multiple scenes were being worked upon at the same time. There were times where-in 2000 elements were working at the same time; the entire film is produced in 3D with vector based shaders added.

"We shot at a stud farm in Rajasthan and recorded all the horse and chariot work"
"We worked with the Kalaripayattu martial arts troupe from Kerala, and Thanga-Ta artists from Manipur for the fight sequences. We conducted workshops and made them fight each other. This hybrid fighting style formed a reference point that was communicated with the animators. We shot at a stud farm in Rajasthan and recorded horses and chariot work for reference as well. Rehearsals for the voice acting segment were conducted over a period of 2 months with a theater group formed on a sound stage. Since the entire production is a lengthy process, keeping everyone fired up with their work is possibly the most challenging aspect. The beauty of animation is that when a shot is finally accomplished, you are incredibly satisfied on it coming to fore this energizes you to do more and tackle another scene. This rings true not only for the directors, it goes right down to the artists as well. With the dailies and work reviews conducted and approved, it's immensely satisfying for everyone around. With the volume of accomplishments collected in the dailies, every individual in the team is motivated to go on."

“We are quite far away from making a Wall-E” Similarly going back to the Disney story, he did a lot of fairytales for the same reasons where masses connected with the content. His films brought in new experiences to those fairytales and that’s what made them great, Read More">that’s the challenge. Most mythological films seen areRead More

"We are quite far away from making a Wall-E"
Similarly going back to the Disney story, he did a lot of fairytales for the same reasons where masses connected with the content. His films brought in new experiences to those fairytales and that's what made them great, that's the challenge. Most mythological films seen are usually parody based, where-in it is reduced to comedy that curtail to young children. If you go by the cultural reference, we are quite far away from making a Wall-E, as we are more inclined towards cultural rooted content. For a filmmaker there is a big advantage in doing a mythological film.

"To immerse a viewer in a movie is the biggest challenge"
A lot of technicians are not necessarily artists, Tata Elxsi VCL was elected because it is an artist driven studio that is technology proficient, more aesthetical study then the technicalities as the artists define the studio. Technology needs to be treated as a tool, it should never govern what you do and one should be an artist first for technology will follow suit. I think building the universe is the most arduous process in any animated film, as every single element in the frame is a conscious decision. To immerse a viewer in a movie is the biggest challenge. With the film all set to release, the excitement feels like I'm about to take bungee jump. As for the future pipeline, we have already written the second edition of the film which will be the continuation of Arjun: The Warrior Prince.