Sunday, April 24, 2011

BEGINING...

I started my animation training from UTV TOONS in 1999 just after completing my B.F.A. my first class was in Byculla Zoo. Hey don’t get me wrong, actually we went there to sketch caged animals. I had been informed to meet my colleagues there I get introduced to my trainee mates. We had a great session. Trainer yogesh was really impressed with my sketches. Six month training was a wonderful experience for me. We were sketching around 100 every day, lots of animation assignments. Sometime it was tiring than production.

Many time they put my sketches on display board. Ram Mohan sir took classes on storyboarding and character design. Seniors of different department also taken classes. Last three month Tino guanlao was with us.

Language was a barrier for me. First time I was speaking Hindi and most of the guys were Marathi. Sometime my accents were a source of laughter. But my colleagues were so supportive.

I was really fortunate to get a shelter in Mumbai and huge support from my native friends. I did not pay a single penny for my training. I was in ninth heaven after getting my first salary Rs.11000 in year 2000.move life on own earning was a so satisfying.

i am really thankful to youtube... where i found some of my works and beautiful memories of my career. so have a look on those videos.

FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE.(2000)


here i collected some of my scenes from youtube.

This is my first episode.
*property of Funbag.
this is my first project after six month of training. I did my first scene in this episode, I was so excited to see my drawings are moving and talking it was kind of dream come true for me, started my career as animation trainee. I have never done "in between" or "clean up" so I was amazed to see my scenes clean up out put. still I do not dare to do clean up but it is good to do sometime clean up and in between. Senior animators working in UTV were very co-operative. Yogesh,Abhaya, Vinay, Vivek,Radha, Pushkaraj, Satish and our supervisor Sanjiv wareker all were excellent in drawing and animation, learned a lot from these guys I will be grateful to these guys lifelong.

The story is about a family. it is a very famous comic in Canada. It was based on everyday happenings in a happy family and their pet. Characters are proportionately realistic, faces are simplified. My first scene was April holding the coke can and coke is dripping from her face it was an after effect of a fight with her brother. Mother and daughter peeling prawns is also my sc now I am finding a big correction on this sc daughter head turn looks jerky also wrong look at. So many scenes I have animated but now I am not able to recall.

MEENA.(2001)


this is one of the video from the series,but i did not found exact video i have worked. friends please let me know if you have the link or video.

This project is a revolution for the girl child education in India. it is a project of unicef character designed by Ram Mohan sir. it portrays the south Asian culture and living style of the people.

I worked in the second season. Keeping character on model was a challenge for me. It looks so simple but tough to maintain. I feel proud being a part of this revolution.

TOAD PATROL.(2001)


found this video in youtube but this is not the exact soundtrack. vehicle coming over them, from that sequence i have animated some scene.

Toad patrol was a very nice project. Characters were so cute with big big eyes proportionately It was comfortable to animate. Story was about tiny toads and their up and downs of everyday journey. Before I moved to Escotoonz I did rough animation of toad patrol around thirty scenes within two weeks. That time I was working as an assistant team lead.

In utv toons also I worked for street kids, weird monster and Kong(Layout)

KING.(2002)


*property of funbag.

King also a Canadian project it is a production of FUNBAG. Based on a fantasy story. Real world Russel goes into a wonder world through the way under his bed and becomes the king of wonder world. Characters were more or less like aliens or monsters. It was so funny and adventures. There were lots of flexibility and opportunities to improvise the versatility of animation. I really had a great fun in this phase of my career.

In Escotoonz I worked for Christmas dinosaur, cyber dodo, fairies and some of the test project. vinay singh’s supervision helped me enough to improve my work.

HIGGLE TOWN HEROES.(2004)


*property of walt disney.
this is one of the video from series,just to show you the style.

This is my very first 3D animation project in 2004. it is a Disney project through Wildbrain to jadooworks. I learn 3D in jadooworks. Targeted audience for this series were 3-4 year children. It is about the people we meet or need in our day to day life. Series effort was to introduce them to kids. Higgle town heroes were pizza guy, plumber, electrician and traffic police etc…to start career in 3D it was suitable for me. Characters are like props, no legs, and expression switching textures only. So it was quite easy to animate.

But I had a bitter experience in this studio. Production hierarchy was worst. Only one year I worked there and it shut down by December 2004.

BARBIE DAIRIES(2005).

The story was based on college going teens. Producer was curios picture. This is my first biped character animation but there were motion captured files I only got a chance to do palm and facial animation. But it was interesting there were lots of blend shapes for facial expression and lip sync. This was my first project in DQ entertainment.

MICKEY MOUSE CLUB HOUSE(2006).

It was a dream project for me. Most of the animators around the world scrambling to add a tag of Disney to their portfolio. Working for Disney and the project based on their iconic character Mickey mouse. I was overwhelmed to work in this project. targeted audience for this show were 3-7 year children. Educational series but lots of things were there to entertain kids. I started my fully biped character 3D animation from this series. Of course I have practiced a lot with biped character. Like 2D animation X-sheets were provided for timing. Non 2D animators got chance to use x-sheet

We were working for the opening and closing dance sequence. Maya file get corrupted we all tried our best to deliver the show on time. 3-4 four days we all were in studio. I have animated big bunch of scenes for MMCH.

In between I worked for the test project Chicken Little series.under supervision of siddharth vasudev(sid). Animation got big yes from client but feather was a challenge for our studio. Those days work on feather was a tough task. And to maintain exact rhythm and flow of feather was really tough. So we loose the project.

TAK(2007).


*property of nickelodeon.

We started with four interstitials. I animated belly juju in "burping contest" This was project of nickelodeon. It was so adventures. Story of pupununu tribe lots of character lots of fun lots of color were in TAK the rig was wonderful facial rig were awesome I created lots of facial exp for pose library. from the eve of this project I have been chosen as animation supervisor. 1st I supervised around 40 scns of 1st epi . Lok was so funny character. sound tracks provided by client was so clear so it was tempting to put the best of my capability. Chandru was animation director from DQ. working under Chandru was a booster to my supervising career. I like his style of giving correction on tiny detailing of animation. I think he is the most creative guy I found in DQ. I love to chat with him. Also he is so friendly to animators. He is one of my good friends.

Supervisors from nick were so friendly we had a great time on production of TAK.

TEST PROJECT.

Inbetween I worked for some of the test projects like podo a gaming project. pinky perky promo. burnout trophy cinematics and turok gaming cinematics.

turok test was a challenge for me and Chandru. animator Cameron fielding works were sample for us. It was really wonderful. It was so realistic and hand held cam effect was awesome. Some how we came upto the approval of animation but the project bounced may be because of some budget issue. My studio not giving me permission to share those works with you. Cameron is a highly talented animator his tips and talk on animation are really useful for me. Because it is some time explains the ground reality we the animators face to execute our task I would like to suggest you to visit his blog FLIP.

PENGUINS OF MADAGASCAR(2009).

At the end of the project tak I worked on interstitial of penguin of Madagascar.it is dreamworks project through nickelodeon. I supervised around three episodes.1st episode was a big success. They liked it. Story line and the funniest character king julien was the centre of interest of the show. I enjoyed the project.

FANBOY AND CHUMCHUM(2009).



*property of nickelodeon.

We did 4 interstitial or promo for fanboy and chumchum. We developed the style of animation .Eric (creator of the show) liked it very much. He is brilliant I like his style of story telling. Very nicely he used switch characteristics of characters in his lecture. He is a good artist. Rigs we got from nick were wonderful animation style was some time too snappy. For extreme exaggeration it was really user friendly. I had great time with fanboy project.

I worked for kun-fu-panda series test it also came up nice but we loose the project.

THE LITTLE PRINCE(2010).


The Little prince is very popular comic in Europe. It is already released in live action and 2D animated version. Now we are working in 3D animation. Also it is going to be release in stereoscopic-3D. Pre production guys working from method are really great. Director of the show Pirrera-alan is wonderful. I like his works very much. His feedback on texturing to set modeling, Lighting to animation all are inspiring. Show length is 22 minute each. One story contents two episodes. It is more than a series bit less than a feature.