WORKSHOP ON ADVERTISING AND COMMUNICATION

Ideas are more important than learning the tools in software. A good advertisement can only be created with innovative ideas. This was the primary topic for the workshop held on 19th December 09 at the Conference room of Academy of Fine Arts. This workshop was conducted by the famous advertising professional - Mr. Arthur Cardozo.

The event witnessed huge crowd of students to attend and participate in interactive workshop which focused on brainstorming of the students. To become an advertising professional one has to portray creativity, appeal factor, idea generation skills, innovative thinking capability, zeal to present, sell a point and last but not the least, to perform as a team member.

According to Arthur, this workshop involved few brainstorming exercises.

LET’S PLAY! Because that is what this profession is about - Fun! – Arthur started. Everyone present in the room was asked to close their eyes for two minutes. After this they were asked to explain what they have visualized. The participants came up with interesting concepts and ideas.

Then the second process involved of creating a calendar with a creative caricature. Students got very innovative ideas and we got some impressive outputs from the students.

Arthur also emphasized that one cannot define creativity. It is right brain dominant and it totally depends on one’s perception. There are certain steps involved in creating an ad. They are:

• Ideation – Simple, easy to communicate and differential thinking.
• Execution – clear imagination, resource and no compromise.
• Ambient Media – finding the touch point and innovative and creative devices.

Arthur showcased some interesting international advertisements which involved exceptional creative concepts. To sum up he gave the students ten ideas to boost their creativity. These were – listening to music, brainstorming, taking notes, referring dictionary, defining problem, to take walks while thinking, avoid television, avoid drugs, be yourself, reading and finally exercise your brain.

The session concluded with the prize distribution for the ‘Arenite of the Month’ and the ‘Academic performer of the month’. The ‘Arenite of the Month’ for November ’09 was bagged by Mr. Sandip Routh. The ‘Academic performer of the Month’ for November’09 was awarded to Rajarshi Mukherjee, Anwesh Banerjee and Debanjan Mitra. The closing speech was elated by Mr. A. D Singh, our Centre Head, during which he emphasized on participation in contests by thinking without the outcome. According to him, participation makes individual assess his own standard of work and gives an insight to an individual to improve on their faults.

Post Editorial Coverage of Arena Chowringhee Interface Awards 09

Year 2009 once again saw Arena Animation Chowringhee showcasing the creative talents of their students at Vidya Mandir on 21st November in presence of the eminent guests such as Mr.Prosenjit Ganguly, Mr.Sarbajit Sen and Mr.Arthur Cardozo from the animation fraternity.

Mr Prosenjit Ganguly- an independent animation design professional, an alumnus and former member of the faculty of National Institute of Design, Ahmadabad inspired the budding animators by speaking about the meaning, the process and the stages of animation development. He spoke about the importance of story, research, concept and the visualization that goes behind making an animation film.He also illustrated how passion as an ingredient can act as a catalyst in the process that translates ones thoughts and ideas into the output of animation. He encouraged parents to urge their children to initiate the process of telling stories in order to improve their skills.


Mr. Sarabjit Sen , a cartoonist grown up in the city of Kolkata having an unmistakable Indian flavor of his comic strips, cartoons, illustrations and even children’s books spoke briefly on the subject of graphic novels and complimented the students for their effort and their hard work. The objective of bringing out the excellence from the budding animators has been the exclusive culture of Arena Animation Chowringhee under the guidance and competent leadership of Mr.A.D.Singh.

The program which followed drew a lot of appreciation from the audience started with a series of cultural events comprising of the inaugural Rabindra Sangeet followed by dance recital-Saraswati Vandana.




Speaking on the occasion the Center Director Mr. A.D.Singh said : “It is here in this city when we started in 1997and since then we have grown by leaps and bounds and this has been only possible with the response of the creative people of Kolkata. Our center has been nominated for awards and accolades not only within India but also internationally. Recently three of our students have been selected as the winning team to represent India in the final competition of the Panorama Asia Pacific Animation Design Challenge 2009 sponsored by Autodesk to be held in Hongkong from 10th -15th Dec 2009 for their short film titled “Save the World”. This year we have added 3 major feathers to our cap -: firstly by launching the B.Sc degree in Animation in association with MS University. Secondly we have become an Adobe certified testing center whereby students can become Adobe certified in different technologies and thirdly we are in the process of expanding from a 5000 sq ft to a 10000 sq foot capacity to accommodate their even increasing capacity of more than 800 students.”

The Interface Awards was based on a series of competitions which were held in the centre. The students have worked extremely hard and to submit their entries. The various categories were as follows: 2D Illustration Art , 3D Illustration Art , Graphic Novel, Public Service Announcement (PSA) and Website Designing. The judges for these categories were Mr. Yunus Bukhari – Visual Effects Producer, Artery & SFX, Mr. Sanjay Pandey– a film maker and Mr. Puneet Sharma – Technical Advisor - Aptech Arena

The event also had the short film competition called Chalochobbi Awards which has a Viewer’s Choice Award. The results were as follows:

Winner was Super Hero by Amrit Tigga , Sampa Kundu , Arindam Mondal and Sk Abul Fazal.
First Runner Up were: Rikshawala by Sayani Majunder , Saheli Bakshi and Deepika Tamang

Along with the Award ceremony there were a lot of cultural events for which the students had practiced a lot to put up an excellent show. It once again established a great team spirit and togetherness which yield a high degree of efficiency and productivity which again proves that Arena Chowringhee has created a firm foothold in this highly competitive animation education industry.