ANIMATION-The Making

Time and space play a critical role in Animation. Animation Types -and making was what we were exploring on 19th July 08 in the Conference Room of Academy Of Fine Arts. It was divided into two sections 2D & 3D being headed by persons who have excelled in their respective areas- Mr Jayanta Roy Chowdhury, Mr Biplab Chandra , Mr. Arup Guha , & Mr. Indranil Ghosh.

The purpose of the seminar was to give a vivid picture to the students about the usefulness of sketching in developing of ideas & critical analysis of movies where certain principles are getting followed by animators. Moreover, it focuses on developing how a person should think in making animation films.

Certain exclusive samples were displayed to explain the concept. Fascinating pencil sketches of Young Tarzan, Timon, and Jungle Book Junior and movie clips of The Popeye Show were showcased with explanations.
The charm was such that one would be glued to their seats to know the final outcome of the whole making of the character.

Heading from 2D animation our expertise went on to enhance the audience with the 3D animation knowledge. The points of the day were the uses of motion capture devices, concept of digital double character and compositing digital double background. Outstanding samples from the Making of King Kong in WETA Animation Studio were showcased along with vivid explanations.

The making of 3D characters or films would make one feel as if life was pumped into these so called Larger than Life characters.The workshop was concluded by focusing on the kind of production pipeline that is being followed in 2D and 3d animation studios during the film making. The different stages of pre-production, production and post production were also explained with examples to clear the doubts of students.

Mr. A.D.Singh, Centre Head, Arena Animation Chowringhee stressed upon the role of moving from the tool based(software) training towards concepts training(design concepts, visualization, pre production)while pointing towards the role of the Faculty Members as Mentors, to help students recognize their inherent talents, and motivate them to bring their talent in front with proper application. In the closing ceremony, awards have been handed over to the students who have achieved excellence in Academics. The Arenite of the Month was Abhinandan Kumar and Best Academic Performer Award went to Achintya Kumar Nandi.

Magic with 2D

What is Creativity? Is it something cherished only by selected few geniuses? Or do we all posses it? Where does Creativity stand in today’s Techno World? As we all know, they are the elements from two separate World, i.e., Creativity and Technology – Art and Science. Ruled by separate sections (Hemisphere) of our Brain – Right: Arts, Left: Science. Is there an effective combination and communication possible to enhance our everyday life through mixture of these two elements?

These were the Questions went under scanner. All these were thoroughly scrutinized, investigated and analyzed in the Conference that was held in Academy of Fine Arts Conference Room on Saturday, 23rd June, 2008. A genuine attempt was made to answer these Questions, by the Students and Faculties of Arena Animation Chowringhee Centre, with the help of an interesting topic - “Magic of 2D: Mingling of Creative Visualization with Adobe Flash Technology to Simulate a Breathtaking World of Rich Media Application.” Ms. Sudeepa Ghosh, Mr. Soumyajit Banerjee, Mr. Sudip Banerjee, Mentor and Faculty Members of Arena Animation Chowringhee, were the main speakers in the event. The main idea they tried to project and confirm was that we, the Designers, Animators, Graphic Artists, need to free our minds from too much dependency towards tools and software, and then we need to cultivate our inner instinct towards creativity and give it wings to take a flight.

There were three case studies, one from each Industry that employs 2D Technology to implement their Creative Outputs – Advertising, Internet, and Animation. The students were encouraged to participate in an interactive question answer session, where they got opportunity to clear all their doubts and achieved clarity on issues like 2D animation, it’s current Market in India, use of Actionscript in Flash Animation, etc. One ready-made example of an E-Project developed in Flash, had been showcased to provide a class-room perspective and knowledge.

Mr. A.D.Singh, Centre Head, Arena Animation Chowringhee, added the most value to the whole Conference with his closing speech. He stressed upon the role of Visualization, Creative Thinking, and Research while pointing towards the role of the Faculty Members as Mentors, to help students recognize their inherent talents, and motivate them to bring their talent in front with proper application.
In the closing ceremony, awards have been handed over to the students who have achieved excellence in Academics. Mr.Singh gave away the awards. Arenite of the Month was Pratibha Sipani and Best Academic Performer Award went to Subhashish Ghosh.
The Conference was not only proved to be a learning point for the Students, but, at the same time, generated huge excitement as they enjoyed watching three Animated Movies that were made mostly in Flash.