CHARACTER ANIMATION IN FLASH

Animation can be created by using many different mediums. One of the most common and popularly used medium is creating an animation using Flash. To enhance student’s knowledge and to make the students well versed with the current market needs Arena Animation Chowringhee organized a three day workshop on Character Animation in Flash from 26th April to 29th April ’10 at Arena Chowringheee.

This workshop was conducted by a very famous personality from the animation industry named Mr. Santosh Sawant currently working as Creative Director with Phoebus Media Pvt. Ltd.

There were 20 students who participated in this workshop. This was done by organizing a test for all students where they had to create a character in flash and out of which only best twenty were selected.

The workshop aimed at explaining the students the process of animation in Flash. They were also given not only theoretical knowledge but also had to go through a lot of brainstorming sessions.

Day 1
The first day Mr. Sawant gave an introduction to the students as to how to create an animation in Flash and explaining the animation principles to them. He also explained as to how it could be used in a commercial way and what the future prospects are.

Day 2
This day students were given assignments on walk cycles and run cycles. Students were very enthusiastic while working on these assignments. Everyone had to create a walk cycle for their character in Flash. This was done to give practical knowledge to the students about what they had learnt on the first day.

Day 3
These day students had to create a story board for a short film that the students would be making. There were five groups each group consisting of 4 students in a group. The storyboard was planned for the film which would be finally executed in Flash.

Finally after the completion of the workshop the students had created a Generic Model in Flash.

We got a tremendous response from the students. They participated in the workshop with immense enthusiasm and zeal. Students created the storyboard and now are on the process of creation of a short film in Flash.

Adobe Flash on Mobile Devices

Arena Animation Chowringhee had organized a workshop on Flash Mobile Technology by an eminent person Mr. Rajdeep Rath on 6th March 2010. Mr. Rath is the Group Manager of Adobe Flash Lite Community for the Eastern Zone, with a work experience of more than 5 years as Senior Flash Programmer with reputed organization.

The subject was "Flash Platform on Mobile Devices". This was also his the first Flash Platform seminar in Kolkata covering the various aspects of Flash, including the Flash mobile platform. The 2 Hours free seminar, consisted of :

o Introduction to Flash Platform

o A brief history to "How and why Flash made it this far - smart vector graphics"

o A treat for the eyes - "Augmented Reality demostration from ge.ecomagination.com"

o About the Open Screen Project

1. Videos from Vimeo.com

2. Adobe's commitment to mobile market

3. The Open Screen Project partners

o Flash Player Runtime - (Flash Lite and Flash Player 10.1)

o Introduction to Adobe Device Central

o Hands-on building simple mobile content in Adobe Flash Cs3 on Adobe Device Central.

o Demos of pre-built Flash Lite content (wallpaper,screensaver,game)

o Awareness of existing market of Flash Lite.

o About Flash Lite supported phones in the market.

o Flash Player 10.1 - Desktop to mobile transition.

o Videos From various sources on Flash content:

o Flash Player 10.1 on Nexus one.

o Flash Player 10.1 and Motorola.

o 3D on mobile platform and Flash Player 10.1.

o Beating the barriers - Flash on iPhone and iPad.

o A wrap up with brief on Flex and AIR and how they will be participants in the Flash mobile revolution.

o A Demo of the "Flex Store" application.

The workshop was attended by most of the students. The students were full of enthusiasm and they infact learnt a great deal from this workshop. Students had requested for some more workshops of these kind.

Character Design and Concept Art

Arena Animation Chowringhee took a step forward towards giving their students an idea as to how to design a character in accordance to the script of making a good animation film. This was done by organizing a Five day from 16th – 22nd February ‘10 workshop on Character Design and Concept Art by Mr. Ritabrata Joardar.

Mr Ritabrata Joardar was previously with Greengold Animation as Animation Supervisor and Pre Production Artist for Krishna and Chota Bheem. He also worked as a lead Character Designer in UTV Motion Pictures and Prime Focus. He also worked as pre production artist for other studios like Mel and Red Chillies.

There were 20 students who participated in this workshop. This was done by organizing a test for all students and out of which only best twenty were selected.

Being a five day workshop the main aim was to teach the students as to how to create the character after getting the script.

Day1: The first day students were taught that how essential to make notes for that character and for that there has to be a detailed and a very strong script.

Day 2: The second day involved as to how to develop the character in accordance to the script. For that there has to be some amount of Research and Development too. Some important references are required to be taken and how we should do the Doodling of the script. It was very interactive workshop and students had to go through a lot of brainstorming sessions. The next step would involve as to how to scribble the character and how to come into details from various stages to the final character

Day 3: This involved how to make turn around of that character and also the expressions and different gestures of that character. The students were asked to create the expressions chart which involved portraying of different gestures like lip movement.

Day 4: The fourth day was to teach the student of Concept Art. The students had to create an image out of their imagination. Students were asked to create different images according to their script.

Day 5: The final day consisted of how to paint the character or layout digitally. Students had to finalize and complete their characters on the final day.

This being an interactive workshop, students participated with full enthusiasm. They got a flavor as to how the pre production work is done in the animation industry under the guidance of an expert from the same field.

Creative Minds and Creative Guru 2010

A step was taken towards focusing and improvising the professional skills of the students which are required in today’s animation industry by Aptech Limited. This was done by a competition called Creative Minds 2010 which was held on Saturday 6th February 2010 at Vidya Mandir. All centers of the eastern zone participated in this competition which was held on a grand scale.

There were various categories for the competition and students had to follow certain guidelines for it. The categories were as follows – 2D Cartooning, 3D Modeling, Stop Motion Animation, 2D Short Film and 3D Short Film .Most of the entries were from arena Animation Chowringhee.

The works of the students were evaluated by a prestigious jury which comprised of PROF. R. L. MISTRY (ex-NID)Consultant-Communication Design and Visiting faculty-Animation and Graphics , Mr. Sekhar Mukherjee is presently the Senior Associate Faculty & Coordinator of Animation Film Design at NID , MR. YUNUS BUKHARI – VFX Supervisor & Creative Director and Founder, Artery Animation & Fx, Mumbai , Ranjit Singh (Tony) Co-promoter and present Honorary Secretary of The Animation Society of India – TASI and BITHIN DAS Creative Head of Sahara Samay.
There was huge student participation from our centre and most of the students gathered there to cheer their fellow mates whose works were selected for the competition. Around Nine entries were selected for the 2D Cartooning category, four for the 3D Modeling Category, Two for the stop Motion Category, Three for 2D Short Film and Two for 3D Short Film which was the highest from any other centre.

Mr. Shekhar Mukherjee appreciated the work of our student Sweta Jaiswal which was categorized undr Stop Motion Animation called Divinity, The Hope Of Life. All the Jury members pleased to see the 2D Short Film – Super Hero by Amrit Tigga , Sampa Kundu , Arindam Mondal and Sk Abul Fazl . there was huge appreciation in the crowd when the film was shown during the programme.



We are proud to announce that our student Anupam Sardar was awarded as the 1st Runner Up of the 3D Modeling category and in the 2nd Runner Up for 3D Short Film was awarded to the film called Reflection by Anupam Sardar , Soumendranath Patra , Rajib Pal and Sweta Roy Chowdhury.


This event was followed by Faculty Competition of the Eastern zone called Creative Guru 2010. This was organized for the 1st time. The jury comprised of R. L. MISTRY (ex-NID) Consultant-Communication Design and Visiting faculty-Animation and Graphics, Mr. Sekhar Mukherjee is presently the Senior Associate Faculty & Coordinator of Animation Film Design at NID, MR. YUNUS BUKHARI – VFX Supervisor & Creative Director and Founder, Artery Animation & Fx, Mumbai.
We are proud to announce that we made a clen sweep by winning both the awards of the Faculty Short Film. Mr Indranil Ghosh’s Docomo was the Winner of the Best Short Film and Mr Indranil Ghosh and Mr Biplab Dey Utsab was 1st Runner Up in this category.

By participating and winning Creative Minds and Creative Guru we aim at enhancing the student and faculty skills for today’s animation industry. We would continue to participate in such competitions and improve the quality even more.

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.

A 5-Day Workshop by Mr.Prosenjit Ganguly or PJ

It was a workshop taken by none other than Mr.Prosenjit Ganguly.It was a five day affair at the centre where in 30 students had participated. This seminar was worth to be a part of. Not only the students took back technical knowledge with them but they were also enriched with professionalism,positive attitude which happens to be the main criteria behind being successful in any existing industry.

Before starting the workshop he had divided the batch into 11 groups which consisted of students from the DAE and AAASP course.They had 5 DAE groups and 6 AAASP groups.

Day 1- PJ started with an Introductory speech where in he mentioned about how to make good films. This was followed by films which were showed to students like Oktapody and Overtime. Thereafter he spoke about pitching, Criterias on pitching, the preparations made or taken for pitching.

We had students who pitched in to give their inputs on the concepts of pitching.
Finally he concluded by merging all inputs and modifying their pitching.

After discussing about pitching, PJ spoke about thumbnailing. He showed them how to thumbnail stories. He adviced the students to thumbnail their thoughts. Hence the first step of thumbnailing was done.

He also touched the basics of character definition.

Day 2- The second day started with Sketching sessions. According to him there should be 15 mins of sketching practice in every class.

Then he was the model himself for Gesture Sketching. He spoke about the importance of Gesture Sketching, the methods of Gesture Sketching.

He spoke about the Making of Oktapody, Pirates.

He made correction and modified the thumbnailing and character definition.

Day 3- The third day also started with sketching, followed by thumbnailing and character making.

PJ then discussed different form of Arts. He asked students to make treatment sheets.
He introduced stylization to the students which was followed by screening of 2D and 3D films.

All this was followed by initialization of storyboarding where in PJ himself rectified for students individually on the board.

Day 4- Sketching was the first thing they started on the fourth day which was followed by showing different stylization by him. He then discussed how to fix your own stylization. They were made to use raw materials to make their treatment sheet. After thumbnailing and character designing the students started with their storyboarding.

Day 5- On the fifth day we had the seminar on Film Making in Academy of Fine Arts after which those 30 students went back to the centre to finish their incomplete work.On the last day PJ gave his last bit of suggestions to the students to complete their films.
In all there were 11 films in progress by the students. The faculty members were asked to overview their works and once completed these films would be sent to Mr.Prosenjit Ganguly.

Hence this was what covered in the 5 day workshop that he had with the students.
We are confident that the students graduating from this workshop would definitely be enriched with knowledge different from the rest. We wish them the very best in future and hope their films come out in flying colours.