Animation Nation – New York Times, June 05, 2009

A look at a select forthcoming animated films. Read more at The New York Times »

How to write an Animation Short Film

What I always tell my students is that the right way to approach a short film is to imagine it was a feature film. Writing, directing short films is the perfect play-ground for experimenting with the principles of story-telling – principles which remain the same on the macro- as well as on the micro-level: In the arc of a Hero’s Journey, in the arc of an act, in the arc of a scene or a short film…

MAHAYODDHA RAMA – Spectacular 3D Action-Adventure by Contiloe/Pixion

Went finally to see DreamWorks’ MONSTERS VS. ALIENS 3D in a theatre here in Mumbai. Noticed the outstanding graphics of the second MAHAYODDHA RAMA theatrical trailer and thought I need to share this with you.  This 2 min 48 sec trailer is currently screened at Fame, Fun, INOX, PVR and other multiplexes and certainly raises high expectations about the upcoming release. Read a detailed article on MAHAYODDHA RAMA incl interviews with producer Abhimanyu Singh and director Ronnie Vaid here.

2009 – The Year Indian Animation matured?

2009 will be a year in which not less than 15 (in words: fifteen) Indian full-length animation films are expected to hit the theatres. Since Percept Picture & Sahara One released HANUMAN directed by veteran director V. G. Samant and director Milind Ukey in 2005, not a single great film has followed.

First a wave of cheaply made direct-to-DVD mythology-based flicks like KRISHNA, BALGANESH etc. got released. Then the theatrical releases followed: RETURN OF HANUMAN (2007) directed by Anurag Kashyap and last year’s Yash Raj/Walt Disney release ROADSIDE ROMEO starring Bollywood darlings Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapooronly could not fulfil expectations, DASHAVATAR (2008) by Pune-based Phoebus Media, based on the ten incarnations of Lord Vishnu, received lukewarm reviews and flopped badly and GHATOTKACH by the Hyderabad-based Sun Animatics was so painfully bad that this ominous company has lost their credibility in my eyes for eternity. Akshay Kumar-starrer JUMBO does not count as an Indian film as it is a dubbed Thai film but I want to recommend the Direct-to-DVD release PRITHVIRAJ CHAUHAN (2008) which features simple animation but a highly engaging storyline.

So, past is past, Indian animation made its mistakes, learnt its lessons and is back all new in 2009? Exactly.

Nr. 1-3: First of all, UTV Animation’s ARJUN – THE WARRIOR PRINCE – which is directed by Arnab Chaudhuri and was in the making for years and years – will be finally hitting the theatres. UTV also plans to release ALI BABA AND THE 41 THIEVES directed by Soumitra Ranade and featuring voice artists John Abraham and Priyanka Chopra as well as DREAM BLANKET directed by Simi Nallaseth who worked on the ICE AGE series. All three films do look promising.

Nr. 4: MEL (Maya Entertainment Ltd) has put a trailer of its upcoming RAMAYANA – THE EPIC on YouTube. The RAMAYANA material directed by Chetan Desai is absolutely stunning and meant to present “the movie the way the young generation would like to see it, without tampering with the epic’s originality. It has fast-paced action, contemporary music and the latest sound effects.” MEL which has delivered animation to international companies like BBC, Rainbow, Electronic Arts, Activision and Google. also provides 3D animation and visual effects training through Maya Academy of Advanced Cinematics (MAAC), which has 60 branches across the country and also in the Middle East and Nepal. MAAC has so far trained 30,000 animators since its inception in 1996 and 14,000 are now undergoing training at its different branches.

Persepolis (2007)

The ancient city of Persepolis is situated 70 km northeast of the modern city of Shiraz in the Fars Province of modern Iran and was the ceremonial capital of the Persian Empire during the Achaemenid dynasty around 500 BC. To the ancient Persians, the city was known as Pārsa, which means “The City of Persians” and thus refers – in a very subtle way – to a time when Iran/Persia was at its height of power and prosperity and – not Islamic.

This does not mean that animation film PERSEPOLIS by Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi, a honest and poignant coming-of-age story, is in any way anti-Islamic but its title rather refers to the truth “freedom is the soul’s right to breathe” (Good Will Hunting) as it honestly deals with life under oppresssive political conditions giving a very personal insight into childhood and adolescence in Iran in the years after the Islamic Revolution 1978/79.

Jumbo (2006/2008) – A Thai film-turned-Indian

Percept Picture Company triggered a huge wave of Indian-made animation feature films with HAMUNAN (2005) followed by their RETURN OF HANUMAN (2007). Percept’s No. 3 was JUMBO, released – simultaneously with Aamir Khan-starrer GHAJINI – on 25th December 2008.

Artefact 4 – The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926)

“She was born with magic hands.” — Jean Renoir on Lotte Reiniger

Do you like Animation? Well, then there is absolutely no excuse to miss this magnificent masterpiece, the oldest surviving full-length animation film in the world.

Artefact 3 – The Pixar Story (2007)

Ed Catmull wanted to be an animator and artist but just felt he wasn’t good enough. When he took up Physics and Computer Science, he fell in love with Computer Graphics. Ed’s animation “Computer Animated Hand” featuring his own left hand was years later used in the film FUTUREWORLD (1976) and thus went down in history as the first use of 3D-Computer Animation in a feature film.

Artefact 2 – Walt – The Man Behind the Myth (2001)

This documentary directed by Jean-Pierre Isbouts and with Dick van Dyke as the narrator, opens with the premiere of MARY POPPINS in 1964, showing Walt Disney at the very height of his career.

In many ways MARY POPPINS is a culmination of Walt’s achievements in family entertainment, blending live action and animation in the way Walt experimented with it in the beginning of his career.

The 120 min. long WALT – THE MAN BEHIND THE MYTH extensively features footage from the Disney Archives, early cartoons, interviews and a form of comical short films invented by Walt Disney in the beginning of his career which he called  “Laugh-O-Grams”.

Miyazaki’s ‘Ponyo’ tops anime awards

Read this article on Variety Asia.