Mumbai2 minutes agoAuthor: Virendra Mishra/Abhinav Tripathi
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The film My Friend Ganesha, released in 2007, was an animation film. The character of Ganesh ji in the film was created with 2D animation.
Cartoon characters appearing on TV are created through animation. When technology was not developed, these characters were created through sketches. Take the example of Tom and Jerry.
All the characters of Tom and Jerry were designed by hand on paper. All the actions including getting up, sitting, running, playing and eating and drinking were recorded on a paper. Then after coloring it was scanned. After scanning it was copied onto a reel and finally released. This was under 2D animation. Thousands of such sketches were made, only then a scene was created.
Later, technology improved with time. After this came 3D animation. It started being prepared with the help of computers.
In the new episode of Reel to Real, we will talk about the making process of animated films. For this, we talked to directors Rajeev S Ruia and Suman Deb, who have made many animated films.
Shooting of animated films takes place in 6 stages.
- Script writing- The story of the film is written first. It mentions characters, sequences and dialogues.
- Character Design- Art work (sketch) of animated characters is prepared. Like how the characters will look, what their body language will be like. This sketch was prepared for the film My Friend Ganesha.
- Story Boarding- In this process the story or script is converted into pictures. According to the flow, a blueprint or frame of each scene is prepared. A sample of the story board can be seen in this picture.
- dubbing- Voice over artists do dubbing keeping the characters in mind.
- Animation- After dubbing the animation work starts. At the time of 2D animation, animation was done frame by frame. Animation is created in 3D through computer software.
- Sound and Music- After the film is made, work is done on background music and sound. After this editing starts. The film is released after editing.
Dubbing plays the biggest role in animated films. Although dubbing is a part of post production, this is not the case with animated films. Here dubbing is done first, only then the entire movie is made.
Dubbing of animated films takes place under these three processes…
- Pre-dubbing of animated characters is done even before the shooting of the film begins.
- After this the dubbing is sent to the editing table. From there the dubbing part is edited and sent to the animators.
- Animators then match that dubbing part with the characters. As the dubbing will be done, the lip movements of the animated characters will also be done accordingly.
It takes 3 months to make a 20-minute animated film According to Suman, if a 20-minute Bollywood animated film is to be made, it may take 3 months. This entire process includes pre-production, production and post-production work. Whereas, if it is an international project, it takes 7-8 months to make it.
My Friend Ganesha – The first film to show real and animated characters together In the film My Friend Ganesha, the character was created with live composite animation. This was the first film in India in which animated characters were shown along with real life characters. It took a long time of one and a half year to make this film.
Its director Rajeev S Ruia said, ‘There was a lot of struggle in making this film. Initially I wanted to make it not as a film but as a serial. There was a lot of craze for TV shows at that time.
There was a producer who wanted a murder mystery type film. I told him a story, which he didn’t like. Then I told them the story of my friend Ganesha.
The producer liked the story, but called it a premature film. He was afraid that the film might get flopped. Then I explained to him and said, Sir, give me a fixed amount, I will first shoot a promo and show it to you. After this I shot a promo, which he liked a lot and thus my friend Ganesha became.
The film My Friend Ganesha was a flop in theaters, but it was liked a lot on TV.
Hrithik Roshan spoke the dialogue considering the pillar as a character Rajiv said that cooperation of actors is very important during the making of animated films.
While narrating an anecdote from the animation film ‘Main Krishna Hoon’, he said, ‘Hrithik Roshan had also worked in this film. There was a scene where Hrithik’s character had to talk to Lord Krishna. However, the character of Shri Krishna was an animation one.
Hrithik was not able to understand how to speak the dialogues because there was no one in front of him. Then I placed a light pole in front of him. He spoke his dialogues looking at the same pillar. Then when Hrithik saw that shot during dubbing, he was quite impressed.
Hrithik was hesitant before filming this scene.
Hrithik gave 80 shots in 4-5 hours Rajiv further said, ‘When the shooting of this film started, one day Hrithik came to me and said – tell the story of the entire film in 5 minutes. I was surprised to hear this demand of his.
However, it was due to the blessings of Shri Krishna that I narrated the entire story in 5 minutes. He was very happy to hear this. We had made complete preparations before starting shooting with him. Our preparation was of such a level that one day we took 80 shots within 4-5 hours, which was beyond their expectations.
Right now the atmosphere regarding animated films is not positive, there is a need to invest money Rajiv said that at present there is no positive atmosphere regarding animated films in the Hindi film industry. Big producers do not invest money in such projects. They feel that their money will be lost.
One should look at Hollywood at least once. Animation based films like Jungle Book are made there and earn a lot. The children here watch those films with great interest. I want big production houses to come forward and invest more and more in animation based films.
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