11 December 2008
2 December 2008
27 November 2008
An Ode to Mr. McKay
Written & Directed by: Siddharth Gautam Singh
Animation: Siddharth Gautam Singh, Rohit Iyer
Sound & Mixing: Siddharth Gautam Singh
Narration: Rohit Iyer
"Once upon a time, not so far away, lived a little frog named Mr. McKay..."
The tale of Mr. McKay, a fashion-conscious frog who loves to party!
Created for Lina Tipnis' show during Lakme Fasion Week 2008.
For more info, check out Sid's blog here - http://cafesid.blogspot.com/2008/11/once-upon-time.html
26 November 2008
X Films Poster
Also, I realise that there are certain leaps of logic, like text and images appearing on the rolled up part of the scroll. But I think it looks cool... and that's what counts!
PS - The "X" is a Roman numeral, as in 10 Films, not X-rated films! :)
2 November 2008
27 October 2008
Roadside Romeo
I saw the film a few days ago. I was going in with low expectations: I didn’t like the designs (quadripeds standing on two legs is kinda awkward), but I was still curious. Unlike many Indian “animated” features, which are sometimes more like animatics, the trailers for Roadside Romeo showed full animation and some real acting, for a change. Also I was interested in how local this film would really be.
I can’t believe I’m saying this: I actually enjoyed myself. It’s easy to make fun of this film, but when you realize it’s not trying to be more than it really is, you can’t help HAVING fun instead. The story is very cliched - a rich bratty dog named Romeo gets left on the streets of Mumbai when his family leaves for London. He befriends the street dogs, falls in love and hoodwinks the local bull dog villain (Charlie Anna, he literally steals the show).
What it lacks in terms of plot, the film makes up for with some great voice acting and insightful humour. The gags here are not translated from Hollywood, but rather from live-action Bollywood. The characters talk like stereotypes definitley, but INDIAN stereotypes, and that is (in a small way) a step forward.
The film has been written and directed by former (failed) Bollywood actor, Jugal Hansraj, and he actually does a good job of balancing comedy with interesting characters. The animation was done by Tata Elxsi - http://www.tataelxsi.com/ - and while character design and art direction do take a back seat, the animation itself is pretty good, without a hint of motion capture.
I’m pretty sure that by having Disney involved in this, the standards have definitely been raised. Made over a two-and-a-half year period, it seems to have come along pretty quickly.
My only hope is that this film, while bordering on mediocre, opens up avenues for better big-budget animated features here in India.
I know this has kind of turned into a mini-review I’ll just finish by saying, if you’re a Bollywood fan - go see it. Otherwise a lot of the in-jokes will fly past.
2 August 2008
29 July 2008
28 July 2008
9 July 2008
19 June 2008
Rani Bonkeshwari Strikes Gold at the 2008 Promax|BDA Design Awards!!!
Rani Bonkeshwari won the "Best Student Project" award at the 2008 Promax|BDA Design Awards held in New York yesterday!http://www.promaxbda.org/awards.asp?n=08bdadesign
Check out Page 12 below!
And you can watch the spot again here-
Rani Bonkeshwari from Rohit Iyer on Vimeo.
17 June 2008
5 June 2008
IYERCAST #1: In conversation with Shweta Bhatnagar
Alright, this is my first attempt at a podcast. This is an interview I did for the next issue of our college magazine, VOICEBOX. But that never panned out, so I thought I’d upload it on my blog for all to hear.
The interview is with Shweta Bhatnagar, an NID animation senior who currently works with WETA Digital in New Zealand. We talk about how she started in animation; how WETA happened; the projects she worked on; her future aspirations and a lot more.
Keep in mind that this interview happened a while ago (December 13th, 2006, to be exact). Also bear with the poor audio quality - this was recorded in the BMW (Behind the Metal Workshop), the NID canteen.
Finally, thanks to Ranjan for introducing me to Shweta and for lending me his audio recorder, and to Nitin Patel for his company. Enjoy!
4 June 2008
Busy...
I found this excerpt from Norton Juster and Jules Feiffer's The Phantom Tollbooth (which, by the way, I've never read). But I very faintly remembered seeing the animated adaptation as a child and although I couldn't even remember the name, thanks to the internet I didn't have to. Ironically enough, this excerpt describes my day almost perfectly.
"Well, if you can't laugh or think, what can you do?" asked Milo.
"Anything as long as it's nothing, and everything as long as it isn't anything," explained another.
"There's lots to do; we have a very busy schedule-
"At 8 o'clock we get up, and then we spend
"From 8 to 9 daydreaming.
"From 9 to 9:30 we take our early midmorning nap.
"From 9:30 to 10:30 we dawdle and delay.
"From 10:30 to 11:30 we take our late early morning nap.
"From ll:00 to 12:00 we bide our time and then eat lunch.
"From l:00 to 2:00 we linger and loiter.
"From 2:00 to 2:30 we take our early afternoon nap.
"From 2:30 to 3:30 we put off for tomorrow what we could have done today.
"From 3:30 to 4:00 we take our early late afternoon nap.
"From 4:00 to 5:00 we loaf and lounge until dinner.
"From 6:00 to 7:00 we dillydally.
"From 7:00 to 8:00 we take our early evening nap, and then for an hour before we go to bed at 9:00 we waste time.
"As you can see, that leaves almost no time for brooding, lagging, plodding, or procrastinating, and if we stopped to think or laugh, we'd never get nothing done."
"You mean you'd never get anything done," corrected Milo.
"We don't want to get anything done," snapped another angrily; "we want to get nothing done, and we can do that without your help."
"You see," continued another in a more conciliatory tone, "it's really quite strenuous doing nothing all day, so once a week we take a holiday and go nowhere, which was just where we were going when you came along. Would you care to join us?"
"I might as well," thought Milo; "that's where I seem to be going anyway."
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