DDU dazzles with Merry Madagascar at CGTExpo ‘09

LINK

It was a great experience representing DDU an the Expo in Mumbai. Tons of fun, met a lot of old friends and made some new ones too.

Apart from the DDU session which was only for professionals, at a Meet the Artist session
it was really cool interacting with students at a session I jammed with Deepak 'dada' Ganguly (Tata) answering character animation related questions.

DreamWorks Animation, No. 47 on Fortune's Best Companies to Work For list

Some great memories of the DWA campus revisited in this video. Awesomenessss!!!

LINK

Angular Compositions

Some explorations I did on still frames from movies looking for compositional cues.

The last image is my particular favorite and taken from the Seven Camels blog by Mark Kennedy which discusses it beautifully. Apart from the angular composition, there is also textural or surface detail contrast. I feel this image is well-balanced in terms of the level of detail in its three different subjects and the eye keeps following one thing to other and keeps the interest in the artwork alive.

Some explorations in the power-centers of Force and Balance

Looking for the Visual Cues

Textural Contrast, smooth against spikes

Lovely example of contrast in color, with the silhouette of the fingers being clearly visible against a dark colored tree.

I am sure this is self-explanatory what kind of contrast this is :)

The below two images show 'affinity / similarity' in the tonal composition. This usually helps in reflecting the mood of the scene, it can be pleasant, dark, sinister, suspicious etc. At times, even a choice of a particular color / tone can mean the occurrence of an event, action or can be used to convey a particular trait in the film. For ex - every time the color blue appeared in the overall composition of the movie 'Murder on the Orient Express', it would mean that a murder is about to take place.

Contrast In Animation

Off late, it has been very interesting to watch out for elements which make a scene, shot work beautifully. Visual elements like line, shape, color, the contrasting elements in visual picture, the affinity factor, staging, triangular composition, circular composition...

Basically, what makes the eye look-at certain things in a frame, in other words, leading the eye of the viewer to what you want to show. Such a beautiful subject and so much to explore.

I got influenced and inspired in this subject more so, after reading Cameron Fielding's exploration of the power of pyramids.

And then there was the Bruce Block lecture that I attended while training at DreamWorks, Glendale. He opened up a lot of doors and his book is truly worth reading in understanding the visual elements of story-telling. Highly recommended.

I will soon try and post some images I tried to explore and look for these elements.

Gotta love Contrast.

'DreamWorks Supervising Animator' James Baxter - Bangalore Workshop Nov 6

A golden oppurtunity for all the Animators around -

There is going to be a character animation workshop along with a Q & A session by DreamWorks Supervising Animator, James Baxter (Credits) on Nov 6th.

Having watched (in the archives actually) his 3-day workshop at DreamWorks, this is for sure a golden chance to all the Animators, professionals or students to learn from his session.

More info to be followed soon as to the venue and time.

Cheers!

Shots from the animation flick - Roadside Romeo (looking really sweet)

I have got a crown, got a very nice one and its here on my head, look at it - King Julien, Madagascar 1

Tim Ingersoll, animation trainer at DreamWorks Animation and an awesome artist and magician, created caricatures for all of the Indian artists who were trained by him.

The first dialog I animated was a test shot of King Julien from Madagascar 1 and the dialog was something like this -

'I have got a crown, got a very nice one and its here on my head, look at it.'

The line almost became a pet-peeve for most of us who were there for training and I kept getting snapped at for saying that line over and over again.

Thanks Tim for the cartoon and the crown. Cheers!

Two Promos from Roadside Romeo - was one of the Animators and was great fun working on both of them

Interview with DreamWorks‘ Shelly Page on the India Setup

Animation conglomerate DreamWorks recently partnered with Bengaluru based Paprikaas Interactive to set up its base in India. In a step toward scaling up its operation in India, the company is on a major talent acquisition spree. With the current team of 40 including French and Indian artists, DreamWorks plans to expand to 150 in a year‘s time.

Read More HERE

Animators by the week, warriors by the weekend!

En route to San Diego, Adi stopped us at a place called the Vista (sp?) Point, it really fun feeding nuts to the squirrels, they are so big in size compared to the ones in India.

And then in San Diego, we went to the US Midway musem which was on top of the Midway Warship. Really thrilling to watch those war birds up-close and even go inside some of them.

We even went in to a fighter plane simulation and it was really funny going 360 degrees inside it...haha! So you see this trip, I truly feel like a warrior-fighter with the horse ride and then this simulation. :)

Some more KFP merchandise...

Some fun fan-fare on the day of KFP release in the DWA campus

They had a booth put up to take pictures with the Panda and get it instantly framed...pretty cool

Some uber-cool KFP merchandise....Panda stuff was really adorable!

The Universal Studio fire, right down the hill to where we are put up at, there was some serious fire-fighting then for the next 6-8 hours....

Lovely pictures at the lovely Laguna Beach.....but seriously if not for Adi (who has been our frontman for the trip, teaching us to drive in LA (some guts you need to teach someone), taking us to the coolest of places, sight-seeing, shopping....been a great great help in all...

Horse-back riding for three and half hours was one of hell of an experience....riding on edge of cliffs, maneuvering your own horse all the while, over-taking, it was simply the best experience I have had in adventure sports....On our way back, the sun had set and it just so amazing to look at the city from a distance atop a hill, where the only sound is of the hooves. I felt like a warrior (Kurosawa's Ran came to mind) riding it...Awesomeness! Huge thanks to Joe for taking us there and even riding along with us.

Chief at work, the DW India team with DW Indian Team at Glendale,

Me doing some serious shredding, am sure you can tell with the expression...

And then there was the mother of all experiences, being invited to watch the crew screening of Kung Fu Panda, very entertaining movie and am sure it will go a long long way at the box-office, but what was more special to me was the feeling of seeing everyone's names at the credits and the applause with that, had a huge lump in my throat the entire credit sequence. Animation wise, man, some serious action stuff in there....always wonder what the animators producing such qualilty work eat.

Looking at this picture, reminds me that most if not all of these pictures of us has been taken by our animator friend Shajo John (jojo for us all), (if he had a choice to hold on to a chute or his camera, he most certainly will go for his camera)

at the Americana theater, Joe Aguilar took us all for the Indiana Jones movie, totally entertaining stuff

minutes before the house went full...

With Joe, at the Griffirth Obeservatory, nice view of LA from the top....

ahhhh! the sign of entertainment....