Creating unique identity through animated reality

Oblivious of mainstream cinema and the hype around television channels, a new form of creativity is silently but firmly taking root in India and abroad. It is called animation filmmaking.

From 11-16 June, 6,000 animation lovers were closeted for six days in a small town Annecy, 300 km from Paris, to watch 262 animation films from across the globe. One of them was an Indian, Ishaan Sharma who presented his three-minute film "About the Promise".

The film was screened as part of the non-competitive category and was highly appreciated by the multinational audience. "About the Promise" is Ishaan's maiden film and he has come back charged up to make another film before the year ends.

Talking about his experience at the festival, Ishaan said: "I had a great exposure. I met hundreds of animators with thousands of ideas. And I realised that 2D is any day a better format to make animation film. Creating figures by hand and converting them into visuals to tell a story is more satisfying than the high-tech 3D technology.

"More importantly, my faith in animation got reinforced as it is a medium of brevity. You can say in minutes what at times goes overboard in regular feature films running into hours. The average duration of films shown at Annecy 2007 was five to six minutes though the first prize-winner 'Peter and the Wolf' made by British filmmaker Suzie Templeton was of 30 minutes.

"Animators usually have a fancy for mythology and jungles but in this festival there were films on a wide range of subjects, from relationships to comedies and politics to adult stuff, politely named 'animation and desire'.

"I feel Indians can do wonders with this medium. Now animation is being taught in a big way, people with visualisation and creativity can make a global presence.

"Man and machine put together can change the way we look at the world. Since these (films) don't require much money and resources people make them because they want to say something. They are neither verbose nor elaborate," Ishaan said.

Indo-Asian News Service