Indian cinema is moving away from its stereotypical concepts and boy-meets-girl stories. Instead, directors are looking to challenge themselves – either within the same boundaries or by creating new ones. The latest ‘trend’ that’s setting in is the use of graphics and special effects to a much larger degree than just photo-shopping the protagonists to look good. With a movie like Eega setting the precedent, audiences can only wonder what the next level will be like.
Last weekend, theatres opened to the fully animated 3D film feature Krishna aur Kans. Based on the first 10 years of Lord Krishna’s life, till when he defeats his uncle, the film stars an impressive cast including Om Puri as Kans, Juhi Chawla as Yashoda and Prachi Save as Krishna, besides Manoj Bajpai, Anupam Kher and AK Hangal among others.
Director Vikram Veturi tells us more about the film and the growing Indian market for animated films.
“An animated film isn’t something very new to the audience. Yet as a full-length feature film, there hasn’t been one in a while. And Lord Krishna is a personality that most Indians identify with,” says the Nizam college graduate. The project that began in 2002 as an idea, became a full-blown production in 2007 when Veturi was brought on. Having earlier worked as an animator for cartoons and animated television series, moving to a proper full-length feature film was quite the experience.
“For a project like this, the gestation period is a lot longer. On a bigger screen, a mistake also looks bigger. So there is a lot of fine detailing that has to be paid attention to. It was a real test of patience because I had to constantly be behind my team that they probably ended up hating me,” Veturi laughs and explains.
Besides the change in dynamics, Veturi also approached his latest project from a technologically simple standpoint. “The softwares we used were very simple, like Flash, Photoshop, After Effects and other Adobe products. It was tricky at certain points because these were designed for such heavy-duty work and couldn’t manage the load, so we had to figure out a way to circumvent that. All these things made a great learning experience.”
With the graphics industry only just picking up as a major component in the industry, Veturi spent quite a bit of time bringing his team up to speed. “The first five months or so I had to work with the support staff. But post that, things moved very smoothly and I just had to pay attention to the finer details. Any project that you take up, if the pre-production of the film is sound, then the rest will just fall into place. If quality time and energy is not spent on it, then it will majorly snowball into a mess.”
So does Veturi see an audience turning up for an animated film that’s not based on a premise the viewer is already familiar with, like Indian mythology?
“Honestly, I have never seen people stand up and cheer for a film like this as they would for a Rajnikanth or Chiranjeevi movie. (the director had visited a couple of theatres during the opening weekend).
This was marketed and produced as a family film and hence it has the draw. But, for animated films to be a preferred choice of a movie-goer, it will probably happen about four years down. You need catchy content and a lot of creativity and ideas. Something like Delhi Belly or The Simpsons will click. Or if you take a Sardar-ji in Delhi working a government job and dealing with his neighbours, peppered with gaalis, it will be an instant hit. We just need producers to pick the film up.”
While animation is something that the audience is familiar with, there is still a constant comparison with its Hollywood counterpart, not to mention the Japanese cartoon market that is huge with children. Will audiences be able to look past that and judge the Indian film for its Indian content and technique? “The American animation has a lot of detail and a lot of information to take in while the Japanese ones are relatively bland that way, though their stories have a strong context. Indian audience like the emotional play, so you will find a lot of expression in the face and around the mouth in the work we’ve done. I think that will keep our audience happy.”
So, is the animation industry a good choice for people looking at it now?
“Yes. Though it is a bit crowded. The money is good, but your content has to equal that.”
Krishna aur Kans will see a Telugu release this August 9, but in 2D.
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