Sunday 25 September 2016

5 Indian Animated Shorts – A Must Watch

There is a huge potential for growth of animation world in India. Animation industry is developing in India by leaps and bounds. It has witnessed a never seen growth rates in recent times. It can be easily assumed that the future of Indian animators is very bright. I am presenting some of the Indian made short movies that have been recognized with national and international awards.
Sanjay’s Super Team:
This Sanjay Patel directed seven minute movie was nominated for the Academy Awards. It is a 3D animated movie about a lad named Sanjay who is very fascinated with superheros. When his father sits to meditate, he dreams that Indian God and Goddesses turned into superheros to fight with the evil.


Aai – A Mother
This short movie was directed by Aroop Dwidevi released in 2014. This short is about a mother’s unconditional love for her son whom she brought up with great pain. It shows its viewers the Indian middle class family values and emotions.



Chasni – The Sugar Syrup
Directed by Abhshek Verma, this 5 minutes 23 second long film shows the pain of a woman who is victim of acid attacks in Mumbai, India. It shows how painfully she deals with her life and society where nobody bothers even to look at her. This film was awarded and appreciated at a host of platforms.



Komal 
This film, directed by Prashant Shikare, is a ten-minute video about a seven year old girl Komal who is sexually abused by her father’s friend. Like other children she is very sad and afraid to discuss what happened with her. This award winning movie gives children a social message how to prevent themselves from being sexually abused.



Dhak
This short film was directed by Rajesh Chakraborty and won several awards. Dhak is considered as an integral part of Durga Puja in West Bengal, India. This three minute video throws light on the dynamics of this popular element.



You can make your short films and animate your characters too, if you have such story in your mind. We will help you bring your imagination into reality. Visit any of these three centres:  MAAC Chowringhee, MAAC Kankurgachi and MAAC Rashbehari today and meet our career counselor who can show you the correct path which course to select.

Animation Terminology You Need To Know

Keyframe
A keyframe is basically the building block for all animations. In 3D animation you must create a keyframe to lock down a movement in time.
Poses
A pose in animation represents how the character is positioned.
Line of Action
The line of action is an invisible line that can be drawn along a character’s pose. The character’s pose will follow along with this imaginary line.
Blocking
Blocking is an animation technique where the most important story telling poses are created to establish the placement of character or object and how they will move in the scene.
Inbetweens
Not to be confused with a breakdown. An in-between basically fills in what is happening between the breakdowns for pose A and pose B.
Breakdown
A breakdown describes how the character or object is going to get from one pose to the other. A breakdown can be considered a type of in-between but a very specific one
Timeline
The timeline shows the frame numbers within your scene and can be adjusted to any frame length desired.
Twinning
Twinning is a term used when one half of a character’s body mirrors the opposite half producing an unnatural symmetry.
Frame Rate
The frame rate is the amount of frames per second. It’s important to find out what frame rate your animation needs to be on before starting any animation, all so that you can be assure your animation will be timed right...Read More

Sunday 18 September 2016

Do You Have It In You To Become An Outstanding Animator?

Be imaginative:

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“That’s the real trouble with the world , too many people grow up”- Walt Disney. Never stop dreaming and dare not anybody tell you not to dream or to get your head out of the cloud. Imagination gives birth to situations and characters within you and brings them to life on paper. What would have happened if someone asked Walt Disney to stop dreaming? Let me tell you what our childhood would have been empty of color filled characters like Mickey Mouse, Mini, Donald Duck, Goofy etc.

Patience you must have!!!!!

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You should have the capacity to sit at the desk for hours together just to get a couple of frames together, and then getting it approved by the art director who would normally ask you to do it all over again. Traditional animation for most of the time is pain in the neck/time consuming/ frustrating job. For eg. It took around three years to put two and a half minute of wild-beast stampede animation running at 24 frames per second in the movie ‘Lion King’.

Master at individual and a Team player as well:

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The animation field has a wide spectrum of work and therefore it sometimes becomes impossible to work in isolation and there it becomes important for one to work in team if you really want to make it in the industry. In an animation film there are N number of contributors such as background designers, concept artist, key animators, character animators, layout artist and many more. Everybody overlap with one another at some point of time. So therefore one has to be a good listener and have high tolerance and patience level.

You have a sense of humor:

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Remember that most of the animated characters are designed for children,so you have to have a mindset of a child of what can make it laugh. This is the key to successful animating comedic. Your animation should be able to showcase your sense of humor by incorporating your characters action and facial expression.

Have an eye for exaggeration:

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You should be a ‘RULE BREAKER’ or a ‘PATH BENDER’. There are rules for animation which proves to be milestones for decades. They are the base on which future of animation work 3D technology such as Maya, but for 2D animation it is still a challenge. But you what………

You have impeccable attention to detail:


To look at an object in front of you and draw it on a piece of paper makes you a good animator. But if you learn your subject to the extent that you don’t need the reference anymore makes you a great animator. For e.g. You can imagine a waterfall or a person walking on street that you can actually bring the mechanics of it to life on paper successfully.

So there we have it! The qualities that you require to master to become a great animator. Mastering the above aspects will help you to stand apart in the crowd. And we can help you to achieve it come and visit us to know how at Maac Animation Kolkata.

Avatar – Behind The Scenes

Hi guys! There is not a single one of us who have not seen James Cameron’s Avatar. Avatar is a 2009 American epic science fiction film directed, written, produced and co-edited by James Cameron. Yes! The director of the epic Titanic (1997), he planned for the movie even before the release of Titanic that is in 1994 he began the development of the film and wrote 80 page treatment for it. This film was planned to release in 1999 but due to unavailability of necessary technology, his vision could not be achieved. The film was budgeted at $237 million and became the highest grossing ever breaking several box-office records. It also became the first film to gross over $ 2 billion. It was nominated for nine Academy Awards and won three, for Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography and Best Visual Effects.
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What sets Avatar apart from the other hit films is the awesome development of the characters throughout the film. Weta Digital supervised the Visual Effects in the film and appointed 900 people across six locations were working around the clock to achieve what was assumed to be impossible a decade earlier. To help finish preparing the special effects sequence on time, number of other companies were employed including ILM. Groundbreaking visual effects took VFX to a new level of creative and technological excellence. Every details in the film was so well furnished that it gave a feeling such place do exist in the universe. Softwares like Maya and Mudbox were used to animate and sculpt the characters in the movie. New software for texturing and painting called Mari was developed by The Foundry in cooperation with Weta. Muscles simulation and facial animation tools were also used. 53 different Na’vi models, approximately 90 unique environments and 1500 shot specific terrain elements that make up these environments were created.
Microsoft created a new cloud computing and Digital Asset Management system named as Gaia for Avatar. To render it, Weta used 10,000 sq ft server farm making use of 4352 HP servers with 34816 CPU cores with 104 TB of RAM and three petabytes of storage space was used. Roughly 10 TB of data was generated per day. To render, 2 of the animation software and managers, Pixar’s Renderman and Pixar Alfred queue management system were used.
So, my dear friends, it’s time to act instead of thinking which course to select for your career. Put on your sleeves and get ready for a bright future in the world of animation and VFX. Call us today and sit for career counseling with us. We will help you to reach your goal. Join MAAC Animation Kolkata today.

Wednesday 14 September 2016

3D Animation Movies Rocking In Netflix In 2016


“Animated movies” means different things to different people. For some it is the classics of Disney movies while for others it means adaptations of their favorite comics.
Netflix brings you the broad range of Oscar nominated animation movies. Whether you are a casual fan or hard core devotee of animation, there is a treat for everyone.

How To Train Your Dragon 2

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The 3D computer animated action film is one of the best work done by Dreamworks Animation. The film is thrilling, touching and adorable all in one. With colorful visuals and lofty themes director Dean DeBolis has created a treat for young kids. Based on adventures of a young Viking Hiccup and his pet dragon Toothless this sequel offers inventive new dragon designs almost after five years of its original. How To Train Your Dragon 2 is an excellent piece of art created by DreamWorks Animation.
The studio used scalable multi-core processing which enabled artist for the first time to work on complex images in real time, instead of killing time waiting for the results for almost 8-9 hours approximately. Studio also used its new animation and lightning software throughout the production, programs like Premo and Torch not only improved facial animation but also enabled to execute minute expressions like the sensation of skin movement ,jiggle ,loose skin etc instead of entire mass moving together. Over 500 people from all over the world at DreamWorks contributed their best to bring out an excellent piece of entertainment.

Chicken Run(2000)

Chicken Run is the liveliest and most creative modern stop motion animation movie. The movie is about a band of chickens who see a rhode island red named Rocky who is their only hope to escape the death when the owners of the farm decides to sell chicken pot pies instead of selling eggs.
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Animation supervisor Loyd Price with a team of 40 animators brought chickens to life. Chickens were created with clay puppets. 3D sets were used to provide more texture. Apart from that team had to put in extra hard work to put together 1440 frames to come up with one minute of screen time.

Hotel Transylvania 2

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The 3D animated comedy is the sequel to Hotel Transylvania released in 2012. The movie was animated by Sony Pictures Imageworks. The movie is about Dennis who is the son of a vampire Mavis and a human Jonathan and therefore is under the constant dilemma of being a monster or leading a normal life.
Animation is magical. The movie has meticulously combined drawing and illustrations using animation technology into a series of moving frames.
So what are you waiting for enjoy your movies with Netflix and explore the animation with us…Join Maac Animation Kolkata. call @+91 9836321595.

The most loved Animated Character:-The Journey of Mickey Mouse

Hello Friends, today we are going to discuss the adventures of Mickey Mouse. Today, Mickey Mouse is one the most well known characters around the globe. Can anyone deny that he/she has never heard or have seen Mickey Mouse? Perhaps, no. Mickey Mouse had always been a part of everyone’s childhood.
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Mickey Mouse turns 88 years old this year. Still none of his hairs turns gray and wearing the same outfit for decades, but all in all, he looks pretty good and cute. Mickey Mouse has not had any movie in past few years, but his cheerful face remains one of the most recognizable images in the world, surpassing even Santa Claus. Mickey Mouse was an official mascot of The Walt Disney Company. He was created by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks at the Walt Disney Studios in 1928. The mouse typically wore red shorts, large yellow shoes and white gloves in hand.
Mickey’s story starts with a rabbit. Walt Disney originally created a character called Oswald the Lucky Rabbit for Charles Mintz, a film producer who distributed products through Universal Studios. Oswald’s ears and nose were longer than Mickey’s; his feet were black and shoeless. Oswald was an instant hit then and Universal ordered a series of shorts. While Oswald was a Disney’s creation, Universal legally owned him and refused to give more money to Disney and retained all his employees. Then Disney with his loyal animator Ub Iwerks returned to work and recreated Oswald’s replacement. They shortened the ears and nose, made several changes and turned a rabbit into a mouse. They named it Mortimer but later Disney’s wife changed the name to Mickey Mouse.
Mickey Mouse first appeared on the screen in the short film Steamboat Willie (1928), the first animation to feature synchronizes music and sound effects. It premiered on November 18, 1928 and proved to be an instant hit. Mickey went on to appear in over 130 short films. His films included The Band Concert (1935), Brave Little Tailor (1938), Fantasia (1940), etc. Lend a Paw (1942) won an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.
Join MAAC Animation Kolkata today and dive into the pool of Animation, where we do not understand anything other than Animation. Contact us today; we are just a call away.
MAAC Chowringhee – 9836321595
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