Sunday, May 15, 2016

Dubbing for the main character is completed....

We completed the dubbing of the main voice of Punyakoti. We are so grateful to actress Revathy for her cooperation, commitment and dedication. In the picture taken at the studio is Revathy and Ranga, our Sanskrit coach, who is also an Infosys employee. Ranga coaches Infoscions who appear for the various Sanskrit exams out of pure passion. He is my go-to-person for all queries regarding Sanskrit. This is apart from architecting some of the complex financial products. Hats off Ranga and thanks a ton, Revathy madam. We are blessed.

Saturday, May 14, 2016

The Process - Why does it take so long to make an animated movie?

One of the biggest challenges in making an animated movie is putting together a production pipeline. The biggest of the studios struggle to get this piece right and which has been a point of failure for many projects in India in the past. As much of each of this depends on the skill of the people who are leading each of these departments. While in the West, the level of specialisation and skill are more mature, Indian animation industry is getting there. While we are not sure if we have cracked it yet, here is the process that we have put in place. Sharing the process we follow at Punyatkoti for a limited 2D animation (flash based) so that it is useful for the rest of you who are contemplating doing something similar.

  1. Script
  2. Screenplay
  3. Shot breakdown
  4. Thumbnail
  5. Storyboard
  6. Animatics - Line up
  7. Moving and timed animatics
  8. BG Layout
  9. Character Layout
  10. Painting
  11. Sketching
  12. Tracing
  13. Cleanup
  14. Rigging
  15. Pre-staging
  16. Staging
  17. Animation - Action
  18. Animation - Expression
  19. Animation - Walk and Run Cycles
  20. Animation - Lip
  21. Quality check and fixes
  22. Line-up
  23. Editing
  24. Compositing
  25. Colouring
  26. Effects - Ambience
  27. Visual Effects
  28. Dubbing
  29. Scratch music
  30. Sound - Ambience
  31. Sound - Mixing
  32. Rendering

Wednesday, May 4, 2016

Helping Miracles happen...

In 2014, A bunch of us decided to make the first Sanskrit Animated Movie, but did not know how to go about it. In 2015, Punyakoti became the largest crowd funded project of its type. In 2016, we won a special mention at the Social Media Empowerment Award 2016 for setting an example in crowd-funding. 




How did this happen? Because a lot of friends, relatives, colleagues and their friends, relatives and their collegues kept sharing about the project onFaceBook and Twitter. Soon animators, Sanskrit lovers, animation lovers, India lovers, music lovers, film buffs, students, film makers, plainclothes-philanthropists, the-silent-little-change-makers and folks of all shades and hues trickled in.

Someone knew someone who could help and we raised 41 lakhs that has helped us complete 30% of the production. All, at a fraction of the cost that it usually takes to make an animated movie.

And now you can help us reach that one co-producer or institution who can take our production to completion. In case you know a producer or institution, let us know. Else, all you have to do is to invite all your friends to 'like' thePunyakoti page. You never know, whom one of your friends may know. Your next click could make magic happen!

Help us out. Please....