830 VFX Shots Delivered By Fluiidmask Studios for 'Baar Baar Dekho'

With a simple concept in mind, to deliver the message that one should live in present and not be always chasing the future, Baar Baar Dekho hit the screens on 9 September 2016. Though the film met with mixed reviews for its storyline, visually it was spot on. The film’s story moved back and forth in time and showcased various futuristic devices and set-ups. And providing visual effects for these sequences was Mumbai’s Fluiidmask Studios.

With about 830 shots delivered, Fluiidmask, founder and creative director who was also the VFX supervisor  for the film, Viral Thakkar was roped in right from the scripting stage of the film by director Nitya Mehra to come up with the concept arts. Being involved in the story, he helped in developing the script on the basis of how the future would look and feel like. From the various phases in the movie to the costume, gadgets, looks Thakkar completely worked on it.

“We imagined future to be simplistic. Nitya used to constantly keep a tab on everything and restricted us in case we went overboard with the designs. She wanted things to be as real as possible since the movie wasn’t a sci-fi film,” explains Thakkar. “Based on human behaviour and how we might be few years down the line, the whole futuristic era was conceptualised. Since people are lonely nowadays, we thought that maybe in future there will be smart homes which will talk to the owner and fill in the void.”

A considerable amount of work went in creating the year 2048 section as it was the most complex year and required a lot of imagery and VFX. In the film, a BMW car could be observed and to give it a futuristic feel, Thakkar required the blueprints of the vehicle. “As the filmmakers had official tie-up with BMW, we got hold of the blueprints of BMW I3 from the design team in Switzerland. We worked closely with them and stuck to recreating the interiors of the car. Inspiration was also taken from the BMW 7 series which has 360 degree collision avoidance. The dashboard, steering wheels, side windows were worked upon wherein the car could detect the weather outside, select music according to the mood of the driver. We envisioned the future to be glass and hence you will witness glass in most of the devices.”

Apart from this, a crematorium sequence could also be observed in the film in which a lotus shaped glass rolls up around the body and then the body is burnt. Over here, keeping the architecture behind the scene in mind, the studio had to work on the lotus glass and the fire particles were nicely choreographed. While shooting in Glasgow, the skyline wasn’t what was required so it had to be reworked upon and cranes had to be removed from the background.

Apart from these sequences, the studio worked on creating the snowfall. The windshield wipers and snow on various actors were CGI. In some portion, they also had to work on the prosthetics as it had to be reshaped and remodelled. Necklines had to be recreated and wrinkles had to added or removed according to the year the characters were in. A lot of chroma removal shots were also there and VFX work was also carried out in the bus sequence.

With the VFX team being present during the shoot, it eased up the studio’s task on working on the shots and the project was delivered within two months. It’s heartening to see that directors are slowly understanding the importance of involving the VFX supervisors right from the scripting stage of a film as it not just eases out their work but also saves the VFX studio’s time in delivering the project.

Courtesy:Animation Express

Make your #Career #Dreams A Reality...

Success Quote

How Is Animation Timed To Music?

When you're watching an animated feature, often it's the music that helps to set the tone of the scene. It tells you if you should laugh, if you should gasp, if you should feel sad or horrified or frightened. It pulls you into the building tension of action scenes, gets you wound up, then crashes into a breathless crescendo at the scene's climax. It even punctuates actions to give them impact, above even the sound effects.

A hard roll of drums as soldiers march, blending into the chant of determined voices. A heavy bass thump right when the hero hits the edge of a precipice and his stomach drops along with the sound, even as a counterpoint shrill sends a thrill up the spine. It's all so perfectly timed, but how? How does the music match the animation so precisely?

Usually, the final music is composed after the animation is completed - but a rough soundtrack, known as a "scratch track," is created before the animation begins. A composer will work with the production team to discuss the tone the music needs to take, the length of the individual scores, and other audio needs, including working with voice actors and vocalists (for musical / singing numbers like the ones so popular in Disney films) to come up with a scratch track. This is often timed to what's called an animatic or story reel, which is a mock-up animation that uses still images from storyboarding and planning to help time the soundtrack properly.

The animation is timed and planned according to that soundtrack, to synchronize the motions and mouth movements with the voices and the background score.

A notable example of an animated feature film specifically composed to music is Fantasia, where the entire point of the film was to create an animation that reflected the story the music told.

Later the final score is added in, and the animation can be edited in post-production to make sure everything fits together properly and ensure the timing lines up perfectly; it's easier to edit the animation (both in post-production and during the actual animation process) to better fit the music than it is to completely re-compose a track to fit a change in the animation.

Sound effects are also added later, and aren't part of the scratch track; while with full-length scores it's easier to plan the animation to match the music, with quick sound effects it's much easier to add the sound effects in final editing. Those are just quick sound bytes that can be moved around.

You may have done something similar when creating your animations, even if you're working rough without a dope sheet and not pre-planning. If you've chosen to animate something to a specific song, and have imported that song into your 2D or 3D animation program, as you work you'll find yourself tweaking the timing and motions in your animation to better match the music. You can also see examples of animations timed to music with fan-created AMVs, where fans will pick a song and use clips from their favorite animations to create a new animation that matches the rhythm and beats of the chosen song. Even though they aren't creating the animation themselves or composing the music, the heart of the process isn't all that different.

Although post-production synching is the typical method, that wasn't always the case (and there are still rare exceptions now). Before the 1930s, usually animations were made without the soundtrack, and the soundtrack was composed afterwards. This includes recording voices, which is why in older cartoons, at times the voices don't seem to quite match the animated mouth movements.

‪#‎Design‬ your ‪#‎Future‬ with Arena's ‪#‎Career‬ ‪#‎Courses‬ ... Enroll in any #Career course & get assured ‪#‎Placement‬ @ Arena Animation Sector-15,‪#‎Faridabad‬..........call on 9716827683 or 0129-4107752 to get free career advice

A Short Film Competition for all the students of Arena Animation

Give ‪#‎Wings‬ to your ‪#‎Career‬....‪#‎discover‬ the ‪#‎Creator‬ in you...Join ‪#‎Arena‬'s International ‪#‎Programme‬ in ‪#‎Animation‬ (AAIP) & get Assured‪#‎placement‬...call 0129-4107752, 9716827683 or visit Arena Animation Sec-15 for more details....

Get Enrolled, Get Placed

Enroll in Arena's AAIP course to give boom to your career....

call 0129-4107752, 9716827683 or visit Arena Animation Sec-15 for more details....

Build Your Career @ Arena Animation Sec-15 Faridabad

Build Your ‪‎Career‬...Your one stop destination for ‎Animation‬, ‪‎VFX‬, ‪‎Gaming‬, ‪‎Graphics‬, ‪‎3D‬ and many more... only at Arena Animation Sec-15 Faridabad

Return of the Panda Warrior

Are you all set with your Kung Fu gear? We sure are. We can’t wait for the third part of the Kung Fu Panda franchise. And we’ve been binge watching the previous two parts.

So just before the release this weekend, we thought of sharing a few things that we know about the Kung Fu Panda franchise. Did you know that the film was called Daydreamer to keep the original title under wraps? Read on for more interesting facts.

Bringing real to reel
Since the story takes place in China, animators spent years studying Chinese art, and travelled to China before the actual production. In fact, all the 2D dream & flashback sequences resembled Chinese shadow puppetry. For the music, John Powell & Hans Zimmer travelled to China to study local orchestra & instrumentation, and spent time with the Chinese National Symphony. The entire team also took Kung Fu & Tai Chi lessons to understand how the characters would move & fight.

Coloured
The franchise uses a lot of colour symbolism. Gold represents heroism, red represents power, blue represents negativity or evil, and green represents wisdom.

Changing roles
While Kung Fu Panda was directed by John Stevenson (of Shrek fame) & Mark Osborne (of Spongebob Square Pants fame), Jennifer Yuh Nelson, the head of story for the first film, directed Kung Fu Panda 2, making it the first animated blockbuster solely directed by a woman. For Kung Fu Panda 3, she has joined hands with Alessandro Carloni, the animation supervisor of the first film.

Inspired
The filmmakers took inspiration from other popular films & animation.

The rooftop chase scene pays homage to the wirework of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, and the interior of the Jade Palace is a nod to the king’s palace in Hero. The fighting style of Mantis was inspired from Hanna-Barbera’s Atom Ant. They liked the idea of the creature being so small that when moving fast, he couldn’t be seen. The Royal Bridge was based on the bridge in Indian Jones & The Temple of Doom.

A global affair
Although a DreamWorks production, the animation team had artists from all over the world, including USA, Mexico, Belgium, Italy, China, Sweden, Philippines, Canada, Ireland, Israel, UK, Spain, Japan & France.

Chinese influence
The film also uses a lot of character names that have relevance in Cantonese & Mandarin. Shifu’s name means ‘teacher master’, a title often used for addressing martial arts trainers. And Tai Lung’s name translates to ‘great dragon’. The name of the prison is Chorm-Gom, which literally translates to ‘sit in prison’. Also, the furious five are based on the five animal forms found throughout Kung Fu.

Animal spirit
As per the original story, Po was to be lazy in the beginning, and become more confident once the training began. But once Jack Black, the voice of Po, came on board, he suggested that Po be a Kung Fu enthusiast from the beginning to make him more likeable. We sure do like him!

Black got into the spirit of his character. He underwent Kung Fu training, and often acted out the scenes physically while recording. He also added a lot of lines during recording that were maintained in the final films.

Story changes
Early versions of the story gave Grand Master Oogway a mob boss personality. Thank goodness that didn’t make it to the later drafts! Initially, it was also decided that Mantis was to be the villain in the first film. However, it was later changed to Tai Lung, the snow leopard. This was a much better version as snow leopards hunt both giant pandas (Po) & red pandas (Shifu) in real life. Some versions also had Mr. Ping as Po’s stern boss instead of his adoptive father. This was later changed after the suggestion came from one of the storyboard artists.

From 2D to 3D
Before animating the fight sequences in 3D, the animators completed the entire sequence in 2D so that they would have complete knowledge & control over how the animals would move during the sequence. You can never get away from the basics!

Source:Google Images

Tough affair
The animators claim that Viper, in the first film, and Lord Shen, in the second film, were the most difficult character to create. Viper’s model contained 120 different bones, and they used Chinese poetry as the markings on her skin. As per Nelson, detailing Shen’s large body & feathers was like animating six characters, all at once.

A family affair
Remember the smitten bunny in the dream sequence of the first film? Well, the voice actor was none other than Black’s wife, Tanya Haden. And Black’s son & Angelina Jolie’s (voice of the Tigress) children will be the voices of various baby panda’s in Kung Fu Panda 3.

Jackie Chan
We cannot imagine a martial art film without Jackie Chan. And the Kung Fu Panda franchise does not disappoint. Along with giving his voice to Monkey in the English version, Chan also gave his voice to the Cantonese & Mandarin versions of the movies. In fact, if you look carefully, you’ll notice that Monkey uses Chan’s signature double thumbs-up in the movies.

Setting the date
The studio had to change the release date several times. The movie was originally set to release in December 2015. But that clashed with the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. And the studio is no fool. They realised that Kung Fu was sure to lose in front of the lightsaber. So the date was pushed back to 2016. It is obvious that they wanted the movie to be released at a time when it would get maximum mileage. But have they not thought about the T20 finals, or have they?

Emotion vs action
The first film was about Po realising his true potential. The second one was about Po using his skills & learning for a larger good. Looks like the third film continues on the theme where Po will not only save people but will pass on his teachings & train others in Kung Fu. This movie also promises to bring the story full circle, with Po meeting his real family & discovering his village & people. Will this be the end of Po’s journey or will it lead to new adventures? We’ll have to wait for DreamWorks to answer that one.

source:http://www.arena-multimedia.com/blog