New Delhi: Indian audiences are soon going to watch director Arnab Chaudhuri's animated mythological action film 'Arjun: The warrior Prince'. The film is expected to have used new techniques to create the grandeur of the Mahabharata era. The Indian film industry has come up with films such as 'Rancho' and 'Roadside Romeo' in the past, but the market for animation films is still in a nascent state. Arnab Chaudhuri speaks about the reasons behind making an animation film.
Q: Was it a conscious decision to start your career with an animation film?
A: I wanted to do a big action movie, so when the offer of making an animation epic came to me, I jumped at it. It was perfect for a big action story. I got trained as an animator. I have been working with animation throughout my life.
Q: You have spent a long time in the TV industry.
A: I have been working for television since 18 years. I have studied at the National Institute of Design where I studied animation, then I joined Channel V just at the time when satellite TV was beginning. This is my only deviation from TV when I have stepped out to make 'Arjun: The Warrior Prince'.
Q: 'Arjun: The Warrior Prince' has a different look than 'Roadside Romeo'.
A: See, the look is kind of classical, conventional look. We have used a lot of computerised software to generate it. This is a combination of several techniques. You can say that it is a computer generated film, but it is finished by hand. It's a completely different look. My studio is the same that had made 'Roadside Romeo', but the techniques are very different.
Q: Are animation films going to change the way we look at the cinema?
A: Absolutely they are. This is one of the first big ventures and there are going to be more projects. Once the ball starts rolling, it will change the way we look at the entertainment world.
Q: When are we going to see a film like 'Tintin' in India?
A: (Laughs) Well, I give it another sixty years. The industry is about forty years old in India while it is almost 110 years old in the US. No, may be it's going to be quicker than that. Industry progress is sort of exponential. We have grown at a great pace in last ten years, capability growth is quite huge, so I was only joking when I said sixty years. We need more ventures like 'Arjun: The Warrior Prince' and we will reach there soon.
I don't know if we can get that level of investment just yet. I guess the investment in 'Tintin' would be the budget of the entire cinema of every kind, north and south combined for a full year and you'll still not hit the 'Tintin' budget.
Q: Any particular reason for choosing a mythological story?
A: The thing with mythology is that it has a huge advantage with your audiences. The viewers have a connection and a sense of ownership with the story.
Mine is not a children's movie, it's an action film. Filmmakers choose mythological stories because they give reference points. If you look at the early Disney movies they were fairytales for exactly the same reason. The magic started to happen when filmmakers start to bring their perspective into films.
It's always a challenge with animation, you have to build a whole new world. Nothing exists, so you can't just take the camera out and shoot. Every single element in the frame becomes a conscious decision.
Q: Govind Nihalani is also making an animation film.
A: It's fantastic that he is doing 'Kamlu'. We need more people to try something new with this medium. You see, in the west, Brad Bird, who is essentially an animation filmmaker, has made 'Mission Impossible 4: Ghost Protocol', so you need different kind of eyes.
Q: Would you like to share any memorable moment during the shoot of 'Arjun: The Warrior Prince'?
A: We had quite a fun day when we were shooting for the video references for the swayamvar scene. We had actually built all the props where people were diving into a pool with bow and arrow. It was fun to study body movements there. The twenty something team of animators with all diving into the pool. It was a great day out.
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