We hope you enjoy our new safety video, which we’ve created in collaboration with Comic Relief and some famous faces you’ll probably recognise. You’ll be able to see it on-board from 1 September 2017. Celebrities are seen auditioning in humorous sketches in front of comedian Asim Chaudhry, as Chabuddy G, for a coveted part in British Airways’ new safety video, while simultaneously demonstrating the safety features and procedures on the aircraft.
“I’d rather go vegan than sit next to him on a 12-hour flight!” Find out who Gordon Ramsay was speaking about as we go behind-the-scenes at the filming of our new safety video’
Facebook and YouTube India heads emphasised on the power of digital content in India at Indian Television Group’s Vidnet Conference 2017 powered by Viu which was held at Westin Hotel, Mumbai recently. It was attended by several industry speakers.There were sessions of one on one discussion on online power house with Head of entertainment Partnerships at YouTube India, Satya Raghavan as well as Facebook India head of media partnerships Saurabh Doshi.
Satya Raghavan, Head of entertainment Partnerships , YouTube India
The first session had YouTube India head Satya Raghavan and comedian Sorabh Pant.Head of entertainment Partnerships at YouTube India, Satya Raghavan said, “We spend a lot of time for our viewers. For us, the content is king even if it is a video of Dhinchak Pooja. Because for everything there is a consumer. We need to remain educated for videos of several mode.From 2014-15, Hinglish was growing.Then from 2016-2017, there has been a return of Hindi due to the middle India growing. One can see a lot of videos catering to comedians from Haryana.”
He spoke about the transformation of YouTube today. Raghavan said,“Now we have broken YouTube into ten parts based on languages. Earlier we worked with brands and the best briefs are those which are the focussed ones. Nowadays, promotions have increased. Even in movies these days, they put 30-50 videos before the release.”
YouTube head Satya Raghavan also answered about premium content and monetisation in the VOD medium.He said,“ Premium content takes efforts. Nowadays, we are creating various models. Last year we did advertisement breaks inside the videos.”
The crowd was entertained by India’s top stand-up comedian and writer Sorabh Pant. He said, “It is very important to title your video properly. Regional content is increasing these days. So we need to emphasise it also. Today, spoofs are getting more views than films.”
Speaking about the current scenario, Raghavan added, Facebook live is a great way to interact with audiences.It is a wonderful time to create content today. There is an audience of 400 million now and it will reach 600-700 million soon.”
Sorabh Pant spoke about how videos of 10-15 minutes durations are being received well today on which Raghavan exclaimed that long videos work only for news channels. He emphasised to think about varied languages, other platforms and think about business.
The next speaker was Facebook India head of media partnerships Saurabh Doshi who was joined by comedian Sorabh Pant.Doshi spoke about the presence of 184 million active users and informed that 90 per cent users use mobile devices, while 20 per cent go for WhatsApp. Doshi explained the journey of Facebook, ” We started with photos then went on to viral videos like the ice bucket challenge.”
Sorabh Pant pointed out that instagram stories get immediate clicks.People prefer Facebook over twitter due to lack of anonymity.Then again, there are people creating fake ids in Facebook asking for money. The videos in Facebook have a lot of views today. Sometimes, they are more than YouTube. Facebook videos even have higher hits than videos of stand-up comedians.”
Facebook India head Saurabh Doshi answered his queries saying,” Yes, Instagram is indeed growing these days. It has more than 200 million users. And people prefer Facebook over Twitter because when you have real people you have real conversations.We are keeping a tab on fake ids and are cross checking them.Today video views in Facebook are more because it started as a friends and family thing. We keep on experimenting. We think of the behaviour of the user. Personally, news videos are my favourite.”
Both spoke about monetisation in Facebook.Doshi said,”Premium content takes efforts. We are creating models. Last year we did advertisement breaks inside videos, topicals, authentics, masks and filters. Nowadays, a whole range of products are available.”
The session continued with the next speaker, Viacom18 Digital Ventures COO Gaurav Gandhi. He was joined on the panel by principal provocateur advisory Paritosh Joshi for a joint discussion.
On being asked who constitutes the audience watching the content in audio visuals, Gaurav Gandhi said,“Today there are around 200 million people watching digital videos in a month. It covers 1500 cities with people in the age group of 15-30 watching it. Again, viewing of TV is still large. For digital, the average time spent is 48 minutes and for TV it is three and half hours. Cable connection is quite cheap. Amount of video consumption has increased digitally. The kids primetime is at around 8:30 pm at night when both the parents are at home and are having dinner and the phones and TV is free for the kids.”
There was a debate on consumers unwilling to pay for videos.Gandhi said, “The cost of not getting in digital medium is high. YouTube was the first to enter the market. People followed that model hence they still refrain from paying for videos. Look at Pay TV, Free TV, today both of them co-exist. As economics and technology changes, new things will eventually evolve. Kannada, Tamil speaking people have also started using YouTube. Today, blockchain has an important role in distribution.”
Principal provocateur advisory Paritosh Joshi who was on the session with him also stressed on the importance of the digital medium. He said, “If you don’t get in the digital medium then you lose something. We have Tamil, Bengali voicetracks coming up. More people who consume such videos use the local languages rather than being English speaking. There are even people who can’t read but they enjoy watching videos on the digital medium.”
EVP & head of Digital India, Z5 Business Archana Anand spoke about OTT. She said,“Regarding OTT, we are in the best time. Jio has made it easy. With Netflix, Amazon coming in, things have grown. People still have the mindset of not wanting to pay for videos. Hopefully, we will be one of the top OTT players.
On being asked if OTT and linear TV both will survive, Anand said, “ Huge brands are spending money on advertisements differently. Spending on digital TV won’t die. Today, 30 plus OTT players are joining.People are making a jump.Addressable market for online video content delivery is challenging but due to internet things are changing. There is an OTT for everything.”
Founder and creative Director of Swastik Productions and One Life Studios, Siddharth Kumar Tewary said, “I believe we can keep on launching content on different platforms.They should be worthy enough to be paid for. We have showcased our content throughout the world. We are getting a huge platform.”
As rightly pointed by the speakers, if we see the current scenario, today serious attempts are being made to shift video consumption from traditional linear distribution via cable, DTH and terrestrial towards delivery by broadband. Telcos, platforms, OTT/SVOD/AVOD players, content creators are all putting their might behind this initiative.Amongst the big drivers of this shift is the big money war chest that the big global duo of Netflix and Amazon are putting behind building Indian audiences.Telcos like Reliance Jio, Idea and Airtel are also integrating video and other apps as part of their consumer retention strategies.
Advertisers have tiptoed into the AVOD game even as YouTube continues to corner a bulk of the digital ad spends. This is despite a leveling off of CPMs post the demonetisation meltdown. Thanks to demonetisation last year, digital payment options have proliferated and an increased Indian consumer base is using them. Other challenges remain: recommendation, personalization, monetization, discovery, content creation for different multiscreen environments, technology, inflection points.
The post Facebook and YouTube heads emphasise on the emerging phase of Digital content in India appeared first on AnimationXpress.
You never know what kind of wonders animation is doing in a small part of the world…
Freitag – a Swiss-company that transforms truck tarps into highly functional bags – came up with a unique way of engaging animators. They approached five animation movie artists from Zurich to Argentina and asked them to narrate the process from truck tarp to bag-making the way they see it, for their Tarp Blanche campaign.
At Freitag’s F-actory, the process involves five steps: 1. Find and bring truck tarps, 2. Free the tarps of material not needed and cut them into standard sizes, 3. Wash the tarps and dry them, 4. Design the bags according to templates and carve an exquisite design, 5. Sew the bags, check final products and photograph them.
The animators were not told what to do, hence the entire process is told in five completely different ways, plots, styles and agendas.
In Flythrough, Argentina’s Gabriel Agustin Freire manages to convey the story of Freitag bags in just one minute without leaving out any details.
Freire, who has been working as an illustrator, animator and producer for animation studios all around the world, wanted to do something dynamic. “So I suggested creating the entire film frame by frame through traditional animation, using a subjective camera to tell the Freitag story,” he said. Hence, he decided to tell everything from the point of view of a beetle, which goes through the factory and sees the product creation process.
After modelling the insect’s perspective, Freire and his team of about 15 artists set more than six hundred frames in motion, each of which contained characters and backgrounds that were drawn over and over again so as to achieve the necessary sensation of dynamic movement for the insect.
The subtle spirals in the film symbolise the importance of recycling materials. “The aim of our work is to promote this (recycling) and to show the importance of the cycle of elements,” stated Freire, who has animated and directed Flythrough. The music is by Agustin Arman, colours by Pamela Wehrhahne & Murilo Marcondes and composition by Alejandro Bonafina.
Truckin’ by award-winning Swiss-British motion director Neil Stubbing from Zurich is told in a Looney Tunes style. The five-minute long video combines family drama and an inspiring coming-of-truck story.
Stubbing already had an idea of trucks being raised like pigs which left him with figuring out only the rest of the story. He first came up with the truckers (who stand for Freitag brothers) and the trucks in their specific stages: baby, teen and adult. He then built the world that the story takes place in- the design of the farm and the basic look of the whole film. “It (the film) takes place in Switzerland, so I tried to build an exaggerated, almost kitschy, version of my surroundings,” Stubbing explained.
Stubbing wanted the bags to stand out, hence went with the greyscale tone to reduce the surroundings. “I like the look of American cartoons from the 30s, where everything was black and white. This style was the perfect thing to emphasise the colourful bag design,” he said.
The project which took 600-700 hours to complete has Stubbings doing the story, design and animation with sound design by Gregor Rosenberger. The script is written by Daniel Pieracci and narrated by David Browner.
For many years, Freitag has created their own how-to movies for every F-product (Freitag products) in stop-motion. Animation as a result is already close to the brand. “Furthermore, we love the diversity of the animated movie form,” said Freitag’s Lena Fisler. “You see amazing new created characters and unlimited possibilities to interpret the Freitag story in a playful and fun way.”
Moreover, Freitag also collaborates with the international animation film festival Fantoche in Baden, Switzerland, from where Frietag’s brand manager found inspiration to create the Tarp Blanche campaign.
Following soon will be works by animators Beni Morard & Frederic Siegel, Vik & Nes and Burcu & Geoffrey.
The post Animators show a bag-making process in the most fascinating way for Freitag’s Tarp Blanche campaign appeared first on AnimationXpress.
After Wings Land Adventure, the Indie duo of Siddhesh Sudesh Berde and Kishor Sudesh Berde from SidKing games have turned their attention to a puzzler.
“Twins” is a minimal puzzle game which is apparently based on the “brotherhood” between two little cubes. They always move together in the same direction. Unfortunately, one of them gets stuck in the reverse dark world. One has to play as another cube and help your brother to escape from the dark rooms. In the reverse world, movements are reversed and challenges are galore. Collect all stars and key, find and solve tricky paths, watch out for obstacles and escape the rooms within time.
The game features 40 handcrafted minimal levels and an original music score with a pretty clean and lucid UI and is available in English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Chinese(Simplified), Japanese, Korean, Portuguese(Brazil), Malay and Russian.
3D Touch
According to the developers, “We love new technologies from Apple and we always try to use them in our games! In this game we have used 3D Touch Home Screen Quick Actions. It helps a player in knowing how many stars they have earned, launching an active room, knowing required stars to unlock the next set of rooms and to know the overall status of the game.
There are six achievements to unlock and each of them gives a valuable message to players about, yes, ‘brotherhood.
The post Indie duo from SidKing Games turn to a puzzler for their second title appeared first on AnimationXpress.
The count of road mishaps and misadventures happening in our country is increasing at an alarming rate. In fact, India ranks behind only China in terms of deaths due to road accidents. So in the events of such crisis, spreading traffic awareness is imperative. And that’s exactly what the students of MAAC (Maya Academy of Advanced Cinematics) Banashankari did.
In an event conducted by the animation institute of Bangalore, the students along with the management team campaigned about the importance of adhering to the traffic rules. Cardboard cut-outs sketched with traffic rules and thought provoking lines were held out by them in a commendable attempt to spread awareness to the commuters.
MAAC center head Chaitra S, senior senior counsellor Archana N, senior 3D instructor Ramnik Verma and RSM from MAAC HO Navneet Sinha were the members of the management team to lend a helping hand to the ambitious students of MAAC.
In an era where fuel is at a premium but the consumption is seamless and the issue of fuel conservation is also cardinal. And MAAC made it sure that people are reminded of it as well because slogans emphasising the importance of fuel were also penned on the banners.
The MAAC team also conveyed the message apparently to a few teenagers highlighting the importance of wearing a helmet whilst riding a bike and adhering to the traffic.
The event was conducted on 15 July 2017, spanning five hours from 11 am till 4 am. It was met with rave responses as people appreciated the efforts put in by students. MAAC Banashankari too were applauded for organising the campaign, a move which was truly led by an example for all else to follow.
Similar, campaigns in various other places where road calamities are at a prominence would go a long way in deterring the same.
The post Bangalore based animation institute MAAC Banashankari conducts traffic awareness program appeared first on AnimationXpress.
In this Motionographer Q&A we chat with Johnny Kelly about his recent work “Good Adds Up”, a series of personalized films created for Facebook.
Heating and cooling account for roughly 48% of the energy use in a typical U.S. home, making it the largest energy expense for most families. In the commercial building sector, the cost is approximately 40%. Johnson Controls, one of the leading providers of HVAC, Fire and Security systems in the world, is changing how spaces are viewed and controlled. As the inventors of the first thermostat, Johnson Controls has innovated once again with GLAS. Utilizing Windows 10 IoT Core, Cortana voice services, and Azure Cloud, GLAS is a simple to use, elegant thermostat that brings leading energy savings and air quality monitoring to everyday spaces. Johnson Controls is reinventing the thermostat and our lives.
First film in the “Western Theatrical Canon” series. Here we have my textual “object-ification” of sections from Hamlet by William Shakespeare. Music: Trotz dem alten Drachen by Johann Sebastian Bach.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A. during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
