Hasta La Motion!

Award-winning Australian short film, The Orchestra makes an online debut. Released in 2015, the film is directed by Mikey Hill, with the hand-animated piece, set in a world where tiny musical accompanists follow folks, playing the soundtrack of each person’s life — and introduces Vernon, a lonesome elderly man who always seems to strike the wrong note.

The Orchestra was co-written by Jennifer Smith and Jamie Messenger, with Melanie Brunt of Feather Films as the producer. The short was developed and financed with the assistance of Screen Australia.

The Orchestra, has won many awards including Yoram Gross Award for Best Australian Short Animation from FlickerFest, the Bruce Corwin Award for Best Animated Short at Santa Barbara, Best International Short from TAAFI, the Children’s Award from GLAS, and qualified for 2016 Academy Awards consideration.

This is the third hand-animated short by Hill, following Norbert (2007) and The Not-So-Great Eugene Green (2009). He is currently working on an animated documentary short about Laika, the Soviet space dog who was the first animal to orbit the Earth, in between freelancing, travelling and climate activism.

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Hyderabad was one of the first cities to start animation along with Mumbai, Chennai and Thiruvananthapuram a few years ago and slowly it has expanded to VFX, Gaming and all others. It is one of the fastest-growing AVGC industry in India. Following the route in becoming the hub of AVGC excellence Government of Telangana, Telangana VFX, Animation and Gaming Association (TVAGA) has launched IMAGE Centre of Excellence (CoE) in animation, visual effects, gaming, CV and AI along with Software Technology Parks of India (STPI), an autonomous society under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Government of India, today (17 February 2020).

 In conversation with AnimationXpress STPI, Hyderabad, director C. V. D. Ram Prasad shares, “The IMAGE CoE will nurture and support start-ups in gaming, animation, VFX, computer vision and AI Space through the strong support and participation by the Industry leaders and domain experts providing strategy guidance, domain knowledge, technology mentoring thereby supporting innovation to develop the entrepreneurship ecosystem.”

CoE is positioned as an apex institute excellence and will lead in providing skills-based educational programming that integrates theory with application, preparing students for global careers in art foundation, digital and technical fields. Apart from that, “The CoE will provide access to the required infrastructure and labs to start-ups for development and validation of solution, from design to prototyping. STPI will establish the CoE by collaborating with Hyderabad Software Enterprises Association (HYSEA) and TVAGA with active support from MeitY, Government of Telangana, IIIT – Hyderabad, TiE – Hyderabad, Hyderabad Angels and Industry. The CoE will run accelerated start-up programmes for the start-ups being selected through monthly/quarterly/half-yearly events,” added Prasad.

It has been in discussion that the Telangana government is aiming to set up IMAGE Tower which will not only help Indian studios but even foreign ones to come together and create unique content. With the launch of IMAGE CoE, Hyderabad will be a step closure to the circuit of IMAGE tower formation and regulation.

STPI-IMAGE also signed MoU with five partners TVAGA (Telangana VFX, Animation and Gaming Association), Hyderabad Angels, HYSEA, IIIT- Hyderabad, and TiE Hyderabad with an objective to nurture and promote start-ups and budding entrepreneurs by offering resources like mentoring, technology support, infrastructure like Plug & Play Incubation, Mocap, CVAI labs and funding.

The 10000 Sq ft, IMAGE-CoE, inside the existing STPI facility targets to incubate up to 25-30 start-ups per year for the next five years. A total investment of 19. 68 Cr shall be spent over a period of five years for the CoE in addition to existing infrastructure in the STPI facility.

The start-ups will be mentored by a group of accomplished industry and academic pioneers, led by the Chief Mentor and aided by a strong Governing Council (GC) & Project Management Group (PMG) consisting of top technology industrialists, investors and academicians.

Benefits to Start-ups

Applications to get on board in the CoE is open and closes on 31 March, 2020. The start-ups will undergo various levels of evaluation before selection. On selection, they will be assisted with a seed fund of Rs. 5 lakhs after due diligence by the PMG. This fund will be released to start-ups during the structured accelerated program, at regular intervals, based on achieving set milestones.

In the first year, 20 start-ups will be chosen for on boarding this program. Each start-up will be given access to best-in-class infrastructure and R & D lab facilities, for development and validation of solution from design to prototyping to democratise innovation, including the newly set up first of its kind Motion Capture Lab. They will also be provided access to funding, mentorship, and marketing.

Industries & Commerce (I&C) and Information Technology (IT)  principal secretary Jayesh Ranjan said, “Hyderabad is fast emerging as the best global destination for Gaming and AI landscape. That’s one key reason we believe STPI chose to set up its CoE in Hyderabad, and as partners, we are fully committed to this initiative. We have a strong eco-system, as the city of Hyderabad hosts established world-leading-gaming companies, global scale events such as IndiaJoy, The India Game Developers Conference (IGDC) plus India’s biggest IMAGE towers readying to open in Hyderabad.”

Stating that Hyderabad was a natural choice to set up the IMAGE CoE due to its inherent industry strengths, STPI director-general Omkar Rai, expressed, “The CoE will bring a paradigm shift in revving up research and innovation in Gaming, VFX, Computer Vision & AI through a robust ecosystem in collaboration with tech partners, industry, investors, industry associations and government, and will bolster indigenous product development while propelling the growth of tech entrepreneurship in the country. By collaborating with industry associations, academia, and angels, we have ensured the IMAGE incubation model is built on a solid foundation to realising our mission to build world-class gaming, Animation and Deep Tech providers to the world.”

“Setting up STPI-IMAGE CoE is great news for the Gaming sector, especially startups as they now have access to game development, funding, foster strategic partnerships with game development companies and global gaming publishers, TVAGA will play an active role in promoting the gaming sector and support IMAGE mission .” TVAGA president, and Green Gold Animation founder and CEO Rajiv Chilaka.

Congratulating Software Technology Parks of India, Hyderabad, for setting up the Centre of Excellence in animation and gaming as well as in computer vision and AI,  IMAGE CoE chief mentor and  Qualcomm India VP Engineering Shashi Reddy, in his address said, “Hyderabad has a lot of animation and gaming companies, and the industry has been maturing over the years. This is a great opportunity for new start-ups to build, nurture innovation at STPI-IMAGE and accelerate the growth of gaming and animation in the city.”

“I am really excited about the future, as the new computer vision and AI at CoE will propel deep learning techniques and help grow the CV and AI areas, as well as augment new Startup,” Shashi added.

Highly Value Partnerships

IMAGE is a collaboration between industry associations, academia, and angels, the model is built on a solid groundwork.

TVAGA will lend support in funding game development start-ups and fostering strategic partnerships between game development start-ups and global gaming publishers. In addition, TVAGA will be sponsoring Gamelab related resources such as cloud and advertising credits for gaming start-ups being accelerated at CoE.

HYSEA will help provide seed funding, strategy guidance, market access besides helping the start-ups on matters related to product definition. On their part, Hyderabad Angels will provide strategy, mentoring, and help to raise funds for the start-ups. IIIT-H: will extend technology mentoring support.

The State Government will aid in strengthening the CoE goals with industry-friendly IMAGE policies and may also consider providing grant-in-aid to meritorious start-ups.

Gaming Industry’s Market Potential

Year 2020 will see social interactive gaming and esports become mainstream. India ranks fifth among the world’s top mobile gaming markets and is expected to move to the top three in the next three years. Mobile gaming is anticipated to be a $105bn opportunity by 2023 and outpace China which is estimated to be at $73bn. From 2mn gamers in 2016 to 100mn gamers by the end of 2019, the momentum will likely continue.

The average gamer spends 60 mins on mobile games with OTT platforms seeing 45 mins spent. Add to the fanatic user engagement is the repetitive behaviour where 40 per cent of men and 35 per cent of women play mobile games at least five days a week in India.

60 per cent of online gamers are in the 18 to24 age bracket who want to make quick money and also don’t hesitate to spend. Tencent’s PUBG makes a mind-boggling $7MM a month from India.

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Color Galaxy, a new game featuring Bitmoji has come to Snap Games and is available now.

Developed by Gismart, the game  allows Snapchatters to invoke their inner galactic conquerer, in a fast-paced multiplayer game.

“We’re thrilled to join the Snap Games platform and introduce players to the whimsical, customizable worlds of Color Galaxy. Tapping into Snap’s social features like Bitmoji avatars, Snippets, and augmented reality Lenses make it even easier for Snapchatters to connect with their friends and share fun moments from the game. A gaming experience like this can only come to life on Snapchat, and we can’t wait to see the response from Snapchatters worldwide,” said  Gismart VP of business development and marketing Lana Meisak.

In the game, Snapchatters compete for the most territory by driving cool custom cars or perhaps a chicken — and as the game incorporates your Bitmoji into the game, Snapchatters can easily spot their friends driving around. Get friends together and keep moving to conquer space!

“Snap Games is all about sharing experiences with your friends, even when you can’t be together. Colour Galaxy is a brilliant example of this, letting friends conquer the galaxy, with or against each other, directly from chat. “We’re excited to bring this fun, fast-paced, and competitive new game to our Snapchat community,” said John Imah, Snap’s Head of Games Partnerships.

In a race for half the map, Snapchatters draw lines to close their colour loop and expand their territory, but beware; while you can cross an opponent’s line to take their life, you need to be careful to protect your own line or you will be the one seeing Game Over.

There are no in-game purchases, but successful games will result in a reward of coins that can be redeemed for new personalization options including new vehicles, territory colours or sound effects.

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Sonic the Hedgehog burst into theatres over the weekend, hauling in an estimated $57 million Friday through Sunday domestically, the highest opening of any video game movie adaption in film industry history.

The record domestic debut was much higher than the $35 million to $45 million that analysts had projected. When the trailer for Paramount‘s new release first hit the Internet, it was met with widespread criticism, mostly due to its less-than-faithful depiction of the titular character, which enraged many diehard fans. Surprisingly, the studio took the comments seriously and the CGI team managed to create new animations for the speedster after a short three-month delay to the release date, which subsequently earned the Internet’s support back, and now, it seems Paramount had made the right call.

The CGI blue speedster had a different facial look in the movie’s original trailer which led to an uproar online. Sonic’s four-day estimate gives Paramount its best opening weekend since Mission: Impossible – Fallout from the summer of 2018. Terminator: Dark Fate was the distributor’s biggest opener of 2019, pulling just $29 million.

In the past, Hollywood has had trouble transitioning video game characters from their consoles to cinemas. Only three adaptations have garnered “Fresh” ratings on Rotten Tomatoes and none of them have garnered more than $500 million worldwide.

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There goes hardly a day when we don’t get to hear about any incident or news about violence against women. According to the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4) released by the Union health ministry, every three women out of 10, has faced violence of various forms in India since the age of 15.

In times when talks and writings about women empowerment is sky-high, women are facing visible and invisible forms of violence till date. Often ‘objectified’ or ‘thingified’, women are treated as ‘playthings’ in most cases. Thankfully, that scenario is getting better for good, but it’s yet to normalise in a broader sense. Several content is being created around the topic in various mediums, including music and animation.

Music video, Please, which uses stop-motion animation to depict the condition of a sexually abused woman. This animated short film, created by animator Naveen Kiran Boktapa, has been nominated for the Oregon Short Film Festival 2020, to be held on 19 February. Also, recently it was selected for the Mumbai International Film Festival (MIFF) 2020 in the best film category. 

The video features The Majolly Music Trust founder-trustee Neecia Majolly, who’s an acclaimed singer, songwriter and celebrated pianist based out of Bengaluru. She is seen singing while the animated frames portray the position of women. Majolly has also been vocal about several issues of concern like ivory poaching in the past.

“When Majolly approached me with her song, Please, I asked her if she wants a subtle treatment for the video or very straight forward. She said it should be very direct, disturbing, loud and clear. After listening to the song, some visuals flashed in my mind. I translated them into a rough storyboard and shared it with her. She loved it and we started the project. The idea was to show the dark misogyny in the society. How every section of the society is wired with it. And how the society becomes insensible and numb towards the sufferings and feeling of a sexually abused victim. So we decided to represent the exploiters as hynas or wolves and to create the environment with news paper articles about sexual abuse and crime,” shared Boktapa with Animation Xpress.

Naveen Kiran Boktapa

Please has a powerful impact with its sharp lyrics and strong visuals which are quite disturbing and makes one infuriated.  Boktapa’s animated work for Please is vaguely inspired from Jan Svankmajer’s Dimensions of Dialogue and took him three months to complete. It was published on YouTube in 2019. 

Added Boktapa on the animation style, “It’s not like the technique or visuals are inspired from Dimensions of Dialogue, but the feeling of the movie. It’s very subconscious, I can’t explain it in words. To get a  very rustic and disturbing feeling, I decided to use stop motion as the technique. The character Armatures were created using aluminium wires and were shot on a green screen. Dragon Frame is a wonderful software to shoot stop motion animation. It makes the process very easy, while the sets and environments were created digitally using After Effects.”

Majolly and Boktapa knew each other since 2015, when The Majolly Project came into existence and both of them came across each other’s craft. She had a wonderful experience working with him and gave him complete freedom to execute their ideation of the animation. “I just gave him a brief about the song, Please and what was it about, rest he did it himself. Because I had no idea about animation and left it entirely to him and the result is the brilliant animation you see in the video. It’s been a pleasure working with him even in Connection,  another music video. It’s great to work with someone who understands your thoughts and what you need clearly. I hope to work with him in the future too.”

Coming from a tribal nondescript Sumnam village in Lahaul and Spiti district, Boktapa was a student of IIT Bombay and trained under industry veterans and professors like Phani Tetali. Defeating his barriers and shortcomings, Boktapa has come a long way to tell wonderful and necessary stories through animation. He also worked on 9post-production) DigiCon6 Asia award winning animated short film, Death of a Father, by Somnath Pal. Recently, he also shared the stage with national and international stalwarts like Eeksaurus founder and director Suresh Eriyat and Academy award winner animator Michael Dudok de Wit at MIFF 2020. 

Please have got positive responses and feedback from the audience and industry experts alike. Though he didn’t win the award, the film brought him some name and a good break. 

“My experience in MIFF was overwhelming. It was my first time at any film festival. I met so many young passionate film makers as well as seasoned industry experts. Meeting and sDe Wit and other legends like Eriyat, Dhvani Desai, Pencho Kunjev in a panel discussion were the best moments. I also got to watch so many amazing films from across the world, in animation and non-animation medium, it was so inspiring,” he exclaimed.

The message is very clear in the lyrics and animation, about sexual abuse happening with everyone irrespective of age and sex the women and children and even with the men. Sexual abuse is a serious crime in our society and through the video, it’s an appeal to treat each other like human beings.

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