Hasta La Motion!

The current situation is quite gloomy and strange, and it is quite obvious for our mental status to be hampered. Of course, the times are difficult and it becomes hard to keep yourself cheerful always, but that’s the best one can do. Staying positive and happy gives you the required boost to pass on the day. The months are passing by, with every festival, days and occasions celebrated at home without outings or parties. But, there are various ways to celebrate with your loved ones at home too. 

The coming Sunday is Father’s Day and to make the day bright and cheerful, Abhijeet Kini Studios founder Abhijeet Kini is organising a virtual comic workshop, open to all, with no age limit. Young parents, old parents, young kids and old kids can join in!

The idea is to have fathers and kids team up, and even mothers and kids team up, to make some fun comics. There will be discussions about themes, tips and tricks to draw the comics. Kini thinks the ‘teaming up’ will be good fun to experience! “We want people to bond over something creative in these gloomy times, and we thought having a father’s day special workshop would be nice,” he mentioned.

Being a Father’s Day special workshop, we asked Kini of his fond memories with his father and he, being a comic artist, just had a perfect memory to share with us all. “In my childhood days, we used to go to Khar market every Sunday, either to buy groceries or veggies. Dad used to take me to an old paper mart which had a treasure trove of comics, and that’s where I started picking up my earliest MAD mags, superman, and many more comics. I really used to look forward to those trips. Even today, whenever we drive down that particular junction in the market (that shop has shut down long ago), he and I reminisce about those times,” said he.

Creative heads out there, surprise your father this year with an exciting workshop with Kini. What better than art, to bond together and create something special. And also, as Kini said, “Creativity can bring about a big boost in moods! I urge people to delve into some sort of creative activity in this lockdown, and with these workshops, I am trying to give them a window to see it.”

The workshop will be held for around 60 minutes, on Zoom. Interested enthusiasts can register on Insider.

The post Abhijeet Kini to bond together father and kids with a comic workshop on Father’s Day appeared first on AnimationXpress.

Due to the coronavirus lockdown, many post production services had to pivot to a work from home format owing to the pandemic situation and social distancing norms. With remote workstations and cloud services, many studios have been working towards full adaptability. Recently the phased lifting of lockdown spelled a sigh of relief for many services.

Centroid Motion Capture India announced that they have resumed their operations at Famous Studios (Mumbai) for Performance Capture and Virtual Production Services.

Centroid Director Parth Shah shared, “Finally after 3 months of lockdown, it feels so good to return on our Centroid India stage and immediately kicking off with exciting projects! IMPORTANT – Safety of Crew and Clients are first priority and therefore we have taken all COVID-19 safety measurements shared by government to ensure safety shoot environment.”

Preceding the reopening of the studio, Centroid Motion Capture of India had recently launched a webinar explaining the ways in which production houses and content creators can avail their services with a surprise discount at the end of the session.

He explained in the webinar: “Centroid provides extensive services for in-studio and on-set motion capture shoots utilising optical and inertial motion capture. With a production stage in UK and Mumbai where UK stage is said to be the largest motion capture volume in Europe, Centroid is loaded with a medium-size cleanup and tracking team in Centroid Serbia. After the MoCap production is done, clients are provided with Centroid’s proprietary software for data selection called Trimmer.”

He further stated, “Then the ‘selects’ are cleaned up and tracked by Centroid Serbia team who pass the data over to UK for the retargeting stage. Since all studios are so well-connected, we are able to produce large amounts of MoCap data in a short space of time.”

Apart from that, Shah also answered a flurry of curious questions by the viewers with regards to the mocap technology and its myriad applications.

.

The post Centroid India resumes operations at Famous Studios appeared first on AnimationXpress.

There’s a lot happening around us. The world is in a state of dealing with unparalleled situations everywhere and coping up with the ‘new normal’. While people are forced to stay homebound, with everything else standing stalled for the time being, they are resorting to art – to stories, films, TV shows, online shows, animation, painting, sculpting and in any other form.

Most of the artists are utilising their talent to focus on important issues and so are animators. They have taken up crucial topics to grab more eyeballs to it – from lockdown, to COVID scenario, to Assam Gas Leak, super cyclone Amhan and so on. Animator Suchana Saha, a postgraduate student of Animation Cinema at Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute (SRFTI), Kolkata, has also created an animated short, Whole, that focuses on how whatever happening with us (humans) now, is a consequence of what we have done to Nature. 

Made as a part of a 48 hour animation filmmaking challenge “ANIMATION JAM”, from the SRFTI animation student community, with the theme and title of ‘Whole’, Saha focused on the climate change and exploitation of Nature. The main intention of this challenge was to push each other to work during this lockdown. Riah, another 16th batch student, also did a heartwarming animation on the same theme, and the ‘ANIMATION JAM’ continues next week where they will do morph relay animation in the next episode.

Talking about the thought behind her animated short, she shared with AnimationXpress, “When I was nominated by a friend, Trishul, for the jam, my first understanding of the word ‘Whole’ spontaneously led to the ‘whole’ world in my mind. Not just for the past few months, but environmental issues, over-consumerism, and natural exploitation is something which was bothering me for quite some time now, COVID 19 outbreak was just a topping on all these thoughts. So when I got a chance to depict the word ‘whole’, I chose to put all these elements in it.”

Suchana Saha

Saha liked to paint and later started admiring cinema, leading to a thought that animation cinema would be a good blend of both. A Bachelors in Multimedia with specialisation in Animation from St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata, she was mentored by Kaustubh Ray, who also played an important role in choosing this medium as her career. She also studied animation at VGIK for an International Summer School Programme in the year 2018. 

She is becoming a name in the industry and her film Maa Tuki has already won several awards including the Best Short Film at TASI’s Anifest. Her all time inspiration is Michael Dudok De Wit and she wants to tell simple and powerful stories just like him. Her short films as animation director are Paper, Intraview, Maa Tuki (Bengali), Poter Kotha (Documentary) and Whole. 

Speaking about the challenges while executing the film, she said, “The main challenge was time. 48 hours to complete a one min animated short is hectic. In that 48 hours ideation, animation, compositing and sound had to happen. And the second challenge was editing. The initial concept of the Whole world has so many things, it was difficult to know what to keep and what not to keep in it.”

Saha used Adobe Photoshop and Adobe After Effects for animation and compositing respectively but completed the challenge in the given time. She further added, “As the challenge started I almost spent half a day thinking whether to do it or not. But simultaneously I was also doing some thumb-nailing of whatever came in my mind. I realised a pattern of gulps and thus I fixed on the ending that everything will be gulped by the deadly virus. Since I had a lot of time constraints, I started animating the ending sequence first. The ending sequence also helped me form the narrative little by little. Then I did a very rough sequencing and storyboards with an edit layout. I started animating according to the sequence. A little change in edit also happened during compositing. The sound was done by Shireen Ghosh after compositing. Usually I have a sound layout beforehand but for Whole, I did not have that time.”

Taking inspiration from the surroundings, Saha depicted Whole as the current condition of humans is because it’s a payback time for Nature for all the wrong we have done to her. We have continued to have exploited it and its resources for our own means and to satiate our greed. It has been ravaged by our power hungry authorities who do not care about its well-being. 

Whole shows how drops of our deeds have turned into an ocean of exploitation and merciless killing of innocent creatures, and that now Nature is probably taking a revenge with the virus that’s let loose to gulp down mankind. 

The post Animated short, ‘Whole’ portrays the current scenario as a payback time for Nature appeared first on AnimationXpress.

The Furrow walks us through their process of making 20-plus Covid-19 awareness videos based on fact and rooted in positivity.

Imagine the picture of a typical video-gamer! Were you dreaming about someone wearing jeans and boots, slipping on a pair of new, high-quality headphones, and confidently rocking a t-shirt with a game? Now, be honest: Did you picture a guy when you conjured up this image and if you did, you’re not alone. Although gender ratio in gaming has become more equal in recent years, the lingering stereotype remains that gaming is a ‘guy thing’. 

According to interpret’s 2019 report- female esports watchers have a 30 per cent share compared to all esports watchers; however, it has consistently gained gender share nearly every quarter since 2016 with a total growth of 6 per cent over the last two years.The one who play games considerably in  esports on console/PC, only 35 per cent are female, of those that consider themselves esports watchers, 30 per cent, and of those that watch esports leagues, 20 per cent.

The reason behind is simple Women gamers feel they are marginalised within the community and are routinely subject to nasty comments about their ability or appearance. For elite gamers, much of it comes from fans, but opponents and teammates are sometimes just as challenging. At the lower levels, women are often bombarded by hyper masculinity in a space where most everyone is anonymous.

Indian female driven CS:GO esports team GE:Rayne, team captain Saloni ‘Meow16k’ Pawar, who started her self-motivated gaming journey at the age of 15 said, “Gaming has always been a taboo. The male players have dominated the gaming culture and it was like only men are suppose to play. When I started playing  I have been told girls don’t play all these games why are you playing ? At the initial level it was a bit of struggle but once you are more into the community and you are introduced to gamers in the community at that time everything changed. At the same times girls don’t actually feel comfortable to reveal their identity while playing games even I used to do that.”

Shagufta Iqbal Streamer (Apex legends, PUBG, CSGO and so on), influencer and associated with an esports organisation called Entity gaming

One of the biggest drawbacks of the industry is that no matter how much women try to put their best foot forward for an inspiring journey there are always hindrances in the ecosystem which puts blockages in the form of sexist and judgemental remarks. The same has been the experience for Shagufta Iqbal, who is a streamer (Apex legends, PUBG, CSGO and so on), influencer and associated with an esports organisation called Entity gaming. She says, “Even though the gaming industry is dominated by males, I have put my name up there with all the males! I do receive some mean comments but I just ignore and I don’t let it affect me since at the end of the day, I love gaming and nobody can stop me from doing what I love.”

NODWIN Gaming believes that the skills come first regardless of gender bias outweigh all other parameters that determine the performance of a gamer. NODWIN Gaming salutes the women that have broken the glass ceiling in the ecosystem of esports and dared to make a mark for themselves.Esports emphasises problem-solving, fine motor control, strategy, and preparation, imagination, and strong communication skills which are all gender-neutral and women possess these skills as much as their male counterparts do. 

Here are two women gamers who’ve been successfully competing with their male counterparts in PUBG Mobile. Armed with a fiery passion for the sport and gender-neutral skill sets that include speed, agility, communication, teamwork, hand-eye coordination, good reflexes, fast reaction time, and the ability to make split-second decisions, these women have taken professional gaming to another level while encouraging more women to hop on to the bandwagon.

Sanya Khatri

Sanya Khatri,  17 years old is popular with her digital identity as ‘SANYAHAH’ in the PUBG MOBILE with her team ‘Xhibit’. She grew up watching her uncle play games, developed a passion for the same, and started playing PC games like Call of Duty and Assassin’s Creed. Despite discouragement and pressure to quit, she soon realised gaming as a therapy for her. Although it was scary for her to compete with the top pro players of India, she established herself in the support and assaulter role in her team. Her preferred loadout is M4 and Beryl. However, she is also pursuing ‘Psychology’ in her undergrad.

Simran Dhillon

Simran Dhillon aka “Rage” plays along with her team ‘Xhibit’ in PUBG MOBILE. She is based out of Kolkata and is one of the most recognizable players in ESL India Premiership. She played along with the top gamers of India which helped her to topple over the fear of performance. Constant support from her mother and friends encouraged her to go competitive with the sole intention of learning and gaining experience. The dedication and hard work are paying off as she is now a proud player to reach quarterfinals. Her idols in the Indian esports circuit are known by the nicknames Scout and Mortal.

NODWIN has been associating with women gamers since its inception in 2015. While initially, we just had a handful of women enthusiasts, now we see huge curiosity about professional egaming from women across ages, geographic locations, and socio-economic conditions. Women are increasingly becoming attracted to virtual sports, driven either by their passion or the lure of lucrative prize money.

The post A quick insight on women from Indian esports scene appeared first on AnimationXpress.