Hasta La Motion!

After a night full of enjoyment which included a rock music concert, the first day of Orbit Live 2017 concluded and gave way to a fresh early morning start with a Zumba class and a Yoga session. The second day (3 February, 2017) at the animation and VFX festival organised by Arena Animation was filled with Master Classes taken by the experts from around the world. The classes were divided into two sessions, one in the morning from 11 am to 1 pm and the other in the afternoon from 2:30 pm to 4:30 pm. Each session consisted of six Master Classes which were conducted simultaneously in various halls.

The day commenced with La Citta Incantata festival director, Luca Raffaelli showcasing a small glimpse of what the festival is all about. When Raffaelli was asked by the government to organise an animation festival in the sparsely populated Nocera Inferiore, he had his doubts about the success of the festival due to the fact that there aren’t many artists working in Italy. However, he thought of bringing the artists of this field together, and get them to share their ideas and opinions on the topic. And voila! We now have La Citta Incantata.

“As our subtitle ‘Civita Di Bagnoregio’ suggests, the festival is an international meeting of artists to save the world,” explained Raffaelli about the thought process that went into while coming up with this fest. He also mentioned the fact that, “It is not easy to make animated movies in Italy. Hence artists go to various other countries like France or Switzerland to pursue their passion.”

Raffaeli played three beautifully narrated and worked upon animated shorts that were a part of his festival. These were Un Film de Donato Sansone, Hiroshima Nagasaki Russian Roulette and Case of ‘Planets’ by Igor Imoff. The shorts yet again proved that in animation, only imagination is the limit. You can bring any kind of fantasy to life through this medium. It’s just a projection of ideas.

Post the various masterclasses spread throughout the day, what awaited the students was the screening of short films. Animayo Festival director, Damian Perea first screened the best animated shorts which he had picked from his International Festival of Animation Film, Visual Effects and Videogames – Animayo. Animayo receives about 2,000 short films from around the world each year. Every film at Animayo gets a stage and exposure and the film-maker earns a chance to come to the light. Some of the best films screened were For Honour, Assassin’s Creed: The Sydicate, Tea Time (France), Suleima (Syria), We Can’t Live Without Cosmos (Russia), Bingo (Netherlands), The Orchestra (Australia) and Alike (Spain).

Next up was one of the most awaited seminar by Ishan Shukla where he screened his Oscar qualified and award-winning animated short called “Schirkoa”. Schirkoa, an independent animated short, was screened in 40 film festivals and has won 17 awards till date. It is going to be showcased in many more countries. Shukla was invited to brief the students on how he made the award-winning short film. He explained the entire process of making, from conception to production, music, rendering and finally how the film came to life. Working single-handedly on the project, it took Shukla four years to complete the film wherein he had to shell out about US $10,000.

Maya, Adobe CC, Redshift, Dropbox, Google Drive, Skype, Winamp were the various applications used while working on the movie. To save his time, he bought various assets like vehicles, lamps, tables. With the help of his friends, Shukla completed his character animation by sending them self shot video references for every key shot. He said, “Being an independent artist, I had limited resources and not high end systems which could render heavy files quickly. However, Redshift eased out things for me as it’s quick and works well even on a low end system.”

There was also an interactive session between the students whose short films got selected for the Orbit Live industry awards and the four experts – Ishan Shukla, Damian Perea, Patryk Kizny and Xes Vila. They talked about how to balance out between things and not be overtaken by technology. When asked by a student whether one should pursue their passion or career, all the four artists had similar say on it. Shukla said, “Always follow what you like as in the long term, it will pay you off.” While Damian Perea added, “There will be times when you will have to choose between being an artist and doing work that will get you paid. Both things are important. You require money to do your own thing so if you want to work, work for the big one and then when you have the money, do your own thing. After sometime, money might lure you in but your heart is always telling you what you want. Remember, ‘Money isn’t everything’.”

The day ended with an Egyptian themed party wherein students, faculty, dignitaries got the chance to play musical instruments and sway their hearts out to the music.

The post Day 2 of Orbit Live 2017: A day full of masterclasses & award winning animated shorts screenings by La Citta Incantata, Animayo and Ishan Shukla (‘Shirkoa’) appeared first on AnimationXpress.