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THE ANIMATION JINX BEING BROKEN? |
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If there was one aspect of film making
in which Hollywood was and is still miles
ahead of the Indian film industry, it
definitely has to be visual effects and
animation. Animation has been a part of
the staple Hollywood offering for decades
now. But, sadly the Indian film industry
has been very slow to develop on this
front. Things seem to be changing now
and film makers in India seem to be waking
up to the potential and scope of animation.
There have been many instances over the
years when animation has made fleeting
appearances in Indian cinema. One still
recounts the song from Raja Chinna Roja
which had animated characters dancing
along with Rajini and Gauthami. There
is also the last portion of the song from
Kushi where something similar had been
tried. But, such attempts were far and
few in between to allow animation to get
any foothold in the industry.
It is only in the mid 2000 and the arrival
of films like Hanuman and My Friend Ganesha
that good quality animation began to be
seen on a regular basis in Indian cinema.
Till then, Indian animation products looked
plastic and highly artificial when compared
to products from Hollywood studios like
Stuart Little, Toy Story, A Bug’s
Life or many other instances of great
animation that can be cited. We have come
to a point where one of the
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biggest production houses in the country, Yashraj
Films, produced its first full length animation feature
film, Roadside Romeo in 2009. While the box office
output of the film was far from convincing or encouraging,
the standards of animation definitely gave a lot of
hope. Even Tamil cinema tried its hand at a full length
animation film with Inime Nanga Daan. A brave attempt,
even if it is a bit harsh, it has to be said that
the standards of animation looked below par. But,
the credit for pioneering such a thought will definitely
be with Inime Nanga Daan. And now, we are looking
forward to India’s most expensive animation
outing ever, and it will feature no one less than
the Superstar- Sultan, the warrior. Soundarya Rajinikanth,
director of Sultan the warrior has quite clearly stated
that doing a perfect animation film is one of her
ambitions. She has also said that animation is much
tougher and takes much longer in completing than what
it appears to be when finally brought out onto screen.
Perhaps that justifies the amount of time that the
movie has taken in the making. And, when it does release,
let us hope that it sets new benchmarks for animation
in Indian cinema.
But, animation and special effects are not only for
full length animation features. There is also immense
scope for the use of visual effects or graphics, as
we like to call them, in normal cinema as well. Indian
cinema has always been trying to get the best possible
graphics work done within the limited resources that
it has. Director Shankar is definitely a pioneer on
this front, bringing effects like morphing into Indian
cinema way back in 1996 with Indian. In fact, he had
shown quite a panache for visual effects even as early
as Kaadhalan, remember the head-hand and legless Prabhu
Deva dancing in the ‘Muqualla’ song. He
took it to a new level with Sivaji. Now, the trend
seems to have caught on quite well.
Even small films are beginning to have some high quality
animation work. Remember, the visual effects in the
songs of Sakkarakatti, quite something for a movie
featuring debutantes. There was also the recent Aayirathil
Oruvan where quite an admirable effort was made to
take visual effects to the next level, though, many
would say, the best results were not achieved.
The visual effects seen in the songs of Sarvam were
definitely amongst the best seen in Indian cinema.
The key was in maintaining the real feel even while
showing the character doing something humanly impossible,
like Superman, Spiderman and Batman have been doing
over the years.
With Endhiran almost complete, we might be headed
towards one of the costliest visual effects experiments
in Indian cinema. There is no doubt that with the
kind of theme (robots Vs humans) and a double role
by Rajinikanth with the characters having to fight
each other, there will be a lot of scope for ground
breaking visual effects (at least by Indian cinema
standards). Let us look forward to some great animation
in Indian cinema in the near future.
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