Bangalore based Morph Digital Studio’s animation short ‘Toah’s Ark’ has won the Planet Water Video Contest. The movie has won in the Animation Category.
This competition was organised by Barcelona 2013 15th FINA World Championship with the collaboration and technical support of the Museu Olímpic i de l’Esport Joan Antoni Samaranch / BCN Sports Film Festival.
AnimationXpress.com interacted with Anirudh Goutham, Director of Morph Digital Studio to know about the making ‘Toah’s Ark’.
It’s a great achievement to have won in an International competition, how did you come up with the idea of this short?
Toah’s ark started with an idea my wife Preethi came up with, during her project work while she was completing her course in Maya in 2008. It didn’t happen then but lingered on for years till we found time to create and finish it last year. As most would do, we wanted to start our first short with a social message as it helps in grabbing eye balls. The film has a universal appeal and should be watched and understood by all adults. We have based the film on a young boy’s vision as kids these days are very aware of our environmental condition whereas we adults continue to abuse it in greed.
Can we know more about story line of this short?
We try our level best to tell our own stories through collaboration and imagination in the most innovative way. Toah’s ark is a socially driven message of a boy’s vision, highly influenced by Noah’s Ark from the Bible. He hails from a snow capped region and has realized that his home is melting because of the atrocities committed by people across the world. He has realized that his home is melting and the only way to save himself and his family is to build a boat like noah’s ark that will save him and his loved ones. With this thought we have juxtaposed visuals of the sin we are committing as adults across the world which are resulting in melting his surroundings.
This concept was an arbid thought showcased with art and thought. We observed that mostly in cities, people throw garbage all around and ignore the environmental issues. I wanted this film to make the people realize that we are part of the guilty and it’s time to start caring about nature
When did you start working on this short film?
The idea was born as early as 2008 but remained as a word document in a folder. In 2012, we realized that this issue should be bought to notice of the people in an animated form. We took around 6 months and completed the movie in July 2012.
Please share the credit list with us
This film wouldn’t be possible without the dedicated efforts of our team members mentioned below:
Story: Anirudh Goutham
Direction: Giridhar. J
Production Supervisor: Preethi Sriram
Lead Animator/ Backgrounds/ concept art/ character Design: Jithin Puttenpurakkal
Animation Team: Mithilesh and Clinto
Post Production and fx: Sabarish Sureshbabu
Music: Abhijit Shylanath
How would you describe the look and feel of this short?
The film has been created using cel animation and flash. We have used 2 different looks where the parts depicting Toah’s home have been kept clean, simple, shades of blue and the other side of the story has been depicted using darker colors, more details, grunge and subtle animation not to distract the visuals. Blue and Green were used for the clean parts whereas Blacks, Grey and Brown for the polluting arts of the film.
What types of music beats were used for this film and why did you prefer soft music along with visuals and not any kind of dialogues?
We wanted a background track that would change with the changing landscape, something that would bring in an emotional connect with the film. The background vocals do just that along with a very soothing and likable track by Abhijit Shylanath from Emotion Audio.
How did Barcelona Water Olympics 2013 happen?
We posted our video on Vimeo. Director from the Barcelona Water Olympics happened to watch our film and got in touch with us to participate in the contest. The Organizing Committee of the 15th FINA World Championships Barcelona 2013 (BCN2013) with the collaboration and technical support of the Museu Olímpic i de l’Esport Joan Antoni Samaranch / BCN Sports Film Festival organized the Planet Water Video competition. There is a € 1,000 prize for the winner of each of the five categories: animation, documentary, fiction, experimental, musical video clip. All selected videos were also screened during the World Championships.
What are your upcoming projects?
We are working on 4 other short films. 1 a comedy short based on an old joke, the 2nd is a dark comedy with a thriller twist, a third is a new version of the Ramayana with an old indian art style and the fourth a 3d short using all the assets we have created over time.