Link to Arena Animation Academy, Sec 17, Chandigarh website
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Students checking out the State of the Art VFX Equiment
Arena Chandigarh Students check out State-of-the-Art VFX (Visual Effects) Equipment on their campus following “Learn The Secrets of becoming a VFX Pro!!” a Seminar by VFX Artist, and Specialist Aayush Chopra (Masters Degree in VFX from Bournemoth Universty, UK).
They were able to see and handle the high-end Video Stablizer one of it’s kind in North India (not even available with professional studios in North India). Only select studios across India have this equipment have this kind of equipment. Hence even most vfx professionals in India have not seen one!
The saw the imported Green Screen, Softbox lights with the highest possible illumination. They also saw the full body suits used in motion capture, follow focus, as well as the ubiquitious clap.
State-of-the-art VFX Equipment at VirtualSoft Studio
Learn the Secrets of becoming a VFX Pro!!
“Learn The Secrets of becoming a VFX Pro!!” A Seminar was held today at Arena Animation Academy, Sec 17, Chandigarh, by VFX Artist, and Specialist Aayush Chopra (Masters Degree in VFX from Bournemoth Universty, UK), on the path to becoming a VFX Professional and the learnings required to become one. Being privy to the latest happenings internationally, Aayush was in an excellent position to share the secrets of the professionals.
He demonstrated the entire VFX Pipeline to the hall chock-a-block eager students. Going through the pipeline step by step he uncovered each step and the various measures taken at each step to ensure that reality of the scene is not compromised. He also dwelled on the major savings in cost by the intelligent use of VFX quelling the myth that VFX is a costly option. In fact he showed why it is cheap to opt for VFX than go for a live constructed scene.
Trained in the Art of VFX by eminent VFX artists from the world over during his Masters at Bournemoth University, UK, Aayush shared various tips given by the experts to avoid costly equipment and the way simple utility items could achieve the same end result.
Arena Chandigarh also later demostrated state-of-the-art VFX Equipment directly imported from UK by their Studio VirtualSoft.
Learn The Secrets of becoming a VFX Pro!!!
various tips given by the experts to avoid costly equipment and the way simple utility items could achieve the same end result.
I remember in my school days there used to be a guy named Alam Munim. He used to draw so well. All in the class used to see his drawing and enjoy!! Leaving couple more including me, none of other students could ever put down a presentable drawing. Even the toppers were nowhere in this respect even after lot of effort.
This has really been a mystery why some people find it so difficult to draw what they can see right in front of them and others are able to do so quite effortlessly. After some amount of effort those who are unable to come out with satisfactory drawing just give it up for whole of their life finalizing an assumption that they just cant draw.
We experienced similar instances during our long journey of creative education in the last 16 years. Noticed similar blocks that students faced who couldn’t draw. Setting out in research we were lucky enough to come across researches by Psychobiologist Roger W. Sperry’s and Art scholar Betty Edwards.
Most wondrous was the fact that there are two basic modes of thinking – one is Left Brain Mode (verbal, analytic and sequential) and other is Right Brain Mode (visual, perceptual and simultaneous). Howsoever intelligent a person could be with his/her left brain, unless a person switches to Right brain mode he cannot perform many creative activities, Drawing being the prime among those.
This theory gave the short cut exercises to Drawing skills and incidentally also to the creative mode of thinking.
The result is a magical workshop that we deliver to students. Within a short span of 5 days any person starts drawing. Just have a look at before and after drawings of students -
Would have been such a great gift to all my class mates 
Shooting was going on at full swing in a small village near Pune for a small budget movie. One supporting actor needed for the forth coming scene to be shot at this location could not be cast till now. Director could be seen bouncing on phone, may be calling his casting director.
Near evening, jeep of the casting director flooded into the sets. He comes out and announces “Found the actor!!”. All eyes on the Jeep. He opens his rear door and guides out a skinny guy. Director wore a smile of relief. The guy tries to come towards the Director, but stumbles, staggers, limps badly, falls down two three times, his hands moved totally uncoordinated. Director and whole of the team zero in at the casting director. Casting director answers,”No worries. He is just learning to walk, move, understand gravity, his weight, coordination of his arms when walking etc etc. I will train him in the night and he will be ready for acting out the shot in the morning.”
Amm..I’m sorry the above story was not true, but I think I got the idea right. Animator cannot put his character to the acting shot, unless his character learns all body mechanics, weight, play of forces in the body, gravity, walking, moving. Unless moving the body believably becomes his(animators and his character’s) second nature.
Although very tempting, animation student should never try jumping to acting shots, unless he is able to get his body mechanics accurate. Any good character animation training program will have loads of exercises teaching body mechanics before starting acting shots.
Many studios while hiring freshers are more interested in checking if the applicant can get body mechanics right instead of giving them any acting shot during recruitment. Because it is possible for the Director to teach acting to an actor, but it seems bit difficult for the Director to teach the actor body mechanics, especially in one night 
Bye for now!! Keep Animating!!!
While evolving this art of animation at Disney Studios, artists noticed themselves mentioning few “things” and asking each other if that “thing” has been taken care of in animation.
Those “things” then got listed and became principles of animation.
Not precisely but these can be broadly categorised to make them more digestible. This will help memorizing them.
Out of 12,
- 6 principles take care of physics and mechanics to make the series of drawings/poses look believable animation/movement that follows laws of physics.
Stretch and squash, timing and spacing, slow in slow out, arcs, overlapping/follow through, secondary action
- 3 take care of aesthetics
Exaggeration, Staging and Appeal
- and 3 are concerned with methodology and technique
Straight ahead, Pose to pose, Solid drawing.
All 12 should become second nature of an animator. CG animators may not have to confront the last 1.
When Sahil Luthra along with his batchmate Charanjit Singh decided to make a live movie, they were posed with a total lack of knowledge about the art. Having to make a career start didn’t make things easy either. Faced with a dilemma they took the route to discussing it at their favorite haunt – Arena Chandigarh. That turned out to be the start of the unending journey’s to the centre library (a place they literally hated when they were doing the course) and buried under pointed advice and guidance, and of course a lot of books on film making, they started to unravel the film world, thread by thread. Film Theory, Camera Angle, Set Design, Continuity, Rule of Thirds and techniques of story telling began to make sense in their heads. Well let’s watch the Movie and then have a frank talk with them.
I think i owe a lot to Arena Chandigarh and Vineet Sir in realizing my dream of making films. He introduced me to "Citizen Kane". He introduced me to Hitchcock. I’ve read and re-read books on his recommendations through the Arena 17 library. I have always preferred Modern Cinema but if it wasn’t for him, i wouldn’t have discovered the likes of Orson Welles, Hitchcock, Coppola and many other greats. Though it’s been almost an year since the completion of my course, i still visit him occasionally for an update on my knowledge of films.
Which software did you use for this movie?
I used after effects for color correction and tracking and adobe premiere for editing.
What was the one incident you remember from the making of this movie?
In order to shoot on time , i had to clean the entire location myself. The house had been abandoned for a while. 
Sahil K Luthra , Director
Any other incident?
I cant seem to remember another one.
Charanjit Singh had problems sitting on his knees with those jeans on, with the amount of retakes we did, he almost didn’t want to do it. But we took a little rest and went on again.
We had ganne (sugarcane) ka juice during the break and he was ready to do it again. That was a cheap trick, but it worked
My next project is a prequel to my very first short film. Its titled “Precaptured” and we are shooting this in the second weekend of November with the same cast and a few new additions. Thank you!
Meticulously devised exercises were rolled today to the final year batch who are all set to jump into 4 months long 3D character animation programme.
It has been a common experience that the passouts of most of the academies are able to attempt 3D modeling, texturing tasks but totally fail to do justice to 3D character animation.
This skill is very less about tools and totally about the Concept and Art. Mastering an Artform takes painstaking effort from the student and highly devised exercises from the mentor/academy that lets the student make right kind of efforts.
One day workshop in stop motion carried on by Parminder Singh, Design and Animation mentor, had exercises which contrasts with the Genre of stop motion exercises that are done to make something exciting and entertaining. These were totally meant to give full hold on the most basic concepts which actually are responsible for very high end 3D character animation.
And the best part of the workshop was that the passouts of the last batch were in a position to actually mentor all the students during the workshop. Mangat, Ramandeep Kaur and Linken were at the forefront.
Sandeepan with Faculty Mentors
DESIGN WORKSHOP Approximately month long art and design workshop that complemented the design softwares’ training, concluded on last month. Students of AAIP- 1st semester, the semester that comprehensively covers all aspects of static graphic designing, were full time engaged in the activity. Most essential layout design concepts, laws, theories and trends were served in a most practical fashion by putting students into a real life situation. The design mentor, Parminder Singh, got the activity started by playing the role of a mock client and gave a client brief. The product, pricing, product category, the target audience were briefed to them. They had to work from scratch starting from branding to package designing to layout/poster designing for the same. Then it was creative sweat and toil, day and night. Students came out with versatile ideas, each one was reviewed. With each review poured in all design knowledge of the mentor, constructively critiquing each design element put in by students. The process evolved the artworks as well as the student’s design aesthetics.
“Hi, I am Sandipan Bhattacharjee, a student of arena animation Chandigarh 17. I want to tell you about my experience of studying graphic designing during our 1st sem. we got a project of branding a perfume . I designed logos, packaging and poster for my product ROYAL BLOOM. I designed the logos and packaging in ‘corel draw’ and the poster in ‘adobe photoshop’. During this module i learned how expressive logos should be made, how packaging are designed keeping in mind the cost and users of the product. In poster designing i learned composition of a layout, use of the principles of design, i.e balance, proportion, rhythm etc. I also learned how to create depth in a composition. In short I can say that this project taught me enough things to make a solid start in the industry. And I am thankful to all my faculties in this project for their full support and guidance.” – Sandipan Bhattacharjee, 1st Sem, AAIP
“The whole experience of this workshop was great. I’ve learnt the many aspect regarding Branding a product into real life market. This campaign was started with an idea of brand and covered logo designing, product look and feel, advertising posters till brand promotions and selling strategies. I would like to thank Arena and the Faculty for their continuous support and encouragement.” – Subodh Atal, 1st Sem, AAIP
“I am Monika and I share my experience about Photoshop and coral draw designing. I had a lot of experience… how to make package designing, logo, poster designing by the help of our faculties. It was great experience!!” – Monika Saini, 1st Sem, AAIP
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- Sandeepan with Faculty Mentors
Starbiz came for campus placements yesterday. Starbiz is a leading Event management company from the city. It is a decade old company which is famous for the Chandigarh Marathon and many Rose Festivals. They are looking for a Graphic Designer to handle their publicity and marketing presentations. 6 students, Naresh Adhikari, Shubham Saini, Paramjeet Singh, Simranjit Singh, Harshdeep Kaur and Vikas Nayyar were shortlisted for interview. After the interview 3 candidates have been shortlisted for the final interview today – they are Harshdeep Kaur, Paramjeet Singh and Simranjit Singh. The final Interviews are today – Best of Luck.
Meanwhile news from the Placement Fair, held at New Delhi on 13-14 July 2012 has started pouring in. Soumya called last night to inform that she’s been called for another round of interviews. Waiting for other students to let know.
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- Best Performance Award
Bhanu Sharma, our Alumnus of Multimedia Program from 1997-1998 came visiting the campus to interact with the students and faculty on 28 Dec 2011. He spent some time interacting with the students sharing his experiences and answered their queries. He’s currently working in Ericcson as a Product Design Head and is located in the US. He recapped his long journey that started at Arena and through many different positions at Wanadu, Macromedia, Adobe and his own startups and upto the current position. He guided students on various aspects of tackling career issues and taking career decisions.
He gave away Awards to some Arena Toppers.
Best Performance Award
