Link to Arena Animation Academy, Sec 17, Chandigarh website
Tag-Archive for » programs «
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
-
- 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.
A student snapshot from an Interview at Arena
The Placements Fair 2012 was held at New Delhi on 13-14 July 2012. About 200 students attended the Event. 4 companies (Aniguru) turned up on Day 1 and Day 2 was reserved for Digitoonz.
Arena Chandigarh also sent some of its best students for the national level jobs. The students were given assistance in preparing their CV by faculty and their work was reviewed and tips were given before the students departed for New Delhi in the wee hours of 13 July 2012. They reported on time and were able to attend all interviews. Now with crossed fingers we are awaiting the results.
Sheikh Chilli - Storyboard sketch © VirtualSoft Studio, Chandigarh
The world started seeing moving pictures through animation and not as live movies as per the popular notion. Sets of sequential pictures have been seen all over the world in different cultures. All Buddhist stupas have the entire storyboard of Buddha’s life left for us in accurate detail. Good enough for you to make out his life and transform into a movie or an animation.
Human beings learn maximum when the essence is delivered in terms of a story. This is especially in case of conceptual learning. To tell a story we have to put together a crew. Now sometimes our story becomes too difficult to tell when the setting is a fantasy, or if the risk involved is too much (like acting with a lion – over come in Narnia). And most of the folklore which build our character are fantasies of one’s mind. So it became important that man was able to create such imagery and animation became important.
Since the animators have to deal with such complex decisions. Art decisions are the toughest decisions and no computer has reached the point where it can take artistic decisions yet. Hence animation and storytelling require people who are artists by heart and willing to experiment and toil till they find the right answer.
Typically an animator is a person who is full of patience and reads voraciously (bookworm for the less initiated) and love literature and languages. The animator would usually be good at drawing and/ or painting. Some of them are good at acting or love to perform on stage in form of dancing. A few of these even write stories or poems. In short they are dreamers and usually can be expected to learn disciplines which give wings to their dreams. They do not care about money and are more likely to lend money on hunch than an engineer since they are emotional. This empathy is what makes them achieve emotion of screen.
Mouse Character - Storyboard sketch © VirtualSoft Studio, Chandigarh
To make a good career in animation you must start working on your drawing and there are some good books like “Drawing from the right side of brain” (Betty Edwards) which claim that anyone can learn drawing within 5 days. There are other experts too who claim similarly that drawing is a skill that can be acquired.
Parallely you could be working on your drama or literary skills as well. Being able to develop communication skills like these would anyway serve you all your life so do not hesitate just because your education board doesn’t know how to rate these skills and they go missing from your marksheet. I must state here that there are much more subjects you need to learn in your life that are not there on your high school marksheet than those that are on it. It can easily be stated that a little less knowledge of mathematics would not be so detrimental as a small lack of confidence that the stage can give.
Now once you’re ready to learn, there are 2 kinds of paths that you can take. One is the path of self learning that the best take (people like Gandhi, Chaplin, Einstein, Disney, Ghalib, Steve Jobs, CV Raman, Kabir, etc fall in this category). This is no way a safe path and more people fail than succeed in this path. The other is the path for lesser mortals. There are more chances of a safe career but consequently lesser chances of astounding success. However, it ensures that you go through structured learning within a reasonable time frame. However, this method is not able to keep pace with rare/ exceptional people, but is the best for the rest. Anyway not to confuse you further, mostly this path would be apt for you. Now you must choose a curriculum or an institute. If you are very clear about what you want to do, choose a curriculum and enroll for it. If you want to create a solid base go for an institute you like. Nothing but your innermost talent and passion should lead you to the course and the institute you choose. Go speak to people over there and see if you like their philosophy and they change your perspective. Try their website for more details. Typically go for a school which offers all the information including faculty on their website if all other things are the same.
The leading institutes in this field in the world are CalArts, USFCA, Sheridan, Vanarts, Seneca, Gobelins, George Mieles, Animation Mentor, Gnomon, Ringling, Savannah, USCLA, etc. Closer home in India some of the best would include IIT-IDC, NID etc. Then there’re the Arena, MAAC franchises (always research which centres are the good ones). There’re even some new colleges that are coming up and it would take some time before a college stands out from others in terms of quality.
Typically you must try to learn both the art of 2D as well as 3D animation to start with. Later on in life you may opt for one of these once you’re surer on what works best for you. Also, there’d be many options in 3D like lighting, rendering, texturing, modeling, rigging, blend shapes, animating etc. Similarly in 2D, like background artist, key animator, in betweener, in and paint artist, key compositor. There are some common areas too, like storyboarding, character design, background design, art research, compositing. There are some periphery areas too like sound design, voice artist, actors, story writers, screenplay writers etc. In fact, similarly there are many techniques of animation that you can work in – like clay animation, paper animation, light animation, sand animation, paint animation, jib jab animation, puppetry animation, pixilation etc besides the usual ones like flash animation, 2d animation, and 3d animation. There’re even periphery and neo-animation areas like Visual Effects, Motion Graphics, Web Design, Graphic Design, Matchmoving, Motion Capture, Stereography, etc.
While you are learning the art of animation do also work alongside on other creative areas like film making, photography, clay modeling, drawing, theatre, etc. Get reviews by knowledgeable people and take feedback without responding emotionally to it. Keep on visiting art galleries and improving your art appreciation ability. This would develop your creative eye and judgment. All this is immensely useful in creative decision making. Do also attend all workshops in your college and also take up paid workshop if a good expert is visiting. These workshops would help build your perspective. Try to find a faculty you resonate with and if you feel confident about the faculty do take suggestion and mentoring from him/ her. Do remember that faculty can change and do not respond personally to it, try to adapt yourself to change in environment and take everything in the right spirit. Also learn life skills by working with people you don’t personally like, when they are in your teams, especially if their skill set is good. Do also take faculty help in identifying good books and make it a habit to read a minimum of one page per day. You can mail me for a list of books if you like at virtualciti@yahoo.com
Scene Setup - Storyboard sketch © VirtualSoft Studio, Chandigarh
Finally once you’re ready to step out of college, do build your portfolio to the desired level even if it delays your start. You can also go for an internship before going into the real market. This would help develop your skill to the next higher level. You can also form a group with some of your likeminded friends and work on a personal movie. A good movie can kick start your career like nothing. Also, if the movie wins a prestigious award you can expect to grow exponentially as the studios would not like to miss out of talent. For e.g. two of the students of gobelins school production “oktapodi” were hired for good sums and send to india to rhythm and hues to work on Hollywood films.
And when in doubt and short of answers, you can mail me. I shall try my best to solve your queries. 9872546753. www.arenaanimationacademy.com, www.alumniarena.com
Today a workshop for Art and Craft was conducted inside the premise of Arena Chandigarh.
In this work shop students learned how to do an art work with thermocol and colour paints.
They learned in workshop how to design and colour in making the Cartoon character’s.
In the workshop students has shown group work, team strength as well as team spirit with utmost
dedication and enjoyment. This kind of workshop is typically usefull for Character designing for animation.
Today a out door visit of Rock garden for sketching and nature study was conducted by Arena Animation 17 chandigarh for 2d animation classical batch. In this out door visit students learned study to nature and sketch with shade in open place. In this visit students has done Individual work ,with team strength as well as team spirit with utmost dedication and enjoyment. This kind of out door visit is typically useful for animation, background, layout design, camera angle and storyboard.
Animation Artist and Mentor, Parminder Singh, fully nurtured in the premises of Arena Animation Chandigarh, Sector 17 and VirtualSoft Studio, has been rated best by Head Office on All India ground in a 3D character animation conducted by them.
A 10 second audio clip was given to all the faculty members across India by Head Office. Faculty members from all the centres were supposed to animate a character on the dialogue and submit to the Head Office. HO was to rate the quality of animation based on the final product as well as the working method the faculty member follows to get that final product.
Parminder secured 91 out of 100 and landed top in the entire country.
VIDEO
To rejoice the moment Parminder preferred to celebrate a cake party with all his animation students and team members. In the party all centre management and staff members joined to pat on his back for this success.
“..I would like to give all due credits to the most healthy learning environment of Arena Sector 17 premises.
Arena 17 Animation Faculty Rated Best in India
Being associated with the academy for about 8 years I am in a position to give feedback on it to all the students. The academy is not only a perfect place to learn all creative skills, it has been excellent in teaching work ethos, work culture and management which are highly important parts in growth of an artist..”, Parminder stated on being congratulated by all the students and team members.
He added, “..I cannot forget the part strong mentoring and guidance of chief mentor, Mr. Vineet Raj Kapoor has played in my growth in the past years..”
Student Speak:
His animation students couldn’t stop commenting upon the 3D character animation training they are enjoying with him.
..the way he communicates with us is simply too good. He know very well that how to teach low to high level
students…I have never seen any animation teacher like him with these top level skills. He is having so many skills in him…”- Linken, BSc 3rd year.
“..I am very happy and feeling lucky to attend animation classes of Parminder Sir… We are doing animation very deeply which are not normally taught by anyone anywhere..”- Ramandeep Ashal, BSc 3rd year.
“..he is very good in animator. The animation exercises are very enjoyable and it takes lot of patience to do them..I have to thank Parminder Sir for giving us professional training of animation”- Shubham Saini, BSc 3rd year.
“..he teaches us with emotions. If we fail then it hurts him more than us. I only want to say that we are lucky because we have a teacher like him..” – Mangat, BSc 3rd year.
“..before his classes I thought I am not able to do animation, but after attending Parminder Sir’s classes, my thinking has totally changed…” – Ramandeep Kaur, BSc 3rd year.
