Asifa India CGMEETUP 13th September - Case Study By Aardman Animation Studios

I went to my first every CGMeetUp here in Mumbai. Infact my first ever MeetUp since my existence as an animator.

The event was organised by Asifa India and was a case study by the world renowned Aardman Animation Studios and was supported by CGTANTRA.

It was a totally fun experience watching the awe-inspiring work of Aardman who have been pioneers in Stop-Motion animation for many many years(or is it decades?).





Alan and Andrew were kind enough to come down to Mumbai, India representing Aardman and sharing their wonderful work(past, present, a bit of the future).

Aardman's Upcoming Projects

The session started with Alan and Andrew both taking the mic alternatively and speaking about Aardman, its history and finally getting started with the case study in terms of showing their work. They have a huge experience in Stop-Motion and have also entered the CG medium, using it in their work as a blend of stop-motion,CG and 2D. Needless to say the end result is absolutely beautiful.

They showed a wide range of commercials, pitches, how does the pitches work(or why it doesn't work as in getting a client or a project), their shorts, their critically acclaimed, multiple award winning short film Pearce Sisters and some of their work done by their amazing team of artists in their own time just as a hobby or to pursue their creative endeavors.





In the end(from Aardman) they also had an interactive session where the audience was allowed to ask any questions they had. Some of the very interesting questions were -

1. Is it necessary to specialize in one field or be a generalist ?

2. How does Aardman decides which medium to use(Stop-motion, CG, 2D) or does it depends on the client's sensibilities ?

3. Recruitment process of Aardman.

4. Suggestions/advise for people starting in the industry and for the entire fraternity of artists on the whole.

At the end of the event, they had an open mic forum where anyone could share their shorts or any news or information about anything they wanted to. Vaibhav Kumaresh another person doing some great work in Stop-motion, shared some of his beautiful work. It was brilliant and extremely entertaining. Also as a person Vaibhav is quite friendly and a jolly good fellow.

I was surprised to see Dhimant Vyas, the guy who did the highly famed animation (claymation primarily) work in Taare Zameen Par. He spoke about his future projects a bit and in general. With the kind of talent he has and the work he has done, he seemed to me an extremely humble and down to earth person. We need many more people like him for our industry, its so very inspiring.

Overall it was indeed a pleasure and so much fun attending this CGMeetUp and now i am eagerly looking forward to the next event. Attending these kinds of events for the first time,i didn't know a lot of people and hence couldn't interact much, but i am looking forward to that in the upcoming events.

:-)