An animated Rajinikanth appears as suave don Kabali; he wields a hammer instead of a gun, and still looks stylish. “He is Thalaivar and no ordinary don” goes the voiceover. This is one-and-a half-minute teaser has already crossed over seven lakh views and the makers are thrilled with the response. “It’s a tribute to the star from his die-hard fans,” says Deepak Srihari K. He is the founder of Bigwig Animation Studios, a start-up based out of Coimbatore. Deepak and his friends Vikram Sampath, M. Aravind Kumar, and Vishnu Ram, who have known each other since college days joined together to set a new benchmark in the field of animation. “While crazy fans make giant cut outs and perform paal abhiskhem on thalaivar’s posters, we made a teaser to show our love for the star. It’s a different experience for the fans too,” he adds.
It took over one month for the 15-member team to build the virtual model of Rajnikanth. Says Aravind, who has a Masters in animation from U.K., and takes care of the production, “We were experimenting with Blender open source software which is free. It was like our test project. As we experimented with the software to make the teaser, we gave creative inputs to improve the software too.”
“We wanted to present the phenomenon called Rajinkanth in a new light. And glorify the fact that he is Thalaivar who doesn’t conform to any norm,” says Vikram Sampath, who came up with the creative concept for the teaser.
The team took up the project to showcase their capabilities in animation. Their long-term goal is to make 3D-animation feature films in India at globally set standards. “Animation films made in India hardly work well at the box office. Ironically, the teams at Disney or Pixar that churn out so many animation productions have technicians from India. Here, everyone looks at the commerce of it and, somehow, the passion is lost. We want to change this,” says Deepak.
The Bigwig Animation Studios team. Photo: Special arrangement
He filtered thousands of profiles to build a hand-picked team drawn from across the country. They made the teaser to prove how one can work with available resources. “It is possible to present good output without compromising on quality. This was a first project for our team in photo realism where the character is close to reality. The detailing takes time. You need a lot of photographs that capture the character in 360-degree views to work on. All we had were a couple of posters from the film Kabali as a reference point. It is like modelling him in clay, inch by inch. We experimented with new ways of story-telling, innovative camera techniques, and wrapped up the project in a short span,” explains Vishnu Ram. The teaser, he says, sets a benchmark in real-time character modelling. The background score by Aswathaman of Panjharaksha Media in Coimbatore was a big plus. “The way the music composer screams out Kabaaali from his gut as the end credits roll packed a lot of energy,” says Vishnu.
The team at Bigwig has also made a one-minute film Kraai that involves a crow and a man, to showcase production values. They are working on a pilot project for another short-film titled Pencil and Eraser. Another big project is a commercial for rice bran oil where they experiment with a new form of story-telling involving live video and animation.
But right now the team wants to bask in the glory of Kabali. “The teaser was a worth-while experience. It put the work of our team in the limelight globally. Enquiries poured in from the U.K., Singapore and elsewhere,” says Deepak. The teaser was shared on social media by a number of fans which also included actors such as Premgi Amaren, Vaibhav, and director Venkat Prabhu. They tweeted the video with positive comments and tagged the superstar’s daughters, director Pa. Ranjith of Kabali, and editor Prvaeen K.L of the film. Says Deepak, “Everyone liked the trailer. We just hope that it catches our Thalaivar’s eye too.”
