V.G. Samant, a pioneer of Indian animation and director of Hanuman , the country’s first animation movie, was honoured with the ‘Legend of Animation’ award at the 19th Toonz Animation Masters Summit that got under way at Technopark here on Friday.
Ashish Kulkarni, chairman of FICCI for Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming and Comics Forum, presented the award to Mr. Samant for lifetime contribution to the animation industry. P. Jayakumar, CEO, Toonz Animation, presented the national award-winner and former head of the Animation Division at Films Division, Pune, with a ‘ponnada.’
“You can be physically present somewhere and your mind elsewhere. The power of storytelling should bring you now, here,” Mr. Kulkarni said in his inaugural address. P. Vijay Kumar, secretary, GTech, and Avaneesh Muralidharan, festival director, were present.
Vaibhav Kumaresh, founder director of Vaibhav Studios that has created animated content such as the Amaron battery ad campaign, the Vodafone Zumis, and Lamput, the acclaimed micro-short series for Cartoon Network, spoke about his journey, the film-making process, how the Lamput name originated. He spoke about how he quit the animation studio where he worked to work on a children’s film and how he had always wanted to tell longer stories. His team and he were having so much fun that they did not see themselves as having a burnout, he said.
Vinoth Chander, CEO of Chu Chu TV, one of the most watched YouTube channels with more than 24 million subscribers, spoke about his long journey in animation — from producing flash animation and being paid $5 for them to bringing out music albums with a friend to keep alive their creativity to starting his own channel on YouTube. He spoke of doing a music video for his daughter Harshitha aka Chu Chu after whom the channel is named and how its popularity led to another video and one more and so on. He spoke about focussing on education besides entertainment and adjusting the content to suit cultural differences. Chu Chu TV’s future plans include a 13-episode series called Chu Chu and Friends, channels in Hindu, Telugu, Arabic and Russian, and expansion into merchandise, besides looking at content for slightly older children.
Paul Robinson, international media executive, and P.C. Sanath, VFX expert, spoke.
