New animation technique

Animation could be affordable, says Kothapalli Seetharam, an enthusiastic animator whose film ‘Andha Viswas’ will be screened on Thursday as part of the 16th International Children’s Film Festival.

Aiming to re-create the whole of ‘Panchatantra’ in the “new cost-effective technique”, that he claims to have discovered, Mr.Seetharam says it will be a joyful experience for the children to watch the movie. The technique, as described by him, relies on robotics and costs only a fraction of the mainstream animation.

“The usual animation needs 1140 frames per minute. If the scene has five characters, the number of frames would be five times more. My method is simple. It uses 16 basic models of robots, stuffed and wrapped in cloth to give them the appearance of various birds and animals,” Mr.Seetharam explained at a press conference on Wednesday. Connected to a CPU, the robots will follow the keyboard commands to perform certain actions which will be captured by the camera as in the ordinary film-making.

So far Mr.Seetharam shot only two episodes out of the planned 45 in Panchatantra. The first episode was screened at the first Asian Film Festival conducted by the Children’s Film Society, AP. ‘Andha Viswas’ is his second.

Hailing from Srikakulam, Mr.Seetharam, a goldsmith by profession, completed only elementary education when he was drawn towards animation.

“I had passion towards Panchatantra and wanted to tell the story in animation. Exorbitant costs involved in animation films drove me to devise the new technique,” he explained. Project Panchatantra costs only Rs.1.5crore, though the effect is of high quality, he assures. (EOM)