My brief was to work on a film for the client burpp.com, whose key job is to analyze the best eating joints in and out of the city, ranging from five star hotels to road stalls and give you a proper and clear idea about the place when you want to go out. This included working on right from initial storyboard, character design, animation to post production.
As the name suggests, the story is based on the Indian mythological character, Shabari. It’s one of the incidents in Ramayana where Rama and Laxmana are wandering in the jungle during their days of exile in the forest. They are hungry and thirsty when they finally spot Shabari’s hut. Shabari also seems to be quite delighted with the fact that Lord Rama has finally arrived. Overjoyed, she starts dancing and serves them ber. But, quite contrary to the story of Ramayana, Shabari bites and eats all the ber and lets off a huge burp. The film ends with the logo of burrp.com and their baseline “let it out.”
Apart from making the film look good, I had to lend it an illustrative quality. I could not go beyond a certain limit as far as the humour was concerned since it could hurt religious sentiments as it involved Lord Rama and Laxmana. The characters, background and the overall layout had to have the flavour of Madhubani style so that it went well with the Indian theme.
Overall, it was good working on this project. Apart from work, it also taught me how to deal with the client and put my point across when I think the client is not ready to understand the complete picture. Sometimes, on the other hand, I too should be open to suggestions.
