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My diploma project highlights the loneliness of a middle-class old age couple living in Mumbai by depicting a day in their life through animation. The outside world has though largely forgotten them and yet they seem to have some reason to celebrate.
Through my film I have tried to create awareness about the condition of the elderly people in today’s world. Nowadays most urban families are becoming nuclear, due to which the elderly are becoming more and more isolated from the community. They are afflicted not only by ailments associated with old age but also by loneliness.
My film is a character-driven story and hence needed a detailed study of real-life characters. I decided to base my film on an elderly Maharashtrian couple, Mr. and Mrs. Khanvilkar. I created several versions of my script and then proceeded with my storyboard. Thereafter, I created the animatics, which helped me examine my storytelling critically. I plotted an ‘emotional graph’ for my film, which helped me determine the colour palette.
My final treatment was a traditional hand-drawn animation method. The colours used were dark grey, black or brown outlines with a basic wash. I used Google Sketchup 6 to help me visualise the backgrounds. For animation, I used video reference to study and understand the action before moving onto the rough animation and cleanup stage. I created a scratch sound track using Adobe Premiere. My film is a general awareness film and thus meant for everybody.
Making this film has been a fantastic learning experience for me. The time and budget constraints, the importance of research and critical feedback, the decision making process and sifting through various points of view to arrive at a single storyline are some of the important things that I have learnt. |
