Bongo comes to planet earth

If this is a sign of things to come then Indian Animation is in for a joy ride.
Hyderabad based Green Gold Animation Pvt. Ltd is celebrating the ratings success of its live-action cum animation venture Parle-Bongo.

Produced by Rudraksha Arts and currently airing on Doordarshan, Bongo is about an animated alien who comes to planet earth to save his planet Zapata. The serial has garnered high TRP's (6.5 All India -Sunday 12.30 pm July 11'04) entering the top 5 shows in the childrens programming genre week ending July11-16.

Green Gold directors Rajiv Chikalapudi and Sameer Jain speaking exclusively to Animation Xpress drew attention to advertiser interest in the serial saying, "We have an in-programme advertising pact with Parle-G Biscuits and you can judge the success of the serial by the fact that Bongo is now called Parle-Bongo."

A composite shot from Bongo

Giving an insight into how the studio met the challenge of producing for television, Rajiv said, " The duration of animation in each episode varies from 3 to 8 mins and a complete episode takes about 15 -18 days to create. We try and avoid all complicated camera movements for compositing shots, in order to spend less time on match move."

"Most of the animated characters are already created, hence we need not create new characters every week. We spent almost 6 months in pre-production in which we created all the virtual sets, 3D characters, their blend shapes, facial expressions, rigged characters, etc. required for production."

Providing a break up of the animation team involved with Bongo, Rajiv informed that other than the full production team for live-action, the animation team consisted of "18 3D Artists, which include 6 animators, 4 lip sync animators, 2 modelers, 1 rigging artists, 2 lighting artists, 2 compositors, and 1 story board artist, besides an Animation Director."

On being asked about the quality of effects, given the budget of animation for Television in India, Rajiv replied, "We have tried to keep the quality of effects as good as possible"

He further shared some details with Animation 'xpress stating, "As far as reflections go for lighting purpose, we use a semi-sphere reflector or shiny ball also called as a light probe, it is a cost effective substance used as a substitute for a fish eye lens and helps us to generate a wide angle view of the scene around where our animated character is planned to be. This allows us to match light on the computer with light based on the light probe, and from the correct direction. This type of measurement for light is called Photometry, i.e, measurement of light detactable to the human eye. This technique is also called HDRI in modern-day animation."

"We also measure distance from camera to virtual object etc. for more accurate lighting adjustments and for placing the camera in the Computer." added Rajiv.

"Green Gold is also producing a 2D series 'Vikram Betal' and "Little Bheem" which will be released shortly. We are in the process of negotiating a few deals with some south regional Channels and Inter-national channels based in US, Canada, Singapore and Malayasia" informed Rajiv.

The company, started in 2001, with an animation studio for production of 3D animation has in the past expanded its animation capacity and has also commissioned a dedicated 2D animation studio.