I declare that this written submission represents my ideas in my own words, and where others'. I also declare that I have complied with all principles of academic honesty and integrity and have not misrepresented, fabricated or falsified any idea/data/fact/source in my submission. This thesis titled 'PERIYA PIRATTI'- an animation short film by Pravin J (MD17MDES11014) has been approved for the degree of Master of Design from IIT Hyderabad.
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my professors Dr. Deepak John Mathew, Dr. Prasad Onkar, Dr. Neelkantan, Mr. Delwyn Remedios, Mr. Shiva Ji and Prof. Delwyn Remedios, for his support, expertise and time to help me do this thesis project. In addition, I would like to thank all my friends who helped me to succeed in this project.
The story revolves around this incident, how her illness affects the family and the emotional state of the children. In this film, the filmmaker tried to give hope to such hopeless people through this real-life incident that took place in his mother's life.
Hand-drawn Animation
Origin of the story
Objective
Story and Scriptwriting
4 next to his mother and prays that "God, if you are true, the words you spoke to me now are true, just bring my mother back". Days passed, her mother got better every day and from that day Ananthi started her new faith in Lord Jesus Christ. Her mother lived for more than thirty years with only one lung without breathing problems.
The story of the moment seemed solid, and the work was in the script on how to approach the narrative and which perspective would fit the story well. Amongst all of this, the regular conversation came out best in carrying the emotion and weight of the story.
Literature review
Study for Scripting the movie
- Myosis
- Le Royaume
- Sonder
Throughout the narrative, an element of suspense (why the king had an arrow in his crown) was preserved and revealed at the end of the film, which seems a very interesting and clever way to show the king's greed. The man in the film tries to become a successful artist, but the realization of his situation and the financial crisis push him into painting vehicles. The director observed the common features in these films and tried to implement the same in the film "Periya Piratti".
This study of the cinematic patterns of storytelling leads to the famous Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey [6], [7].
Research on the Location and the Characters
Since the story happened in the 1980s, the filmmaker wanted clarity on what the location would look like. Based on her description, he started collecting the images available during that period but from different locations in TamilNadu. The recent photos are also collected for the reference to compare and create the backgrounds for the animation.
Electricity was only in the houses of the rich and in the community and public places. They had a habit of going to bed very early around seven or eight in the evening and waking up early in the morning. Their shelters were mostly made of mud and covered with palm and coconut leaves.
In the same way, character image references were collected for characters in this period. Fortunately, the director found a family photo that was ten years before this period. These photographs also gave a clear idea of what the characters looked like, what clothes they wore, what materials they used in household chores, and what their shelters would have looked like.
Visual References
- A Gong
- Good Morning Mumbai
- The Swallows of Kabul
- Grave of the fireflies
The story is about a tenant of a shantytown who sets out to do his morning chores and a series of unfortunate events causes an obstacle to his goal. The film shows the basic problems caused by the growth of cities, such as lack of space and infrastructure, sanitation problems, pollution, density and interrelationships. The use of colors, the genre chosen for this story and the presentation of the city of Mumbai made this film very vibrant and stayed true to the slum culture of Mumbai.
The Swallows of Kabul [13] is a French animated feature film directed by Zabou Breitman and Elea Gobe Mevellec. The filmmaker of Periya Piratti was impressed by the trailer of this film and planned to try the same kind of look and feel in his film. Although the film was not seen, the summary of the novel gave the idea of the story.
This extraordinary novel, set in Kabul under the rule of the Taliban, takes readers into the lives of two couples: Mohsen, who comes from a family of wealthy shopkeepers that the Taliban destroyed; Zunaira, his wife, extraordinarily beautiful, who was once a brilliant teacher and is now no longer allowed to leave her home without an escort or to cover her face. In their world are Atiq, a prison guard, a man who has sincerely embraced the Taliban ideology and is struggling to keep his faith, and his wife, Musarrat, who once saved Atiq and is now dying of illness and despair. Stunned by the hysterical atmosphere and drawn into their anger, he also throws stones in the face of the condemned woman who is buried up to her waist.
The entire mood of the film was entirely set by the character design and the watercolor medium. The use of the lighting and the composition of the scenes took this movie to the next level. The story was about a young boy and his little sister struggling to survive in Japan during the Second World War.
The minimum details in the characters and maximum details in the backgrounds are one of the hallmarks of all Studio Ghibli creations, which helped the animators to focus more on the expressions and include everyone in the film. 16 image source - https://www.catsuka.com/news les-hirondelles-de-kaboul-decouvrez-le-pilote-long-metrage-de-zabou-breitman-et-elea-gobbe-mevellec.
Reviews and Discussions
Review 01
Review 02
Review 03
Improving required skills
Supplementary Study
It is important to know the importance of establishing a scene, fixing long shot, medium shot, close-up, extreme close-up and maintaining the 180 rule in filmmaking. Finally, the transition techniques between the scenes observed with care to maintain proper continuity in the film.
Storyboard
Choosing Style and Medium
Character design
- Ananthi or Ananthammal
- Periya Piratti
- Avudaiammal
- Daniel
- Siblings
She grows when she sees her family's serious scenarios, which makes her a tough and responsible girl. Her primary job in the family is to look after the children and do small household needs. She does everything for the family and takes care of everyone; in short, she keeps the whole family together.
She is very active and hardworking village women who takes care of the family when Periya Piratti (her daughter) is unable to do so. Women wearing a jacket for the saree became a habit only at that time, as she is an old lady, not having an interest in fashion. He rarely visits home because he spends most of the time in the wood workshop, where he works, drinks and sleeps.
Background design
Animation
So the filmmaker himself played out all the required shots and used them as a reference. Then the critical observation from those references was the micro details in the movements. This observation helped a lot with the timing and movement of the characters in the animation.
After all the keyframes were set, the remaining frames were filled in according to the principle of "pose-by-pose" animation. Since the director had very little time for the animation before the final rendering, the entire animation was planned to be drawn in two. Instead, the animation frame rate was halved, i.e. 12 fps, and the frames were filled with that.
After the completion of this, the characters were cleaned up to get the final outline version of the animation. All the anatomy and expressions in the characters were also fixed in this process. The colors and shadows were filled in separate layers so that any changes required later on can be done quickly.
Each character was also drawn on a separate layer for ease and colored the same way. All animation in production took less time than pre-production works and character design.
Editing and Compositing
48 The challenge during composition is the arrangement of the elements in the scenes. Few elements were missed during production, so they were created in Adobe Photoshop at a later stage and placed in the scenes.
Voice-over
The reward gained during this process was the importance of getting into character during dubbing and the necessity of a professional recording setup to save time editing voiceovers.
Sound design
Music production
Rendering
The intention of this film was to keep the story as it happened in real life instead of making it more abstract. The real success of this film was to embed the 'idea of hope in life' in the minds of the audience. Throughout the filmmaking process, the filmmaker learned how to remain patient, persevering and calm.
The film clearly showed the filmmaker what areas he needed to improve and where he was lagging behind as an animator, and it also showed the current level of the filmmaker's abilities. This film helped him explore new areas such as sound design, music production, cinematography and storytelling. The most important thing he learned was "Never underestimate time", which is very important for an animator in the industry.
