IDEA

The Fisherwoman and Tuk Tuk was a passion-project created entirely in-house owing to the sheer love for animation. The idea was conceived when Suresh was driving to office one day and saw a couple of bold fisherwomen with their baskets full of fish crossing the road with an air of irreverence. He saw them get out of the rickshaw and have a bit of an argument with a puny rickshaw driver and walk off angrily. He wondered if they would ever like to ride their own rickshaw. What, with the combination of their offhanded attitude and mundane worklife, Suresh began visualising the story.

Having written it in as early as 2009, Suresh could not quite decide how to end this story. With his team constantly getting occupied with commercial projects, the film stretched over years. However, this gave him the opportunity to explore different climaxes. The hand-painted effect, which stands out as the film’s  distinct feature, is a style that evolved over these years in the making.

AWARDS

63rd National Film Awards – Best animation Film 2016
6Th Dadasaheb Phalke Film Festival – Best Animation Film – 2016
Flying Elephant Competition Kerala – 2nd Place in Animation Category
UMFF (Universe Multicultural Film Festival), California – Best Animation Film 2016
Cartoons on the Bay, Venice – Special Mention Award 2016
Tokyo Anime Film Festival (TAFF), Japan – Award Of Excellence
17th Digicon, Japan – Asia Gold 2015
FICCI BAF awards 2016, India – Best Animation Film 2016
MIFF (Mumbai International Film Festival), Mumbai – Best Animation Award 2016
3rd Navi Mumbai International Film Festival (NMIFF) – Best Animation Film 2017

PRODUCTION

The production indeed was an interesting one especially the designing of the fisherwoman character. She is a tough person, hardened by life’s adversities. Her pleasant side is seen only with her interactions with her cats and her auto driver. The fisherwoman’s job entails her to sit around all day, rendering her quite obese and voluptuous. Having had to survive on her own, she is immune to opinions of the people around her and will not hesitate to give them a piece of her mind. The only two moments in her day that truly bring her joy, however, are the two trips she makes in the autorickshaw to and from the market.

Despite making multiple variations of her in the beginning, Suresh just wasn’t satisfied. It just wasn’t her, he said. Various iterations later, it was only when he laid his eyes on this particular version that he knew he’d found his fisherwoman.

She was the sturdy thick-skinned personality he was looking for. She was initially given clean well-constructed teeth which were later on changed to the broken, dirty teeth we see today.

CHALLENGES

Most often, as artists, creators, filmmakers, we are torn between what our heart tells us to do and our mind veers us against. While we thoroughly believe in doing what we love, there is the reality of survival and sustainability that we cannot ignore. So how do we have the cake and eat it too? Suresh knew he would not find any funding body to support this short animated film. So the only way was to divert the surplus from the studio’s ad filmmaking revenues to fund this project. He went ahead with it and it was decided that the team would work on this film when they had time off from high stress production schedules of ad films. But this, as one would imagine, comes by as rarely as the Halley’s comet.

Eventually, Nilima assigned a new, dedicated team on the job, trained them up on the fairly unconventional style of animation that was initially set for the film and finally managed to finish the film in 2015.

This film goes out to all those artists who pursue their passions while battling with the realities of sustaining life; while looking at the sky every night and awaiting that one showstopper comet. It stands as a symbol to that balance we pursue, and find, as creatives.

MUSIC

Composed by Rajat Dholakia, the music is one of a kind. To preserve the rawness of the village ambience in the film, Rajat proposed bringing on board a local wedding orchestra to perform the soundtrack. Suresh was absolutely sold by the sound of that (pun intended). No sophisticated instruments or technology was used in the making of the background scores. Speaking of sound, all the vocals in the film were voiced by just one person, the talented Chethan Shashital. This includes close to 40 characters, including all the humans, cats and other animals.

OTHER MENTIONS

UMFF (Universe Multicultural Film Festival), India – Winner 2nd Runner Up 2016.
Indian Film Festivals Of Los Angeles (IFFLA)
7th VAFI Youth and Animation Festival, Israel
8TH NIFF – Nasik International Film Festival – Best Animation Film 2016
Beverly Hills Film Festival, USA
Anifilm Festival, Czech Republic
Shorts Film Awards, Japan
In The Palace Festival, Bulgaria
Spark Animation Film Festival, Vancouver
Mini Box Office (Kolkata) – Best Animation Film Award 2015
Mini Box Office (Delhi) – Special Mention Jury 2015
KROK International Animated festival, Russia 2015
24 FPS 12th Annual International Award, India – Best Animation Award 2015
Montreal International Animation Festival
Mini Box Office (Bangalore) – Best Animation Award 2015

CREDITS

Story, Writing & Direction: Suresh Eriyat
Producer: Nilima Eriyat
Styling & Design: Suresh Eriyat, Nikhil Joshi
Music: Rajat Dholakia
All Voices (Conceived, Designed & Performed): Chetan Sashital
Title Design: Ranjit Mandal
Project Lead: Nikhil Joshi, Abhijit Bugde
3D Animation Team: Angelo David, Abhijit Bugde, Swapnil Patil, Anik Roy, Debajyoti Roychowdhury
FX, Dynamics & Simulation: Nilesh Dhore, Keyur Patel, Anik Roy
Compositors: Nilesh Dhore, Mohammad Azeem
Post Production: Jivan Gaikawad

Production House: Studio Eeksaurus
Story: Suresh Eriyat
Writer & Director: Suresh Eriyat
Producer: Nilima Eriyat
Styling & Design: Suresh Eriyat, Nikhil Joshi

Music: Rajat Dholakia
Sound Engineer: Shalini Agarwal
Vocal Design: Chetan Sashital
Voice Recordist: Anish Nair
Theme Song: Chetan Sashital
All Voices (Conceived, Designed & Performed): Chetan Sashital
Sound Editing: Shalini Agarwal, Aakaash Chowdhary
Sfx recording: Shalini Agarwal, Mustak Shaikh
Foley Artists: Gupta, Sajjan, Choudhary
Sound Studio Facility: Aurom Post Sound
Mixed on Auro 3D at Sound and Vision

Storyboard: Nikhil Joshi
Pre-Production Design: Nikhil Joshi, Nivedita Goswami, Hitendra Singh, Shraddha Matkar, Khayali
Pandya
Title Design: Ranjit Mandal
Project Lead: Nikhil Joshi, Abhijit Bugde
3D Animation Team: Angelo David, Abhijit Bugde, Swapnil Patil, Anik Roy, Debajyoti Roychowdhury
3D Animatic: Abhijit Bugde, Debajyoti Roychowdhury, Swapnil Patil, Anik Roy
Rigging: Hitendra Singh, Anik Roy
Character Modelling: Nivedita Goswami, Amar Patel, Keyur Patel, Khayali Pandhya, Aditya Raje
Prop Modelling: Nikhil Joshi, Nivedita Goswami, Amar Patel, Keyur Patel, Khayali Pandhya, Aditya Raje
Background Modelling: Amar Patel, Keyur Patel, Aditya Raje
Lighting: Amar Patel, Devender Parmar
Shading & Texturing: Khayali Pandya, Amar Patel, Keyur Patel, Devender Parmar
Rendering: Hitendra Singh, Aditya Raje, Devender Parmar, Amar Patel
FX, Dynamics & Simulation: Nilesh Dhore, Keyur Patel, Anik Roy
Compositors: Nilesh Dhore, Mohammad Azeem
Technical Support: Sarfraz Ansari, Praveen Parameswaran, Krishna Israni, Hitendra Singh

Production Coordination: Himakshi Rawal, Sakshi Gaur, Divya Sangle
Production Support: Mohsin Shaikh, Prashant Kamble, Sachin Mokal, Uttam Jethithore
Post Production: Jivan Gaikawad
Accounts: Chetan Varia, Vijay Desai
Special Thanks: Arun Rane, Rajib Mondal, Sunita Kathiwada, Anamika Baruah, Paul Kokat, Mehernosh
Dastoor, Ranjeet Singh (Tony), Seema, Joel Negi, Jolly Jose, Cyrus Sasoori. Shreeya, Tintu K. Philip

RESPONSES

Because it was a project that stretched over years in the making, a lot of the team members rotated through it. The fact that so many lives have put in their sweat into it and contributed to making it into what it is today is what makes this film so special.

We would like to extend our gratitude to everyone involved in this project. If you’re reading this, know that you’re awesome.