IDEA

It all began when Suresh was at a sound recording studio and the BBH team came down to brief him about an animated film for Google Chrome. The brief was to create an advert for Google Chrome using the case study of Chennai based Rajendran, a Tanjore Painting artist who used digital marketing with the help of Google Chrome to engage a whole new world of users who, otherwise, found buyers purely through word-of-mouth marketing.

The agency suggested a creative route of telling this story using an animation style based on his own art. Suresh had already done a film previously for Sulekha.com based on the rare handicraft art from Orissa called Patta Chitra Katha. So the agency was quite sure that Eeks studio would be able to pull it off. But Suresh felt the film needed a treatment that emanated scale and uniqueness much beyond such an animation style, as Mr. Rajendran’s scale of a achievement to convert a challenging situation to a favorable one was unprecedented – especially the way he went about it. So Suresh suggested a new style of animation with people as the advert needed a touch of humanness and the scale where a 1028×964 pixels sized web browser literally became 40ft x 30ft browser made by people – because Google also created the app not knowing the scales of achievements humans can conquer using their own apps!

The agency had a new draft and outline from our studio, but they also had a client who was convinced by the previous treatment that they presented to them! So it took them almost 2 months to get back to us after convincing the client to go ahead with the film according to our new draft. And that marked the genesis of our landmark project.

AWARDS

Spikes Asia 2012 – Film Category – Silver
Spikes Asia 2012 – Digital Category for Viral Video – Bronze
Spikes Asia 2012 – Art Direction – Bronze
TASI Viewer’s Choice Award 2012, India – Commissioned Film – Winner
Epice Awards – Film win Communication Service – Silver
Anima Mundi 2011 – Brazil -20th International Animation Film Festival – Nomination
3rd Kolkata Shorts International Film Festival 2012, India – Official Selection
Apollo Awards 2012, Singapore – Director – Winner
Apollo Awards 2012, Singapore – Art Direction – Winner
8th Tehran International Animation Film Festival 2012 – Gold Award
Brasil Stop Motion 2012, Brazil – Official Nomination
SICAF 2013, South korea – Official Nomination
Creative ABBY Awards 2012, India – Direction – Silver
Creative ABBY Awards 2012, India – Film – Gold
Asifa India 2012 – Award Of Excellence
Cannes Lions 2012 International Festival – Official Nomination

Production

For research on the topic, we sent a team from our studio to Chennai to understand the process that Mr. Rajendran deployed in his daily work routine so as to understand how he did what he did. He couldn’t converse in English but he was well versed with Photoshop. He re-touched every thumbnail on his website personally to ensure that they created traction.
One of the major heads that needed to be cracked was production design. There were many meetings with the production designers, creative consultants to crack the look of the film. The next stage was to figure out how to get the scales right and production design finalised. We created miniature sets where we had cut outs of real people as mock ups to see how the motion design went well the production design.

MUSIC

To compliment the temple art that is represented in the film, Suresh wanted to bring in temple music. But as a modern day interpretation of temple art, our temple music (Nadaswaram) had to undergo the same techno aesthetic transformation that the visuals also went through. Two music directors worked on it. R. Anandh created a wonderful track to bring the soul into the film with an underlay of melancholy. Then we did a celebratory version of the track with Shri (of Badmarsh and Shri).

CHALLENGES

The huge structure that had to hold at least 60 people at one go, as one may imagine, was a logistical nightmare. The strength and construction of it had to make sure that no accidents happened. Controlling so many people and choreographing their movements and actions became a massive challenge which the direction team, production team and Eeksaurus team managed quite well.

CREDITS

Production House: Studio Eeksaurus
Producer: Nilima Eriyat
Director: Suresh Eriyat
Agency: Bartle Bogle Hegarty, Mumbai
Client: Google India

Director of Photography: Tushar Rai
Cameraman: Tushar Rai
Music: Shri (Badmarsh & Shri)
Sound Design: Chester & Cyrus Sasoori (Famous Studios)
Animation: Team Studio Eeksaurus

RESPONSES

Within days of its publishing on YouTube it reached a few 100000 views. With many people sharing the film online and discussing it, it was the beginning of a turning point for Eeksaurus as a production house.