Rajasthan Tourism
Ad Film
Ogilvy brought with them various visual interpretations of Rajasthan in their brief. This is a region with many interesting stories and so many different facets. The innumerable fables, myths and folklores that the place carries is fascinating. The tagline ‘Jaane Kya Dikh Jaaye’ reflects the idea that every time one visits Rajasthan, they take home with them their own unique version of the state. With this sentiment in place, Suresh was not sure if simple linear animation would do the trick. This is when the idea of shape shifting came to him. Shape shifting is also very characteristic to sand dunes as they exist in a certain shape one day and are gone the next.
But how do we showcase the shape-shifting? Characteristics that made Rajasthan stand out were listed out, from the beautiful music, to the colourful attire and architecture to the vibrancy of their people. But while this describes most of India, we wondered what the one thing is that really makes Rajasthan unique?
Well, it is the only desert in the country.
Thus was born the idea of showing the beauty of Rajasthan through shape-shifting sand.
IDEA
Rajasthan, famous for its vast lands and breathtaking destinations, has always been a tourist hotspot. But when it dropped its nationwide tourism rankings in 2015, the Government of Rajasthan decided to take a cue from its neighbour Madhya Pradesh and launch an advertising campaign. After a long interval of 25 years, Rajasthan was, for the first time, marketing its brand. Ogilvy created a clever new logo with the tagline ‘Jaane kya dikh jaaye’ (‘you never know what you might discover’), and approached us with the requirement of a basic logo animation film.
The simple and indigenous logo juxtaposed two unique elements that represented Rajasthan – a couple of birds and two seated camels – which together form the shape of a moustache, something most men in the state proudly wear. In fact, the man holding a record for the longest moustache in the world is from Rajasthan! The logo was true to the soul of Rajasthan, and we knew a few seconds of animation would barely do it justice. So we suggested a signature film that would lead to the logo reveal.
AWARDS
Seoul Metro International Subway Film Festival (SMIFF) 2016 – Official Selection
10th Tehran International Short Film Festival – Golden Prize, Best Commercial
California International – Best Commercial 2016
5th Mumbai International Film festival 2016 – Official Selection
Digicon India 2016 – Audience Choice
FICCI – BAF Awards 2016 – Animation Ad Film
Wiesbaden International Festival of Animation 2016 – Official Selection
Bucheon International Animation Festival (BIAF) 2016 – Official Selection
Muse Creative Awards – Platinum Award 2015
6th Dada Saheb Phalke Film Festival 16 – Official Selection
CHALLENGES
This was not a job that was budgeted for. It was never to be of this scale. The opportunity wasn’t brought to us, we were creating it for ourselves. This meant that not only would we have to convince our friends at Ogilvy of the concept, but also have them convince the Government of Rajasthan. We did a bunch of explorations and created a complete storyboard in 2D and put it in a docket. Explaining a concept that’s never been executed before wasn’t easy because we had no point of reference to help the client visualise. We relied heavily on the Ogilvy team and backed it up with this docket, fingers crossed.
The Ogilvy team was successful, but came back with an insane timeline. We were given 5 weeks to deliver the final film. It was this tight deadline that led us to the innovation
PRODUCTION
The final 2D version of the film was made before starting work on the animation process. We didn’t have time for mistakes. This 2D cut ensured little room for errors during production and finished the work in time. Another challenge was to create frames out of sand and keep all the frames consistent. Every time the sand was sculpted, there would be no reference of the previous frame.
To tackle this, we created laser-cut stencils, on top of which we padded clay and then layered sand on top of that. The entire sculpture was then laid out on the sand table and merged into the sand. The process was long and tedious, but a precise one which saved us a lot of time. Time as a constraint turned out well for us! Clients, do NOT take note.
CREDITS
Conceptualisation & Direction: Suresh Eriyat
Producer: Nilima Eriyat
Production House: Studio Eeksaurus
DoP: Srinivas Reddy
Music: Sameer Uddin & Rajat Dholakia
Singer: Rajnigandha Shekhawat
Voice effects: Ananya Eriyat
Colorist: Navin Shetty
Sound Engineer: Arun Castro
Agency Credits
Creative Agency: Ogilvy & Mather
Executive Chairman and Creative Director, Ogilvy South Asia: Piyush Pandey
Rajasthan Tourism Logo Design: Mahesh Gharat
Group Creative Directors: Mahesh Gharat, Azazul Haque
Creative controller: Hemal Sirsikar
Client Servicing
Senior Vice President: Vivek Verma
Group Account Manager: Pooja Jaggi
Team Studio Eeksaurus
Project Lead: Rajib Mandal
Associate Director: Bargav Sridhar
Editor: Tintu K Philip
Visual Design: Rajib Mandal & Ranjit Mandal
Layout Design: Ranjit Mandal & Rajib Mandal
Research: Rajib Mandal, Ranjit Mandal, Bargav Sridhar
Sand Animation
Lead animator: Dhimant Vyas (Tata Interactive Systems Ltd.)
Animator: Rajib Mandal (Studio Eeksaurus)
Tata Interactive Systems Team Lead: Manisha Mohan
Project management (TIS): Reena Shah
Pre-production
Rajib Mandal, Ranjit Mandal, Bargav Sridhar, Dhimant Vyas, Sanjay Patkar, Sailesh Chindarkar, Ramesh
Jadhav, Rishy Benjamin Jacob
2D Animation: Rajib Mandal
Clay modeling & sculpting: Sanjay Patkar, Sailesh Chindarkar, Ramesh Jadhav, Rishy Benjamin
Jacob, Aditya Raje, Keyur Patel, Moshin Hakim
Clean Up: Sanjay Patkar, Sailesh Chindarkar, Ramesh Jadhav, Rishy Benjamin Jacob, Rajib Mandal
Visual Effects: Nilesh Dhore, Debojyoti Roy Chowdary, Anik Roy, Vijay Rana
Compositing: Nilesh Dhore, Mohammed Azeem
Production Coordination: Divya Sangle, Bargav Sridhar
Post production Coordinator: Jivan Gaikwad
Production support: Uttam Jethihore, Sachin Mokal, Prashanth Kamble, Sushma Malkar
RESPONSES
The film earned publicity internationally. Despite it not being part of the initial plan, it was aired on TV and done so extensively. The Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje shared it on her social media before we even delivered the final file to her! The imagery from the film was used in various interesting ways by Ogilvy and the whole campaign was a grand success. The film won us a D&AD Pencil, the first for Indian animation.
Our true moment of prestige, however, happened when acclaimed animators called us to ask if the film was made with CGI.