IDEA

He approached us with the idea of two hands coming together in resolution where one hand represents the problem hand (the fate a person is destined with), and the other denotes the solution hand (what one makes out of it). This concept was initially played around with in ten different ways, and in the end, Suresh had picked out the most complex one, obviously.

AWARDS

Mumbai International Film Festival (MIFF) 2014 – Jury Special Mention for Animation Film
11th IDPA 2015 – Best Advertising Film
Asia Apollo 2014, Singapore – Winner
Annecy 2015, France – Cristal For Commissioned Film
FICCI BAF Awards 2015 – Official Selection
KROK International Animated festival, Russia – Official Selection
3rd Kolkata Shorts International Film Festival – Best Jury Mention
16th Digicon6 – Winner
Sicaf 2014 – Official Selection
Tehran International Animation Festival – Official Selection

PRODUCTION

The team made a full 2D previsualisation of the film. A simple 2D film alone did not seem to suffice to make an impact, considering our diverse target audience. When a film is created for the masses on subjects like education, polio, etc, showing real hands would make a bigger impact. After multiple rounds of experimentation with the medium, we finally arrived at a pair of 3D-rendered hands, and mapped the 2D story onto these hands.

The characters in the film had to be simple, minimal and uncluttered. They were not given any fingers or toes. Their faces too held minimal visual information. The absence of a mouth denoted their helplessness given their situation. This clean style aided seamless mapping of the 2D animation onto the 3D hands.

MUSIC

The children of Govandi, one of the largest slums and dumping grounds in Mumbai, have sung the song for these films. It was their first time coming to a professional studio and were new to this experience. When coaxed into singing whatever song they know and are comfortable with, they hesitated at first, and then broke into the most beautiful song in unison. It was a song about education and achieving success through hard work – something their teacher at school had taught them. We used the same song in the film.

CREDITS

Creative Agency: JWT
National Creative Director: Senthil Kumar
Senior Vice President: Raji Ramaswamy
VP & Senior Creative Director: Arjun Mukherjee
Creative: Partha Chowdhury, Altaf Hossain, Uttaran Chaudhuri, Subhrakanti Mandal, Anwesha Mukherjee, Ranjan Show
VP & Client Servicing Director: Tapan Sen, Sayam Bhadra
Client Servicing Director, Digital: Surojit
Client Servicing: Ritwik Roychowdhury

Production House: Studio Eeksaurus
Director: Suresh Eriyat
Producer: Nilima Eriyat
Executive Producer: Mehernosh Dastoor

Music: Rajat Dholakia
Voiceover: Mr. Amitabh Bachchan
Sound Engineer: Arun Crastos, Chester Misquitta
Singers: Madhu, Sancheeta, Sheetal, Puja, Chandni, Vidya, Sweta, Komal, Mosin, Vicky and Vikas from Pratham Bret Lee Music School, Govandi
Lyrics and Original Composition of the song: Praveen Patil from Pratham Bret Lee Music School, Govandi

Associate Director: Kevin Varghese
Production Coordination: Himakshi Rawal, Sakshi Gaur
Project Lead: Sunita Kathiwada
2D Animation Team Lead: Arun Rane
3D Animation Team Lead: Swapnil Patil
Pre-Production: Arun Rane, Sunita Kathiwada, Anamika Baruah, Rajib Mandal, Divya Chaturvedi, Anushweta De Sarkar
Visual Design: Sunita Kathiwada
2D Animation: Arun Rane, Sunita Kathiwada, Anamika Baruah
Character Design: Anamika Baruah
Clean up & Layout: Shailesh Chindarkar, Ramesh Jadhav, Sanjay Patkar

3D Animation Team: Swapnil Patil, Anik Roy
Rigging: Hitendra Singh
Modeling: Devender Parmar
Lighting: Devender Parmar, Amar Patel
Texturing: Devender Parmar, Amar Patel, Khayali Pandya
Rendering: Devender Parmar, Amar Patel, Hitendra Singh, Aditya Raje
Compositors: Nilesh Dhore, Manish Bhanushali, Vikrant Jabde
Scan & Post Production: Jivan Gaikawad

Rotary Heartline Credits
Creative Agency: JWT
National Creative Director: Senthil Kumar
Senior Vice President: Raji Ramaswamy
VP & Senior Creative Director: Arjun Mukherjee
Creative: Partha Chowdhury, Altaf Hossain, Uttaran Chaudhuri, Subhrakanti Mandal, Anwesha Mukherjee, Ranjan Show
VP & Client Servicing Director: Tapan Sen, Sayam Bhadra
Client Servicing Director, Digital: Surojit
Client Servicing: Ritwik Roychowdhury

Production House: Studio Eeksaurus
Director: Suresh Eriyat
Producer: Nilima Eriyat
Executive Producer: Mehernosh Dastoor

Music: Rajat Dholakia
Voiceover: Mr. Amitabh Bachchan
Sound Engineer: Arun Crastos
Associate Director: Kevin Varghese
Production Coordination: Himakshi Rawal, Sakshi Gaur
Project Lead: Rajib Mandal
2D Animation Team Lead: Arun Rane
3D Animation Team Lead: Swapnil Patil
Pre-Production: Arun Rane, Sunita Kathiwada, Anamika Baruah, Rajib Mandal, Divya Chaturvedi, Anushweta De Sarkar
Visual Design: Rajib Mandal
2D Animation: Rajib Mandal, Anamika Baruah
Character Design: Anamika Baruah
Clean up & Layout: Shailesh Chindarkar, Ramesh Jadhav, Sanjay Patkar
3D Animation Team: Swapnil Patil, Anik Roy
Rigging: Hitendra Singh
Modeling: Devender Parmar
Lighting: Devender Parmar, Amar Patel
Texturing: Devender Parmar, Amar Patel, Khayali Pandya
Rendering: Devender Parmar, Amar Patel, Hitendra Singh
Compositors: Nilesh Dhore, Manish Bhanushali, Vikrant Jabde
Scan: Jivan Gaikawad
Post Production: Jivan Gaikawad

RESPONSES

One of the highlights of this project was the film winning the Annecy. After 5 years of landmark films at Studio Eeksaurus and 15 years in the industry, another of Suresh’s films being nominated for an Annecy was once again a huge honour. This time on the panel was an all-women jury comprising of women from all over the world. The fact that our film struck a chord with them was flattering in itself. When they announced our film, Suresh scrambled onto stage in disbelief. They had judged the film based on its spirit and its technical aspect. Sometimes complicating the execution of a project does pay off.