20 years of NID : Presentation by Binita Desai at the Chitrakatha 2007 Festival

With just 7 days left now for the launch of the website, we are getting experts on the subject of animation to write for us as well.

On the first day of the Chitrakatha Festival at NID, there was a special presentation by Binita Desai, Associate Professor, Animation Designer, DAIICT, Gandhinagar, to commemorate the completion of 20 years by the animation department at NID. She has generously shared the transcript of the presentation for our readers.

A wonderful selection of films by students through the years was screened after Binita’s compelling talk on the origin of the animation department at NID and all the people that made it possible. Here is a list of the films that were screened followed by the transcript of Binita’s presentation.

9816DN by Vivekanand Roy Ghatak – 1:32 mins. Year – 2000
A non-narrative tale of the Indian Railway, about a traveller completing a long, tiring yet adventurous trip.

National Highway by R J Mistry – 3:10 mins. Year – 1984
A film on drunk driving on the Indian highway and the dangers of it.

Patang by Binita Desai – 2:15 mins. Year – 1984
A poetic impression of the famous kite festival in Ahmedabad, India.

Protagonist by Prakash Moorthy – 3:15 mins. Year – 1987
The age-old story of divide and rule retold in a small village in Kerala.

A Summer Story by Nina Sabnani – 3:15 mins. Year – 1987
A modern version of the Panchatantra tale of the Thirsty Crow.

Give the earth a break by Anil Bose – 2:18 mins. Year – 1993
A tale of the origin of earth, its growth and finally total disaster.

Hypocrite by Manisha Mohan – 4:00 mins. Year – 1992
The story of mindless civilization that puts nature at stake.

His Master’s Choice by Shreenivas Bhakta – 6:55 mins. Year – 1994
A light-hearted look at colonial imperialism in Bengal in the early 20th century

Antagonist by Sekhar Mukherjee – 2:10 mins. Year 1996
An ironical tale of the feudal electoral process in a pseudo democracy where the king wins an unfair election by crushing the hope of the population.

Oops by Sukanya Ghosh – 3:09 mins. Year 1998
Funny tale about the pranks of a little girl and her cat.

Utsav by Upasana Natoji 1:25 Mins. 2000
Non-narrative experimental animation celebrating the festival of Navratri.

Ate by Gautam Singh 2:09 Mins. 2001
Story of a spider who is trying to escape the enemy – a ‘flycatcher’ and how?!!

If Only by Sweta Bhatnagar 1:22 Mins. 2001
A short reminder of the near-future crisis – ‘drinking water’.

Dhak by Rajesh Chakraborty 3:02 Mins. 2002
A non-narrative animation on Drum-beating during the festival of Durga Pooja.

Sarama by Shailja Jain 5:04 Mins. 2003
An ironical tale of the life of misery of urban animals.

Khintikiri Pinta by Pushan Chakraborty 5:34 Mins. 2004
‘Khintikiri Pinta’ is gibberish slang hurled by an angry kid at the sun. The film unfolds to reveal an interesting relationship build up between the arrogant chilc and the innocent little sun-kid.

It Was Raining by Partha Das 1:40 Mins. 2005
Each window of every house has its own story.

The Rain Dance by Vijay Arumugam 7:50 Mins. 2006
The monsoon fails to show up in Mannargudi. Most of the people belonging to the village have left the place seeking better life outside. Karuppaiya’s family stays back in the hope that the village will prosper and flourish again.

Bald And Beautiful by Bhanu Prakash 4:37 Mins. 2007
An autobiographical film, portraying the director’s own life experience and linking all the events with his hair.

Binita’s presentation on 20 years of NID: (Transcript)

“There was animation at NID even before there was a department. To mention one great name Leo Leoni. I would here take the names of Claire Weeks, R L Mistry, Narendra Patel, NarayanBhai, Ishu Patel, Ram Mohan, Roger Noake, Joan Ashworth, Cathy Greenhalgh, I S Mathur, Vikas Satwaleker, Ashok Chatterji, Bhimsen, Kantilal Rathod, Len Lewis of Shootsey, Richard Purdum Studios, Aerial Image Opticals, John Challice of Eyeworks, Bob Godfrey, Barry Parker, Raoul Servais, Chitra Sarathy, Nina Sabnani, Subhash Kotwal, Shyam, the UNDP, myself and a host of others who have all in either a direct way or indirectly contributed to the creation of a department and therefore contributed to the history of Animation at NID. Graphic Design students graduated from the Under Graduate progamme at NID doing their diploma projects in Animation, that, I think is great generosity.

1980 : The first formal initiative was with Claire Weeks there was a total of seven members to be part of a one year workshop in Animation which was extend to two. There were as part of this initial group 7 members – two from NID – Sailesh Modi and Mita Bhagat and Shyam and Subhash Kotwal, from the JJ school of Arts and three from MSU at Vadodara, Faculty of Fine Arts, Chitra Sarathy, Nina Sabnani and myself. Learnt our first skills in Animation with ClaireWeeks. He was exacting and pushed us to create precise work. We viewed on celluloid several animated films combined with the film screenings done in Mr I S Mathur’s class on Cinema Appreciation. It was a huge number of screenings, all we remember is we saw till our eyeballs were hanging on strings!! Analysing, critiquing and writing about them, was an integral part of seeing cinema.

The workshop ended. Chitra, Nina and I were invited to stay. Chitra joined the then Calcutta cell and conducted several workshops during her tenure. We helped her by our periodic visits to support her effort in animation. An NID-made Animation stand was sent off to her so she could make films and she did. Having worked with Oxberry precision, this home made contraption was a tremendous story of perseverance but not precision. But it worked in its strange old way. They did make films on it.

Ishu Patel has conducted several works every time he has visited the country apart from all that we learned from him strictly in animation, he gently reminded us to work to the bone (which we did) but to party hard as well. We only needed someone to tell us to party. We marveled at his energy and his amazing skills. Being ambidextrous is unthinkable for most we barely manage to use one hand to capacity, but here was this man who painted like a wizard with both hands. He would fill with one and shade with the other.

Our designations kept changing from Design Trainees to Faculty Trainees and during the time under the UNDP training programme we worked with Roger Noake (from The West Surrey College of Art and Design) who was invited to be at NID for six months to introduce us Chitra Sarathy, Nina, R L Mistry and me to a different kind of Animation from the world of Disney which Claire brought in. European, Czech and Polish animation turned into a fascination. R L Mistry during this workshop made a film called National Highway which was to got him the National Award.

The UNDP training programme in 1985 took Nina to Ghent in Belgium and Holland and me to Studios in London and we spent a better part of our time at the West Surrey College of Art and Design (where Roger Noake was teaching) exploring new styles and techniques. Being students again was fun. Being there and visiting institutions like the National Institute of Film and Television was a rewarding experience which allowed us to make friends and establish Professional contacts that have benefited NID subsequently.

It was in 1985 that we started conceiving a programme for post graduate students in Animation. Nina, R L Mistry and me from the animation department came together with others to start work on the programme. Being the first coordinator of this programme is the reason for me to be standing here and making this presentation.

The first programme : Prakash Moorthy, Basav, Shouma Banerjee were part of the first batch of students. The programme was ambitious in the beginning and it progressively got fine tuned as we went along. We modified the programme each year and systematically for close to four years until we arrived at something that we were satisfied with. We kept up the programme and regardless of a critical mass we went on. In the light of this, NID’s generosity as an institution and its willingness to take risks to start new programmes is undisputed. Nina and I were roughly 22 years old and were given the responsibility of starting the Animation Programme. It started as a Post graduate programme every alternate year and in time found a route for under graduate students to join in. We had a mandate for when it started and we tried to improve each year. Today I do think I can say we have a special kind of animation here at NID and it is what we have collectively figured out. We tried to build it into the programme subversively sometimes and overtly at other times. It’s been rolling and will roll on for long.

Narendra Patel who was then doing his Diploma film provided us the additional strength and wisdom to fine tune the programme. More importantly he gave us the courage and knowledge to handle the Oxberry camera. We would tinker and repair the camera ourselves with the help of Harikaka in the workshop, as we could not wait for Peter Neilson to come from England and help fix the camera. Harikaka was a store house of applied knowledge and we enjoyed the challenges together and it was extremely valuable. Dealing with the mechanical world was easy; we could see, hear the errors and identify the problems. The electronic world is too silent and illusive for me.

Working with celluloid was a dream and a problem. Mistakes had to be on the drawing board. Learning to flick your drawings and point out errors as a skill was fine tuned. All line tests to check movements were done on sound film, processed in the photography studio by twirling the film back and forth and drying it on the lawn. This was then seen on an editing machine!! There was no room for errors lest it had to be done again. The line tester, Quick Action recorder was comparatively a boon, but it also altered animation.

Joan Ashworth and Cathy Greenhalgh who we had met in London during our UNDP training subsequently came to NID and conducted a model animation workshop when the second batch of students had joined in and some of them still work with model animation. Our contacts increased and the thoroughfare in the department of animators from around the world increased. The NID department never struggled to find students after 1989.

Building the Animation film collection was something that all of us did with a vengeance. It is today a massive collection and I reckon everyone has been adding to it like they have been honing the programme after many of us have left. There are innumerable stories but I think to give you more than this would be too burdensome.

I would like to applaud Shekhar and his dedicated student bunch and Isabelle for this effort. They have turned the department festivals we had by opening it out into to a larger audience and meaningful place for exchange. Thank you Cartoon Network.”