Kiki's Delivery Service Review (with Spoilers)

It had been a while since I’d watched an animated film, so I went through the Miyazaki films I hadn’t seen yet, and picked out Kiki’s delivery service. I had heard the main piano theme and it was so heartwarming, I couldn’t resist.

[Spoilers Ahead]
Kiki’s Delivery service is one of those films where you think about it even after it’s over. Even though it was made in 1989, Miyazaki hits many chords and tells a story that is relevant even today (especially today). Kiki is a perfect protagonist. She’s kind, brave, energetic and driven. Kiki comes to the big city to complete her ‘training’ as a witch, where she is expected to find her special skill. She discovers that since flying is the one thing she really knows and enjoys, she turns it into a living by starting a delivery service. Somewhere along the path, she starts losing her magic (skill). She gets so caught up in her job, that she loses focus on why she flew in the first place.

The struggle she goes through as a young witch in the city is especially relatable to non-conventional professions like art, music, dance etc. Kiki’s situation is a clear metaphor for artists and creators who lose their passion and creativity whilst finding real-world applications in a world that has no economic value for such talents. It is only when her friend is in grave danger, and she’s the only one who can save him by flying that her instincts and magic comes back and let her fly again. Just like artists, Kiki finds her passion back only when she realises that she’s making a difference to the world, and that there is value in what she does.

It amazes me everytime to see how Studio Ghibli successfully tells stories which explore such profound and meaningful ideas through their beautiful characters. They feel more alive and real than us. This, coupled with stunning backgrounds, art and animation gives the perfect illusion of life, and let’s you sink in to their world in the first 60 seconds itself.

I can’t wait to see the next one, and what it has to offer. Hat’s off to Ghibli for yet again giving us a timeless film that we can always run to when the world gets dark. <3

Coming Soon!!

24th Sept 2013

ALRIGHT!! The wait is FINALLY OVER!

I have been SO busy struggling with finishing up this project and wrapping up all the lose ends that I totally forgot to update the blog.
So yes! The Mailbox is finally READY FOR A FESTIVAL RUN!

I still wish there was a cooler way to compress files without losing out on so much quality, but I think I got a pretty decent output. I've had no help at all with post production, and so - I learnt a TON of things on my own, the hard way, and a bunch of softwares as well (that too with a suck snailnet). Also I find now that I could have done more justice to the story and to the animation, but giving the pressing deadlines, motivation issues and lack of guidance towards the end, I decided to correct my flaws in the coming shortfilms that I dream of making!

Now enough with the complaining! I hope you guys love this film as much as I enjoyed making it, and learning from it! I hope it's something fresh for you, and that it gives you something, even if for a short while.

It's still not available for public viewing, but it's 'COMING SOON'!! ;) ;) (Now I get how much fun this is for the fim-makers and distributers)

With this message, I commence to make this blog - PUBLIC. O__o
Cheers and lots of love! <3 p="">

Pirouette animation experiment

15th Feb 2012

Made this last night for fun! It's completely out of memory. I think I watch too much So You Think You Can Dance. I wish to learn contemporary dance some day and do one successful pirouette. Other one on the bucket list. It's not perfect, because I don't know dance and I didn't see any reference, but I hope you like it!
You can right click and turn the loop on if you like.

I can't stress on how important it is for an artist to do work for himself. In the journey of art as a profession, one forgets why one did this for money in the first place. Doing work for yourself reminds you how rewarding and how truthfully happy it makes you to animate something.
I can't do a pirouette now, but my drawings can. ;)
 

Pirouette from Nikhita Prabhudesai on Vimeo.

Old TVP ball bounce

19th August 2012

I don't know why this is coming up so late. It's a simple ball bounce with nearly the right timing done on TVP in >15 mins. Alok and I had made a wonderful discovery that day, thanks to Eric Goldberg's book - Crash course for animation. We were figuring out the difference between frames and drawings! All previous confusions were resolved. What had been taught to us was complete nonsense. A ball did not always take 1 second to bounce, and a walk did not always take 16 drawings. It all depended on how fast/slow the character was walking, or what kind of ball it was, and whether it was dropped or had a life of its own. So I drew this as a quick demo to juniors to get their basics clear.

Basics are so much to animate. They always end up boosting your confidence.

Windy Day

Windy day from Nikhita Prabhudesai on Vimeo.


First proper clip that I animated and colored on TVPaint animation pro! :) So happy with it, coz I learnt a lot about cyclic animation. Loop this one and DON'T watch on HD its super shabby. :)

Overnight

So finally I got the courage to upload our pixilation clip - the one we'd done with PJ (Prosenjit Ganguly). I wasn't very happy with it, but hey - we had about 14 hours to come up with it!
Enjoy!

Day 7 & 8 - Ball Bounce 01

5th n 6th Dec 2011

So basically I'm doing my sem 6 and 7 all over again. I think I need to refresh my basics.. Thanks to the amazing links from the 11 sec club blog like fighting panda and brendon body, I am able to finish this basic ball bounce and I've become a little more confident in doing its timing in 3D now.. So here goes.. Enjoy!



And this was easier! All I had to do was move the keys along the X axis and walla! it was done. The rotation took a little time and maybe I could work a little more on it.. Had to experiment more with the rig I had. In my next experiment I'll be trying different balls without a rig.. Lets see how that one turns out. :P!



© 2011

Helicop Dance

We took about 16 hours at a stretch to make this...
It was an interesting assignment! We had to collect some junk that was smaller than our fists, and then make characters out of it. They had to be unique and nonsensical! This was my second attempt at model animation, and its the best I could do with the given time.

The most interesting part was creating music with junk as well! We made instruments and used vocals like acapella - something I'd never explored before. Was a wonderful experience. No need to download anymore!

The last step was storyboarding, creating an animatic, a dope sheet, setting up a green/blue screen and animating it with a synch to the music. And this was the final product! It's not smooth and perfect, but I learnt more about thinking out of the box and about rhythm. :)

Thanks to my batchmate Alok and my junior-friends for helping in with the music!



This is the basic animatics made to show the movement of Helicop. Now all though it looks pretty okay I couldn't manage to put some of the shots in the final video - like the turn around. The camera shook and it looked like an earquake in the picture! Will take better precautions next time. Instead I replaced the bad footage with extra shots like the foo tapping and the closeup of the head.

I learnt how to keep it as basic and readable as possible. Had to add more frames in the end to sync it with our final edited track of 10 seconds.

3D Weightlift

Been working on my weightlift for over a week. I used the andy rig first, with its completely distored proportions. And now I'm using Norman, which clearly proved the be much better. Learnt a lot, but after I was done with the whole thing I learnt about making the character set. I wish I'd done that earlier. Alas. Anyway, here's the blocking I did till now. Will be starting fresh again soon.



Thumbnails of the weightlift.

Walk Cycle

My first 3D walk cycle done on Maya. Semester 6. Its a little jittery, but hope you like it anyway.

First 3D walk cycle! from Nikhita Prabhudesai on Vimeo.

© Nikhita P. 2011

Purple Shark Submarine

Took a week to do this, and I never thought I could finish it. Here's the submarine model made with nurbs in Maya.

Purple Shark Submarine from Nikhita Prabhudesai on Vimeo.

© Nikhita P. 2011

Ball Obstruction

Finally uploaded my ball obstruction. I managed to finish the render just a day before my jury! :)

Ball Obstruction from Nikhita Prabhudesai on Vimeo.

Watch on fullscreen please! :)


© Nikhita P. 2011

FINALLY!!!!! A Pig Story

FINALLY!!

A Pig Story (with audio) from Nikhita Prabhudesai on Vimeo.

here it is! A pig story!

Sorry for the sad quality guys, I don't have a membership @ vimeo. :P

Claymation trailer

Claymation trailer from Nikhita Prabhudesai on Vimeo.

A short clip of our movie made with Vaibhav Kumaresh.
(c)nikhita p, alok n.r and vicky punjabi.

My very first linetest.

My very first linetest. from Nikhita Prabhudesai on Vimeo.

This was done in the first week of my first semester. I had no idea about timing or anything, but I wanted a simple page-flip. My friend Sarang jumped in through the classroom window and volunteered to flip the page with his hand! And wah-lah! ;)

Trajedy

Tragedy from Nikhita Prabhudesai on Vimeo.

My 4th sem sack movie, my first short film using a rice sack and a a prop (flask).
Took about a month to produce this.