The Mailbox update!

5th Nov '13

So far my film 'The Mailbox' has been selected and screened at Chitrakatha '13 and it was a wonderful experience! I guess it's my first screening outside my comfort zone (MIT) and after it got over, it got a lot of cheering and hoots from the crowd, which I presume was mainly MITians. I saw all the flaws all over again. Something about the projector or the burned copy made it look much more florescent and saturated than I'd like. :( It was quite disappointing honestly, and after seeing all the other wonderful shorts from different countries, I felt my film had no place to be there.

That night I didn't ask anyone about anything. I shook a few friendly hands, and that was that. The next day I showed it to a really awesome faculty and friend there, Priyankar Gupta. I got some really good criticism and feedback from him and Dawameren Imchen (faculty) who was on the selection committee there. I recently I sent it to Prosenjit sir and Vaibhav sir, and they gave me some good inputs as well, so I hate it less now. ;)

After that I soon sent it to Asifa India, and it's been shortlisted for screening there as well! So I've decided to invest in a festival run. I did make a lot of mistakes with this film, and it's definitely not my best, but it's the first and it should get a viewing at least for the 1.5 years of blood and sweat that I poured into it.

I hope you guys get to see it asap! I'm really eager to hear all your criticism and feedback, but I cannot put it online during the festival run. Here're some screenshots and two posters.

Finally! Some animation!

26th April 2012

It's interesting how a simple change in the color of the layout in TV can change your attitude towards animation. It started making my frames look better! Here is the old one VS the changed one.

I know, right? Anyway, the animation's finally kicked off! Atleast I've done something I'm proud of today.
We went together to speak to Shyamu (our HOD) about getting our deadlines extended. Somehow came to settlement to finish atleast one shot complete with the inking, color, bg and sound. Phew. Will also get a briefing on our colloquium paper on Monday. That's kinda a thesis paper.

Besides that on the Animation side, we're all going for 'The Avengers' tomorrow! Can't wait. We were so eager we pre-booked the tickets online and got top row seats! It better be good. The last one I saw was Thor, and I was horribly dissappointed with that.

That's all for tonight.

Francis character design!

13th April 2012

Here's the character development and design of my lead character - Francis Dias - a lost lonely introverted man with queer obsessions. I haven't spent as much time on any character as I've spent on him. This was the first turn around, again - with the dot eyes that I used in the storyboards. The reason I used these is because the tone of the film was not supposed to be funny, and big eyes tend to make us laugh. Now here's a trade-off - dot eyes that are very difficult to animate, and show emotions, or round eyes that help express better, but change the tone of the film. I decided wonderful animators like the Raunch Brothers who animate for Storycorps manage to make people cry with their wonderful round eyed characters, so why can't I? (Do check out all the wonderful films storycorps have animated till now. So simple, but so emotionally satisfying.) Anyway, here goes Francis.

Postman character Design!

13th April 2012

I'm finally satisfied with all the exploration and brain storming on this guy - and I LOVE how he turned out. I have only one concern now - whether he'll look as good in my animation - which is probably my weakest subject. Enjoy the sketches!


The postman first turn around. I was all in for the dot eyes - I even used them for my boards for both the characters, but realized the film was very expressive and there was little I could play with with the dot eyes. So I changed that.


I started changing the form, exploring with a-symmetry to create interest and balance it out.

The final cleaned up turn around of the postman.

A basic color palette used for the postman. It may change here and there when it reaches ink and paint. This is the first thing I had in mind when I first thought of the story.


The postman in action! ;) I really like how he turned out. Hope I can make him look the same throughout the film. That's all for now! Tata!

The most final storyboard there is for 'The Mailbox'

13th April 2012



Finally uploading this. It was ready quite a while back, but I thought since I've already uploaded one why upload this one as well? Anywho! This is the final animatic, and hopefully I'll try to get as close as I can to this. It's got sound and subtitles for a much better viewing! ;) Enjoy!

The process of film making

29th Feb 2012

Finally I'm getting a breather.. After 6 was just breathing time. I've been slogging for a week on my storyboard. It was super fun! I was actually anticipating it after the script, but at the same time I was terrified as to how I would visualize it. Only a few out of a hundred shots were clear to me in the start. I knew it would be harder to draw it than to write it, I just didn't know how hard. On the way I discovered ways of how staging plays such an important role. At every stage I asked myself what I was trying to convey in every frame of my board. I got stuck at a point during my climax, and I pushed myself so hard over a few hours that my brains fried, and the creative juices did not flow! So I took an off that night and went to sleep. The next morning I cracked it and things were back in track. The schedule was so screwed by then. I was 4 days late, and had eaten time from my color script. But today I finished the animatic's first draft. I showed it to my 2 mentors, who gave me a few changes which I'll do tonight itself. I made a new schedule and hopefully I won't delay it any further and things will run on time. There are no more breathers. No saturdays or sundays, no film club and no HiVE for me anymore. This is it. But I'm truly enjoying the process of film making. I don't think I can get a high on anything else as much as I do on this.

Will post the animatic here after the changes. So long! :D Here's a peak from the first scene!.