Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Talisman.. The Trailer!!


character study for Talisman
Have itching to put up something interesting for a while..but juggling too many things.. the studio is undergoing some rapid and cool developments.. you will hear about it soon!

concept for BigB's character in the Talisman promo

In the meantime some semi-recent stuff that was great fun to do. Some of you who caught Ekalvya on the big screen may have seen a trailer for a film called Talisman, to be directed by one of our fondest friends, Ram Madhvani (Happydent, Xbox360, Himani Pain Relief etc,etc) and produced by Vidhu Vinod Chopra. This film was a fantasy-'sword and sorcery' epic, the sort not made in India since the magical 60s and based on 'Chandrakanta' a late 19th century novel which I think, was initially a serialised story appearing in periodicals.It was written by Babu Devakinandan Khatri and borrows many concepts from the then widely popular Dastan traditions.

Character concept
We worked only on visualising and designing the preview trailer which was to announce the film. Initially we were to also execute this special effects heavy piece as well as create concept art for the entire film, but it was not possible for us to get involved for ten thousand reasons.. the most important of which was that we just couldnt have handled it logistically .Also this was a moment of truth period, where we realised we wanted to return our focus to animation.

The following are the boards we did for the piece. It helped to set the tone for the piece and the design for Amitabh (yes, him again) Bachchan's character.All of this was done practically overnight and was enormously satisfying to put together. Quite a rush!

...the storyboard panels
Anyway, the released trailer is on youtube.. here it is. Some details are different in it as you will see. My personal opinions aside, in the time at hand, it got done and well enough to be put on the screen! so kudos to Ram's team for sheer courage in the face of odds!! Thats how movies get made in India!!