'Sons of Ram' Theatrical Teaser

Presenting the first theatrical teaser for our film Sons of Ram, coming to cinemas 2 November 2012.
Catch a glimpse of this hand drawn animated film in stereoscopic 3D in cinemas this weekend with 'Krishna & Kansa' and  'Step Up 3D'!

HT Cafe: Sons of Ram v/s James Bond

Today's HT Cafe has a story about my little baby taking on the big bad Mr.Bond at the box office on Nov 2 later this year. Should be interesting to say the least. Fingers crossed!! :)

Read the story online here.

'Suppandi Suppandi' TV Special, Delivered!

New poster art for 'The Best of Suppandi Suppandi!-The Animated Series'

This past week was momentous at ACK Animation Studios. After nearly 2 years of tumultuous production, our newest TV series (now a TV special) 'The Best of Suppandi Suppandi!' wrapped production.

This was one of the first new projects that I took on as the Creative Head at ACK Animation Studios. The series is based on Tinkle Comics' beloved character Suppandi. An innocent goof which has been the source of much humor for Indian children and adults for the last 30 years or so!

Being a reader of Tinkle as a kid, this was fun, challenging and intimidating all at the same time. Suppandi is no Batman or Superman, but for Indians growing up in the 80s and 90s he comes arguably close. He was created in a different time where humor was different from what it is today. Specially when translating one page comic gags into 11min narratives for TV. To add to these challenges, the production studio which was originally contracted to do the production work unfortunately shut down! Yikes....not good! I was tasked with finding a new home for the series without going over-budget ...oh and all while I was writing/directing 'Sons of Ram', my first theatrical animated feature film.

So after all the delays, one can imagine the relief I feel on getting this done, and at the risk of sounding pompous might I add... didn't turn out too shabby either!!;)  And I have the wonderful team at ACK Animation Studios to thank for along with an excellent team of writers, actors, musicians and production studios for doing such a phenomenal job.  A special shout out to Santosh Palav and Suresh Sonawane in particular who helped take on some of the directing and production responsibilities towards the end of Suppandi as Sons of Ram started taking more and more of my time.
The show should air on Cartoon Network India soon and you can stay on top of all the news, art and exclusive content related to this show by following its Facebook page at www.facebook.com/suppandisuppandi

Till then, enjoy this little teaser that we created for Comic Con Delhi 2012

In Theaters: 'Brave' (Review)

A new original movie from Pixar in what seems like ages. Had high hopes and immense anticipation. Pixar's first period piece, female protaganist etc just added to my curiosity. Safe to say, I  really wanted to love this movie. Unfortunately Pixar has made it very difficult for me to do so.

Let me start by saying that this movie does not break any new ground, does not even come close to  portraying a female protagonist in a new way. Disney's Mulan is still miles ahead of this.
To me it seems Brave may have been an unfortunate victim of  confused film-making. Shoehorning multiple ideas and suggestions with complete disregard for what the film really needs to be. If true, it is probably saddest news for this 'director driven' studio. Not all movies can endure a behind-the-scenes game of 'Director's musical chair' and pull-off a Ratatouille I guess. Is this what the originator Brenda Chapman really envisioned?... we will probably never know for sure.

The movie just refuses to take itself seriously. Making light and comedy at the most inopportune times, poking fun at sincere moments and don't even get me started on the toilet humor. Looks like Pixar is using Brave to compensate for more than a decade of burp-free, fart-free, snort-free, nudity-free movies.
If one titled Disney's Mulan as 'Brave', I would get that... but renaming The Bear and the Bow to Brave seemed dumb even for the brightest marketing executive. Merida is hardly 'Brave" in the film and no amount of voice-overs at the beginning and ending over dramatic Scottish landscapes will convince me otherwise.

There are some very good moments in the film , like the opening picnic, Merida's archery challenge, her standing up to her mom etc which only shows glimpses of what the film could have been. But for the most part we end up with awkward comedy by a Bear Queen who's plight needed to come-off grave and dramatic to take this plot seriously. This is not Pixar's worst (Cars 2 still has that crown), but in my books it is definitely their most disappointing yet... simply because I had higher expectations.
So see it once, enjoy the beautiful production design, good voice work, interesting score, the lovely short La Luna that plays before it and  a few heart felt sequences showing the film's potential. After Brother Bear and now Brave, it's clear that Disney/Pixar love turning humans into bears to teach them life lessons. Hopefully they will get it right the third time around... and may I suggest a different animal  to help justify the comedy? A kangaroo perhaps?

'Animation Portfolio' page added

So much has happened since I have been MIA on the blog that I feel the need for a bit of recap before I move on to more current posts. In that spirit, I have added a couple of pages above, 'Animation Portfolio' and 'Photography Portfolio'. The former is now live, latter to follow soon.
Here is a promo for Sons of Ram, the current animated feature film that I am working on at ACK as writer/producer/director. Coming to theaters Sep 28th 2012

Blog Resurrection 2.0!!

Where Phoenix Doodle = Blog

Hell yes, its happening! Blog Resurrection 2.0 ...or is it 3.0? Who cares...those keeping  tabs have probably moved on anyways! Still, excited to give this a shot anyways, damned be Facebook. Rejigged the look, noticed a few dead links -will work my way slowly through them to fix them. Hopefully the blog will not be reduced to  a series of resurrection posts .

Watch this space...will be back in a couple  of  years  days! :)