Silence! Silence! Silence! Silence! Rolling! Camera! Clap! 1 by 1, take 1! Action! 1 by 1, take 1! Animation has often been considered to be the purest form of cinema magic. What can be more magical than breathing life into inanimate characters like these? But before animation was born, even before the cinema came into existence, Indians had their own ways of enjoying projected images on the silver screen. The most traditional of these was the Tolu Bomalu Ata or the leather puppet show of Andhra Pradesh. Closer to this century, the father and son duo of Mahadev Gopal and Vinayak Mahadev Patvardhan added movement to what was essentially an ordinary magic lantern show and came up with the Shambharik Kharolika. The technique was quite novel and yet simple. Two glass slides, one with the static elements and the other with the movable elements, were used in tandem to create movement within a scene. Then came the high-tech revolution. The motion picture camera. With the help of this wonder gadget, the Lumiere brothers made their first masterpiece of moving live action and dubbed it the cinema. With the same wonder machine, Emil Kohl filmed thousands of his own drawings and made the world's first animated film. In India, the multifaceted pioneer Dada Saibhvajit tried his hand at the magic of animation. Arkadiyanchi Maus, or a game of matchsticks, was the first attempt. This was followed by Vichitra Sita, or Animat-Inanimat. None of these films have survived the ravages of time. But Falke's primitive craftsmanship can still be seen in this title sequence of Falke's last silent film, Setubandhan, made in 1932. Other attempts followed. In another part of India, R.C. Boral, then with the new theatres, introduced some lively new stars in his animation short, In the Moonlit Night. Soon after this, Prabhat dawned on the animation scene. with its animation short, Jambu Kaka, made in 1937 and released as a side reel with Amrit Mantan. To this day, the animator and maker of Jambu Kaka, Mr. Kelgar, remembers how his adventure began. This happened on the sets of Amrit Mantan, while working with the Prabhat Film Company in 1935. My friend Mr. Utturkar and I were discussing a cartoon film we had seen. I remarked that we in India could easily make such a film. This conversation was reported to Mr. Shantaram, who immediately asked me to submit a proposal. I drew a few sketches of a jackal which he liked. The test film was thought and the project approved. This is how Jambu Kaka began. After Jambu Kaka, Mr. Kekar left Prabhat, hoping to pursue a career in animation. With his co-artist Lachke, he worked on a film Swapnatharang for the Anand Cartoon Film Company. Swapnatharang Cartoon Film Company After Swapnatharang, we made another film, Lankabahen, which was released by Ranjit Movietone. It was around this time that two young artists, K.S. Gupte and G.K. Gokhale, were learning to move the images. In 1935, I met Ardeshir Irani, who liked my concept of making animation films. I exposed 400 feet in cine-colour, but the project remained incomplete because the company closed down. They were largely self-taught and had acquired their skills by studying old American cartoon films. Gokhale's first experiment in animation was Shikar. After that, I made a 350-foot long animation film for the Sait brothers, based on Sani Guruji's story, Sol Sakali. There were many others, like Gupte and Gokhale, who were acquiring the skills of animation through experimentation. Some of their early experiments even made it to the screen. Kulapur Cinetones, Bakam Bhatt, G.S. Pohikar's Superman's Myth, Mandar Malik's Akash Patal, Mohan Bhavnani's Lafanga Langu, and IFI's The War That Never Ends. This film was made by the British animator, Myna Johnson, with the help of Indian artists like P.N. Sharma, B.R. Doling, and Ahmed Zakaria. We had come a long way. from the old army cartoon film unit which was in charge of Captain Johnson and his wife Mrs. Minor Johnson was in fact the first animator and I wrote the script for a film called The War That Never Ends which is a fight against disease The war that was being waged on the continent came to an end, and the British Raj packed up to go home. With it, the shutters came down on the animation unit. However, the scene was not totally bleak. In 1947, on the heels of independence, Germany Films of Madras released Cinema Kadambam, a 100% Indian animation film. Though no copies of this film survive, Tanu remembers every frame of the film. It was in the year of India's independence, 1947, that I had the good fortune to have my cartoon film, short, Cinema Kadambam, released. Cinema Kadambam was essentially a series of animated caricatures of popular film stars of the 40s. Films start like Rasundara, Kannamba, Venjan, T. R. Ramachandran and such others. Back in Bombay, Gokhale and Gupte were pioneering the concept of animated advertising films. Their creation was the Rangin Chutkiya series, which ran uninterruptedly till 1955, when it closed down for causes best known to its sponsors. However, not all was lost. In the early 1950s, the noted Disney animator, Clare Weeks, set sail for India, under the Indo-American Technical Cooperation Program. He landed with books and equipment. His brief was to set up an animation cell at the Films Division. This was the place where it all started in fact. This is when Mohan Bhavanani brought Claire Weeks from the United States because Mr. Bhavanani was also very interested in doing cartoon films. Now, I remember still the excitement when the Acme camera first arrived and how it was set up, the whole rostrum was set up and at last we could start animation in the film division. Thus was born the cartoon film unit and with it began the first systematic and regular production of animation films in India. The first independent animation film to be produced by this unit was The Banyan Dien, based on a Buddhist Jataka tale. Made in 1957, the film is a curious mixture of styles. The figure of the king being derived from the Ajanta frescoes, while the deer bears an uncomfortably close resemblance to Disney's Bambi. One day came the turn of the mother deer. Her little one was so young, the mother was full with sadness. She went to her leader, the branch deer, and pleaded, not for herself, but for the little one, who would be left all alone. But he refused. It is your turn. You must go, he said. Unhappy at seeing his mother's tears, the little one ran swiftly to the banyan deer, who had saved him once before. The banyan deer thought and thought. Come what may, he would find a way to save the mother and child. Take your little one. Don't be afraid. So away they went, wild and happy. Oh no, the mother cried, can it be true? For proud and beautiful as he was, wise and noble as he was, the banyan deer had placed his head on the block. The film was a huge success and launched the careers of some of the best-known names in Indian animation. Elsewhere, in Tuna, two young artists, Madhav Kunte and Madhav Bhave, were thinking of making their own cartoon film. As the pink team, Madhav Bhave used to ask me why we can't make the cartoon films. And luckily Mr. Agarwal gave us the green signal. And without having any reference books or the modern equipment, we worked very hard and the results were surprising. Yes, Kar Bhala Ho Bhala, that was that film. That film was scripted by me. I also drew the backgrounds and I directed that film. Back in one day, the artists of the cartoon film unit at the Films Division were busy creating a spokesman who could convey the dream of a progressive post-independent India to its citizens. The first to arrive was this simple peasant, clad in a dhoti and turban. He was soon joined by others in the village. Pola. Mojiram, the Sarpanch and his son Gopal, each one a prototype of millions of rural Indians. These lovable characters were instantly identifiable and had a great deal to teach and to learn. For instance, Bhola often did things which were unhygienic. The doctor gave him some good advice. This is your enemy. This spreads diseases. You should get rid of this, and you can have rich compost in return. Hula was a happier moon, and the whole village was a healthier place. Moji could not understand how planning for the whole country could be done by a small group of people. What are you chaps doing here anyway? We are the planning commission. So, you're the fellows who make plans, huh? Wise guys. Dreamers. After opening his eyes to the progress being made, he realized that the five-year plans were not just idle dreams, but vital instruments of progress. If the 1950s was a period of fulfilled aspirations and dreams, then the 1960s was an era of experimentation. Out in the expanses of Canada, Norman McLaren was working wonders with image and sound. Inspired by his experiments in animation, Czech-trained Pramod Pati, who had worked under the legendary Jiri Trinka, began to infuse routine propaganda films with various experimental styles and designs. A child's drawings on a slate were animated to liven up a propaganda film on family planning. Will you please get me a little baby brother? No. A teeny weeny one will do? No. But why not? Because I can't afford to get you one. You mean a baby costs a lot of money? Oh yes, a baby can be very costly. A king Midas in cut-out was roped in to promote the idea of small savings. Thumbprint Miniatures narrated an anecdote from the Mahabharata. An animation experiment using time-lapse, one recognition at Berlin. A pixelated, arvid, brought to the screen a frenetic, disorienting pace. Outside the films division, filmmakers like Kantilal Rathod and Clement Baptista also creatively participated in these heydays of Indian animation. Rathod made excellent use of cutouts in Peacetime Armada. They together gave impetus to the use of animation in advertising films. The use of animation expanded rapidly and opened up career opportunities for young talents like Bhim Sen, Ramesh Putnis, Madhav Kunte, R. A. Sheikh, A. R. Sen, Viji Samant, Naik Satam and Ram Mohan. Animation is a very expensive medium and outside of film station there is only the advertising industry that could afford it. And it provided many animators with the opportunity to come out with extremely high quality animation. I think million blocks if the television was the only answer. But here the invisible blocks and transit we could highlight the factors. The sadly neglected area of Indian animation is the puppet film. Very few Indian animators have seriously worked in this form. The exceptions have been Ajay Kumar Chakraborty and Sukumar Pillai, who have made films backed by the Children's Film Society of India, recently renamed the National Centre of Films for Children and Young People. Ajay Chakraborty's Raju or Tinku and Sukumar Pillai's As You Like It were particularly noteworthy. The National Institute of Design at Ahmedabad was the first to launch an ambitious training program in animation design. Animation design at NID started as early as 1965 as part of its unique faculty development program. The first film was shot in black and white during Professor Armin Hoffmann's visit from Switzerland as part of its visual communication training program. This film was shot on the Bolex 16mm camera. The program received a shot in the arm when the renowned Italian designer, Leo Leone, and animator, Giannini, visited the Institute in 1966, and created an attitudinal change among the students. Interacting with the students, they produced a cut-out film, Swimmy. Swimmy thought and thought. He thought of this, and he thought of that. And then he thought some more. And suddenly he said, I have it. We're going to swim together, each in his place. And when they had taken the shape of one large fish, swimming said, I'll be the eye. They swam into the open water where the tunans hunted, and they chased the big bad fish away. In the wake of Leo Leone, many others from the Animation Hall of Fame have lectured and conducted workshops at the National Institute of Design. Among them are Roger Nook, Ishu Patel, Claire Weeks, and Barry Parker. Even in dialogue, you have to look towards basic principles to make the animation come alive. We go back to basic principles such as the bouncing ball. We've got an action that has an impact like that. And we can apply that action to dialogue. Most Indian animation is, of course, a derivative of classical animation, which is based on drawings that show different phases of the movement. A simple action like taking a step forward may require as many as five different drawings. The animator begins with drawing one and five, and then interpolates the middle position of the figure. With drawings two and four, the action is completed. A simple walk, such as this, will require a great many more drawings. In keeping with the relentless march of technology, computer animation has arrived on the scene. After 25 years, we have changed with the times and we have gone into computers. Computers have opened up new vistas. and along with new generation HD computers. We were the first people to use commercial computer animation in India. Initially we used the film medium which was very tedious. With the advent of commercial television, we were able to transfer our computer generation images to videotape directly. This contributed to a great boom in the computer graphics industry. Computer animation has brought in many young talents to this newly growing field. I'm doing computer graphics and special effects meant going abroad. Now that has all changed. We have the skills and expertise in the country to be able to do all these things here. And in fact, it has gone as far as we do projects for clients from abroad like the US and the UK. In spite of all these technical advancements, Indian animators still seem to look to the West, and particularly to Disney for inspiration. And I felt very strongly that we should not only stick just to the Disney style, but bring in our own sort of back, our own heritage of art. And there are so many things to, so many styles to choose from in between in India. Lots of lots of different things, whether it's from the folk art or from Pahari paintings. I have brought a flower, I will put a fragrance on your cheeks. I will put a fragrance on your cheeks. Indian animation has come a long way since Nagasai Phalke made ordinary matchsticks dance on the screen to the amazement of Indian viewers. Some of the most creative artists and talented filmmakers have striven for the advancement of the form. And though the number of animation films made in India are still comparatively meagre, there is no denying that in terms of quality they compare with the best in the world. A fact which is borne out by the number of awards the films have brought back from various international festivals. ...of these award-winning films keep the flame of hope burning for Indian animation.