DHIMANT VYAS : Clay Animation Title Sequence

The first to present his work was Dhimant who began by showing the complete title sequence which he had animated using his clay animation technique. The applause that followed was deafening. Taare Zameen Par has indeed succeeded in integrating various styles of animation into mainstream cinema not just for cosmetic value but to carry the story forward and to give audiences a clearer insight into the mind of the protagonist.
Dhimant: “When he first approached me, Aamir was discussing about two or three styles. He wanted something artistic, in a painterly or cutout style. But once he saw the clay work I had done for Happy Planet, he became certain that he wanted clay animation.”

Dhimant then showed some of his earlier work which actually was the precursor to this particular style of clay animation. He said, “7 or 8 years ago, I had created Clay Comics. It was a small story, the illustrations were created with clay, lit and photographed. This was the starting point for my experimentation with this style. Then I held a clay illustration workshop at TATA Interactive for their illustrators, where the clay wasn’t really 3D but rather embossed. After successfully creating the embossed clay illustrations, we thought we should animate in this style. That is how Happy Planet happened.” Dhimant then showed photographs of the process and explained how the lighting, modeling, texture, Photoshop cleanups and backgrounds were done. Dhimant then screened Happy Planet for the audience which was, by then, hanging on to his every word.

“Besides working for TATA Interactive, I have my own setup as well, where I take up projects like Taare Zameen Par. I had shown Aamir Happy Planet. He loved it and wanted some elements from it, which is why I had to repeat some elements in TZP. Initially, though, we were discussing about the 3 x 9 sequence which we were planning to execute as a mix of clay and 2D styles. But there was not enough time – only 2 months to execute both the opening titles and the 3 x 9 sequence. So it was decided that Vaibhav would do the 3 x 9 sequence.

Aamir showed me the entire movie first and then briefed me on what should be there in the animated sequence. It was basically Ishan’s imagination. We had to convey his personality and his thinking process. He gave me lots of sample images and visual references.”

1) STORYBOARD

“I began with a very rough storyboard. Aamir had given me complete freedom to do whatever I felt like; whatever I imagined. I did not face too many problems getting his approvals.This was to be a continuous sequence with no cuts because when you imagine, or when you dream, you go from one dream to another in a continuous manner. The transitions between different worlds are smooth. I felt a plain white background would be flexible and suitable for any element or animal that enters the frame. We had to plan the animation keeping in mind the time constraint. Initially we planned to have it for 2 and half minutes but eventually it ended up being 3 minutes long.”

He then showed a complete slide show of the storyboards.

2) ANIMATIC

“The next stage after the storyboard is the animatic, which helps you get a rough estimate of the timing of each move or each transition in the sequence. Here you have to visualize the entire animation so that you know you are not going beyond the assigned duration. But somewhere, during production, the duration changed as the animation became spontaneous – many things were added or deleted. Aamir was clear that he did not want humans in the sequence, only natural elements and objects from a child’s fantasy.”

3) MODEL-MAKING

“I had three very good professional model-makers working with me on this project – Arvind Chudasama, Vishal Mahala and Harshad Godbole. Models have to be accurate because when the final animation is viewed on a large screen, every minute detail is visible and the faults are obvious. The models should also be neat and clean, so that they look good and it is enjoyable to animate them. These guys were working with me night and day, sometimes even up to 18 hours a day. We worked through the night till 5 or 6 am and then went back to our day jobs as well. It was very stressful.

Since the models are ’embossed’, depth is critical. You need to get the thickness right. Sometimes, a model doesn’t look good by itself but under the camera it looks great! Since the model-makers are animators as well they could visualize more or less accurately and knew how to create depth in the models.”

He then showed us photographs of the models to illustrate his point.

“Most models didnot have wire frames or armatures inside, just some of them. For example, the rabbit had a wire armature in its ears because they were too thin to retain the shape.

We had to create transitions of shape and colour. Sometimes, we had to even create in-between shades of colour for the clay, as in the case of the peacock.

The pink Octopus character that appears with the film title had a lot of squash and stretch so we first we made drawings. Then we created replacement models of all the shapes and used those while animating so we saved a lot of time during the shoot. At times we had to put the clay characters in the freezer because the heat generated by the shooting lights was making the plasticene melts and the smaller characters became very tough to handle.”

Pizza Planet – “Here you can see the cheating we had to resort to. The green planet is actually flat but an illusion of a three dimensional object was created by adding perspective while shading and sculpting the craters.”

The Hippo appeared to move towards you in the scene. It was a large model so it was difficult to animate. We
used a combination of replacement models and Photoshop work. The larger model had to be created with similar details and look exactly the same as the smaller version which was quite a challenging task.”

4) LIGHTING & CAMERA

Lighting is very different for this style of animation. It had to be kept flat so as to not create any shadows, or else it would lose volume and the elements would look two-dimensional. We used a white background. Two cameras were placed on top facing downwards. One was a normal webcam – used to check the animation. The other was a professional Canon digicam to capture the final animation. We used a software called MonkeyJam, which allows you to see each frame and check the animation to see if it is smooth. If it was OK then we captured it from the final camera. The Canon camera has its own software to capture images directly onto the computer, so you dont have to touch the camera. In fact, you must NOT touch the camera once you have set it up or else the slightest shake will change the composition of the frame. The glass base was kept at a slight tilt to prevent light glares and reflections.

Satyaprakash Ratha did the lighting for us.

5) VIDEO REFERENCES

“Before I animate, I have the habit of looking at references. We looked at videos to see how each element moves.” Dhimant then showed the live videos that he looked at for reference – peacock, fish tank, dance, sting ray etc.
“Many a times we assume that a particular character will move in a certain way but we can be wrong. I always thought that a turtle moves using all four limbs; that it swims using all four limbs, but when I watched video, I realised it moves only the 2 front limbs. The hind limbs just follow; it doesn’t voluntarily move them. That is why it is always better if you check before you animate.”

6) SHOOTING

“Since the elements are all placed flat on the screen, you don’t have to worry about many technical things. When you have full models – clay characters standing upright or with armatures, you might face difficulties as you need to worry about balancing them and also be sure about how to move them, how to make them jump or swim or fly. Here, it becomes very easy. You are not worried about all these technicalities. You can focus and concentrate on the animation. The main thing is that you have to create the illusion of 3D space, which can be achieved through models – by changing their shape and size.

Sometimes, you have things moving in a group, and it becomes a bit difficult. When a lot of things are moving in parallel, you have to ensure that you are not forgetting to move any of the elements.

The Comet was created using plenty of tiny round balls of clay which were moved with the help of a brush. The background was a plain white plastic sheet which is available in any photo equipment place. It is very easy to maintain and clean.

Dhimant then showed a very interesting video of the making of the clay sequence.

The QnA session followed:

Q. How were the Octopus ink and the Humming Bird wings done?
A. It was composited at TATA Elxsi and done completely in CG. Even the text animation compositing was done by them. The Humming Bird was done in Photoshop. I made the wings and filmed around 4 frames out of focus. The frames were then repeated.

Q. How was the lighting done because when we tried it at our institute, we were unable to completely avoid the shadows?
A. The distance of the objects from the lights also affects the shadow. The light was placed on the side of the camera. It was not on top of the camera. We had 6 lights I think. Satyaprakash Rath, our cinematographer is here – he will explain.

Satyaprakash – “The set up was very simple – we had gateway paper on top and 4 mini tube-lights. This gives a very soft light and less heat. We simulated sky light by having the lights above and on either side of the camera. The material for the base is a plastic sheet which photographers generally use for the background. You get it in all colours. It is available in a roll.”

Q. How much time did the entire film take you?
A. Shooting took one and half month and 15 days for story-boarding and pre-production.

Q. What was the frame rate, specially for the morphing sequences?
A. I was shooting everything on twos. So you save time. Only the frog’s tongue (because the movement was swift) and humming bird’s wings were on ones. While shooting we shot only the humming bird. Then we separately shot the wing out-of-focus. Then put them together in Photoshop.

Q. How did you come up with the ideas for the transitions, also keeping in mind the child’s feelings?
A. Actually, as an animator, you always imagine a lot of things. You have some ideas. In this particular thing, Aamir had discussed what he could be thinking. There was also a wall painted in the character’s room which was already there in the film. You see a lot of motifs there. I had watched the film so it gave me an idea of what are the things that might interest the boy’s character. As an animator you must keep looking at lots of references – illustrators work, videos, films.

Q. Do you use a special clay?
A. This a clay recently launched by Kores. It is imported from Thailand and sold here under their brand name. You will get it in any stationery shop.

Q. When you do a larger scene and you have many elements moving simultaneously, is there a technique by which you are controlling it? How do you manage the timing for multiple objects?
A. The movement is not constant. You will always have ease in and ease out. The spacing also differs. The judgement for this comes through experience actually. When lots of things are moving in parallel to each other, you have to plan really well. You can roughly animate it and see how it works so you get an idea of timing and then you can restart it.

Q. How did you animate the squash and stretch?
A. We first sketched references, tested them out. Then we made replacement models for all the frames.

Q. How did you define the size of the objects that you animated?
A. We had a field guide – 22 inches x 10 inches. The size was based on that ratio. At the same time, we have to imagine how big it will appear on the big screen. The model-makers worked on the basis of the storyboard. For the morphing scenes, we had the replacements ready.

Q. Did you first work out the rough animation on paper before animating in clay?
A. No. I directly animated in clay.

Q. Was the music recorded first for the title sequence? There are many instances like the moving train which has sound effects and the entire sequence appears in sync with the music.
A. It would have been nice if the music had been recorded first. But here there was no time. The music was composed after the animation had been completed. But they have done a good job.

Q. Since you have done the entire animation on the fly, without any planning on paper, did you do any trial runs? How do you preview the animation to know if the action is correct or not?
A. I had a 2 camera setup, one for recording the actual animation and the other one – a webcam – to preview the animated frames using a software called Monkey Jam. I could keep checking the movement as I animated the models before capturing the final thing.

Q. There are some sequences very similar to those in Happy Planet. Was that intentional?
A. Actually after watching Happy Planet itself Aamir had decided to use this same technique for the title sequence. He liked some scenes so much that he insisted that I incorporate those elements here as well. Even the Hippo was added at the last moment which is why it appears towards the end of the sequence. Otherwise I would have added it earlier.

Q. In the entire sequence of 3 minutes, how did you plan the timing for each set of elements? How did you divide the time? In the slides that you showed, we saw you using a stop watch to determine the time of something.
A. When you put up your entire storyboard on the soft board, you have to calculate the timing for every scene. You assess the movement of the elements in a particular scene and decide how much time you want it to take from point A to point B, or to complete any action. You can visualise it and use the stop watch to time it. When you try it out 3-4 times, you will get an approximate idea of the time. You have to time the entire storyboard in this way and make sure that it fits into your designated timeline.

Q. As amateur animators, the biggest hurdle we face is timing. The animation comes out quite flat, and movement becomes very monotonous. How do we overcome this? Is it observation or good 2D background that helps you?
A. A good 2D background helps. No matter what kind of animation you are doing – 3D, clay, stopmotion, any medium, it is essential to have a classical animation background. You don’t need to necessarily draw 2D animation but you need to have a clear understanding of the fundamentals of animation. Observation is also a very good way to learn – look at actual live footage. That will give you a good idea of movement and spacing. Even I need to look at references at this point – how each element moves.

Tony added – “There is also a very interesting book for those of you who want to understand or get an insight on timing. It is a book that I would recommend to all animators. Anybody involved in the process of animation should read – ‘Timing For Animation’ It is written by Hallas and Whitaker. It is one of the few books that will explain to you the basic timing for animation in a very simplified manner.

There’s also a book by Richard Williams – ‘The Animator’s Survival Kit’. That is also a book that you should have. One of the things that I find with a lot of 3D animators these days is that you people don’t read. Go out there, the net is a huge library for you, search for information on elementary aspects of animation and you will see a lot of improvement in your work. You can find out about simple things like timing, exaggeration, staging, framing your shots, camera movements. There is a whole lot of data available on the net today. Which you can read, reference, understand and use to improve your work.

Q. While working on this film and the concept, did you identify with character in the film?
A. Absolutely. When I saw the film for the first time, I felt like I was looking at myself. I have gone through similar things.

Q. Has the entire animation been done ‘straight-ahead’? How do you manage to maintain the time that you have planned? Does it happen that when you planned the timing with the story board you though it would take a certain amount of time but when you actually executed it, it took more time than estimated?
A. Yes. Sometimes, that does happen but it gets compensated elsewhere in some other part of the animation. Not a drastic change, maybe a second here or there. While animating, I am constantly aware of the planned time and consciously trying to keep up with it.
This sequence was supposed to be 2 and half minutes long but I needed half a minute more and Aamir gave me the extra half minute which he probably cut from elsewhere in the film.

Q. What was the resolution of the images that you clicked for the final thing?
A. I shot at double the required resolution (4K) keeping in mind that I might need to zoom in a few places. The stills were taken with a 10 megapixels camera.

Q. Did you face a light flicker problem?

A. We shot mostly at night when power usage by everyone is at its maximum. That makes the light vary, which shows up as a flicker when we shoot. So we used a stabilizer and that controlled the light. Yet, there was a small amount of flicker which the guys at TATA Elxsi fixed later.

Making of TZP – Part 2 : Pankaj Khandpur – Visual Effects

Making of TZP – Part 3 : Vaibhav Kumaresh – 2D Animation for 3×9 Sequence