Journey So Far - Part 2

 Part one here.

So, if you have seen the work on our company's website, I'll tell you that its not all. Its just about 60% of what we did so far.  Why all is not showcased on the website? Well to be honest, as I have stated before that to survive and keep the studio running we had to do some generic and client oriented work not of our style and appropriate of showcasing on the website. So there you go, only the best of our work.
We started the studio without really planning about it actually. Originally we gathered to work on our dream project. After our education was complete, (formal one which didn't really matter, but it taught us how to learn BY ourselves) I wrote a story. A short story of a boy and a girl. It is about the deepest emotion of longing too hard for a small boy to understand. How he sees it and goes through it is a very different world than ours. The story was very closed to my heart and it did brought tears to my colleagues and friends who heard it. We shared the dream to make a short film on it, and so started the actual journey. We had a rented room in Pune City and without knowing much about how to go about it, we started. But we were really amateurs and didn't work out. And so we all parted and went on with our lives. A few of us got a job and we all spread out across the state.

After a few years, again the passion, the dream and the craziness possessed me and I left my great going job and came back home to team up with him. I informed my old team that I am giving it one more try and if anyone wish they can join in. It turned out that most of my team mates were just as crazy as I was, and we all came back together once again, leaving the jobs and homes behind to pursue 'The Kite'.

 It is the reason we gathered without holding back and everyone struggled at their own expenses to see it through. Our families and friends supported us and we started functioning like a studio. We rented a place in Kolhapur City and worked there. It was a beautiful palace wing. The structure was about 400 years old and was the perfect way to work in peace and pursue creativity. Slowly we had to take in some commercial projects to pay our bills and it grew from there. We made AD films, we shot documentaries and we provided VFX services to sustain. Without us really being aware of it, we were a studio. So one day, We decided, It is gonna be a different set of challenges and a much bigger dream from now on. We became, the Headquarter Studios. As the City was a small place and not really an Animation and Film market, we moved to Pune again and set up our studio much more formally and professionally. I will tell you that the way I say it makes it look like a big success and growth, and yes it is, but not quite (Don't find it weird that I am directly telling you the facts and the truth. It is what it is). We struggle more now to make out our expenses and pay up the salaries. We struggle to reach our monthly income targets. We struggle to hone our skills as artists as very little time is left to us. and most of all we struggle to work on what we came together for.

Sadly 'The Kite' is being delayed as we have to work on other projects simultaneously. But we still work on it as much as we can. You can see the work done so far here. (Can''t show you the Animatic and Storyboards as it will really reveal the entire story ;-). Don't wanna mess up the surprise. We started posting the WIPs online and got great feed backs from friends and very talented industry experts. Surprisingly, we were approached for an interview about our short film by Animation Xpress, India's leading online Animation Magazine. You can read the article here.
 
Running a business without knowing a single thing about it is madness. And keeping alive the passion of the art along with it is a challenge. More on it later.

To be continued......

Thoughts

 

Ever imagine a life that they show in sitcoms. happy, and if sad, it doesn't feel so much and you get over it. Those perfect moments, those perfect dates, those perfect beautiful gardens and cozy coffee houses. Those stupid, little but worthy things to live for. is it real?

It's so weird. Everything. I am learning that everyone's perspective are REALLY different, even more than they say. By they, I mean' I don't know who exactly, but somebody'. It's so hard to function with another person with a different view and a different persona.

How two minds function with each other. How they don't. How to manage people and teams, how not to. There are books, there are sessions for life but doesn't it just goes as it have to? It's too random, the universe is. Too elusive to hold and tweak it the way we want. We can only be prepared for it. Not control it. I don't think there is really a way to learn to do all these things when you want to. Trying to organize this uncertainty is impossible. Should we stop trying and instead, just live it.

You must be wondering why I am being so philosophical and staid on a blog called Art Life. I figured,  'it's art AND its life, so let's think over on life a little'. Bear with me.

I think of all this because I am too malleable sometimes emotionally. A song I hear, a picture I see, a film I watch or a place I visit. Suddenly I get lost in something which is not real. I get lost in that song, that picture, that film or that place. What it say and what it makes me feel. Those feelings don't become a cliché for me. They affect me in a new way again and again and I just sink down and down. At that moment, I become a creator. An artist. At that point is when I start working automatically. At that point I have a personality.

There is a story in everything and that is my job as a filmmaker. To tell a story. And the moment I create it I start working on telling it. We all do this in everything we do. We imply our ideas or share them. We portray everything we like and that's what we become as a person. A personality. This brings us to the start. The question is how two different persons, because they like and live different lives physically and mentally, can agree with each other, work together or live together. Some traits can be similar co incidentally but completely, it's impossible.

 I know I know I am saying 'impossible' too much but I don't want to be positive if the things I am talking are not. It's too random, can't figure it out but I have a feeling that I don't have to.

Going Home :-)

Inspired from J.B. Monge, this is something I tried. Painting Fantasy Life is what I enjoy most. Hobbits, Goblins, All kinds of Fairies, Elves, Dragons, Wizards...oh! I know I haven't painted as much as I am saying but its coming. That is the world for me :-)
I used a BIG wacom Cintiq fo this one. We got a new one in our office and I thought of trying my hands on it. Its AWESOMEE!
Going home. ... Going...home ^_^