All is not forgotten with Khurpui, the Kom animation film project.

Following on from the successful Experimental Animation Workshop at the National Institute of Design in January, I later went back to Manipur to reconnect with the few Kom people that I know.  It was a very short visit, and I had other work to do there too, as there was the Meitei "Tapta"  film that was a priority - the errant film needed to rejoin the rest of the "Tales of the Tribes" collection...

Anyway, while I was there, I was able to meet our young Kom cultural advisor, Augustine, who came to the Manipur State Film Development Society (formally the Manipur Film Development Corporation) in Imphal.  I was able to introduce him to Dr. R.K. Joykumar, who had been our main collaborator and director of the "Tapta" film, and we all watched the "Khurpui" documentary made by the students at the National Institute of Design.  I have also submitted a proposal to the Department of Art and Culture in Manipur for support for  a workshop to take place during the summer, to bring some young animators to Manipur to help our young Kom friends from Koirentak to finish the film, using the medium of sand.

Lets hope that this will be the first animated folktale from the Kom tribe in Manipur, and that it can inspire and enthuse the local young people to do more about translating their oral narratives for new media.

After the festive mood we are back on track.
We had  movie screening at morning. Sarah Lawton, an artist and MA graduate from Manchester University also joined us during the screening. After seeing a film by Yuri Norstein, we first watched a short documentary film about the Adivasi Arts Trust animation project in Arunachal Pradesh and a preview of the new Gond film that is currently in production, as we were told that the animators for both projects - graduates from NID - would be coming to visit us in the afternoon to see our work.  After this, we watched  the documentary on the workshop that Arjun has been working on.  Tara reminded us of the importance of documenting the process, explaining that the process is as interesting as the final outcome, as it will contextualize the short film and detail all the issues we faced, both with the medium and the representation.  

At the end of the session Sarah introduced a camera obscura device to us.  It was a device that assists the artist in being able to sketch as it reflects the subject onto the paper using mirrors, so that it is then easier to draw the outline.

This is the last day of this sand animation workshop. Our animation is almost done and Shanthala is working on the final shots in which the tiger stripes transform to become the traditional Kom dress, the Ponthle, that the Kom wear for ceremonial and festive occasions to this day.   Most of our group are now busy doing post production. Some of them are working on the final sound track, and the rest of us are placing all the sequences on the final timeline. Now we can almost see our film.  We are making a presentation to our faculty today, but will continue to refine the edit and complete the last few frames of the sand animation in the coming days.

Nilava Roy

A very happy ‘Makar Sakranti’ & ‘Pongal’ & ‘Uttarayan’ to all of us.

Yesterday, we all attended the interactive ‘Baatein session’ with Sukanta Majumdar, a sound designer who took us on an audio-tour to a place we have never seen before and gave us, really an ear-blowing experience. When asked about his need for visuals, he replied,“My sound recorder is my sketchbook!”

Yesterday ended with a lot of hard but smart work.
Till now, progress of our project –

Animatics – Done
Sound – Done
Animation –  Done (nearly)

What remaining is now the post production, which already has been started parallely.
Hence, today had been quite a leisurely day, where we, on track with our post-production, enjoyed the day with lots of kite-flying, yummy lunch and fantastical lanterns.

So, all’s well that end’s well!

Cheers,
Amruta Bakshi

With almost all the shots of sand animation animated we are all excited to see the final film. Today, we collected the footage which was animated and have started putting it on the timeline. The sound team is ready with the sound mix. We are all set to compile it all together. Arjun is working on the documentary film which documents our experiences about this workshop and the ‘Kom’ tribe. We are expecting to see it by this Friday. 

This workshop introduced us to a new medium which is fun to explore. Sand has an amazing property which gives a different effect each time you add a new layer of sand on a light table, the more sand one adds the darker is the colour achieved. It took us some time to get comfortable with the medium as the sand simply slipped from our grip as we picked it. 

The daily exposure to the experimental animation films in the morning is very motivating and it pumps us to make films as individual animators in contrast to the commercial films. Today Tara introduced us to tribal animation films which told us the stories from the lands we had never heard of. The motive behind animating tribal films and involving the local people of the tribe in the process is to introduce, encourage, and empower them to the story telling medium of animation. This workshop has helped us empathise with the tribes in India and take their stories to a larger platform. 

Gouri Ajay Katdare

The films screened today showed examples of animations made in collaboration with indigenous storytellers and communities. In Australia there is a genre of animation films based on Aboriginal stories, an example is the Dust Echoes series. In Canada the National Film Board has also supported collaborations with Inuit artists.Dust Echoes - The Mimis, available from:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3DH7vRUHRk

 Dust Echoes – Morning Star, available from:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGlApOP237s

ABC Dust Echoes, Mermaid Story (2007), available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSbHwDoj4OM

Dust Echoes2, Whirlpool, available from:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtXgQVFDJHE

The Owl and the Raven: An Inuit Legend, available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xhWWdGm8fE

Today we complete eight days as we attempt to tell a Kom tribal story from Manipur through a medium which is completely unexplored by us - that is sand.

We started off  researching information that would help us to construct the story board and character design for the film along with understanding, questioning why  sand is being used as the only medium and how it gives justice to the film. Things began to have clarity after watching sand animation films which gave us  ideas of how story telling is achieved through this medium.

As we started animating, my partner Jaai and I tried our hands for the very first time with sand and we tried to make a small animation which was not so good in the end but responding to Tara’s kind appreciation towards it motivated us to get started with our first shot.

Working with the sand, we got to know about the property of it and how the layers of sand are used to show the depth or dark tones in the film. The process was surely a painstaking one as each and every frame was supposed to be wiped out and  before starting to redraw it all over again, and again. At the end, there is no such joy  as watching a completed shot which comes to life as sand rolls from one frame to another.

Thank you

Akshay  S. Malotkar

The screenings today presented a genre of indigenous film-making, where films are made by, or in collaboration with, indigenous storytellers to retell their stories for local target audiences.

Tara showed a few sample short animation films made in Canada there were based on Native American folklore and the well known Raven character that had been made by Winazi James 
including Bald Eagle (2006), by Winadzi James, available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2IWV24CWHk, and 

Raven Tales Bald Eagle Part 2 (2006), available from:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlsIgFuRTes

How Coyote Got his Cunning (2011), available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5d2Zh318kRY

The session ended with a screening of The Tallest Story Competition (2006), a collection of five animated Adivasi folktales that Tara had been involved with.  More information about the production company that made the series, West Highland Animation in Scotland can be found here.

What a delightful start to the day – we watched and studied the works of one of my favourite artists - Jan Svankmajer, an influential Czech Surrealist film-maker who has performed great experiments using various mediums in the field of animation. He pushed the limits of puppets in his films. We saw a documentary on him and two of his films. I was amazed by his clever ways of editing. In Historia Naturae, he doesn't move the subjects frame by frame throughout the film. He cleverly cuts between them, in quick succession, creating a dramatic impact on the viewer. The sound supported these visuals tremendously, making a delight for us to savour. His works are haunting, clever, humorous, exaggerated, making a political comment and creating a strange unsettling effect on our minds. All credit goes to his innovative stop motion and pixelation techniques.

We had a little discussion on the concept of authenticity. It's something that we as film-makers need to think about. How can we classify a piece of work as authentic? Probably an accurate, honest account of a subject that has not been ripped from any source. A piece of work that gives due credit to the source of origin from which it has been adapted, or interpreted differently. We also spoke about the importance of research before making a film. Since we are animating a folk tale of the Kom tribe, it is imperative that we know every little detail about their appearance, clothing, language, culture and way of life. Only then we will be able to get into the skin of the characters and animate them accordingly.

After a short break, two of my friends and I recorded a couple of foley sounds and composed the background score of the film. All the sounds were created using bamboo, cowries, beads, dhol and the flute. We tried using the same approach as the Kom does during their dance performances. It was an interesting exercise to create each sound traditionally instead of using computer generated ones on the software. We really got into the groove of the drumbeats for their dance. These beats now paint a much clearer picture of each shot and their transitions in my head. Also, the spirit of the people when they dance. Meanwhile my peers are slowly but steadily progressing, striking off one shot after another, doing a great job with sand.

Also, I was just telling my faculty member how interesting it would be for the boys and girls of the Kom tribe to try sand animation themselves. They can totally do it! We all have grown up playing with sand, making little castles and mountains with it as kids. So in that sense we are not entirely alien to the medium. Sand animation would just be an extension of playing with sand. Or making a rangoli. It will be an interesting exercise for them.

In addition to the first part of a documentary film about Jan Svankmajer, available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e89U4ZD-Kvo, the animation films watched today were:

Ashes (1994) by Frenc Cako, available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79zhloD3ehI

(a short film made using the medium of sand)

Dark and Light  (1989) by Jan Svankmajer, available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=el8RUqN_4Fw

Historia naturae (Suita) （1967) by Jan Svankmajer, available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cERmx_q0rgI

by 
Zeel Sanghvi

At the moment, We are at the end of week 1 of the Experimental Sand Animation Workshop. Throughout the week our understanding about the medium and our knowledge about the methods of animating using this medium has steadily but surely increased.

Our work usually begins with a session where we look at already existing works in this medium. We have already seen the few sand animation films that we have with us, but we viewed two of them again today, to remind ourselves of how sand has been used in animation already.The films were viewed as a way to remember that in sand animation maintaining the beauty of the medium and it's uniqueness is also equally important. Our recent efforts and trials were in a way leading to a more or less 2D and black and white kind of style. But correction of this slight change is on the way. The gradient and partial opacity the sand can produce is special to this medium, and including this effect in the film throughout is also important.  The learning experience prepares us to try new things, and experiment using this medium. Also it helps us to use the knowledge towards the completion of our project.

We also watched several animation films that combine orthodox narrative techniques with new approaches to challenge and subvert the dominant presentation that is usually conveyed in mainstream animation films.  

Examples of these films that we watched today are:  

The Street (1976) by Caroline Leaf, available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGWSYrgB6gM

Girls Night Out (1987)  by Joanna Quinn, available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ficrLSm-dYk

The Hand (1965) by Jiri Trnka, available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cS4Th36zN_g

Thanking you,
Sincerely
Arjun Janardhanan Kappatan

Note:
The Street is a film that uses metamorphosis, and ink painting on glass to tell a realistic story centred on a young boy's emotions.  Girl's Night Out challenges female stereotypes with more realistic, natural depictions of women and The Hand was a political statement about freedom of expression.  These films contrast the artificiality of the kind of world that is commonly  presented to children in mainstream animation programming. 

As the daily 10 AM struck, we headed to the preview room, the room that allows us to watch our films and discuss beyond. We finally settled as Tara Douglas proceeded to explain that we’ve been exploring how sand could be used as the medium and that today, we shall explore some eccentric narrative styles, which allow us to use a certain medium to its potential extent. And hence, the day opened with a  varied inspiration, provided through some of these wild experimental films:

A Colour Box Len Lye

Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPDWgpabc7U
Synchromy - Norman McLaren

Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmSzc8mBJCM
Dots (1940) Norman McLaren

Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3-vsKwQ0Cg
A Phantasy in Colors (1949) Norman McLaren

Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86Wp96uG-N8
Blinkity Blank (1955) Norman McLaren
Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3YeWgUgPHM&index=3&list=PLpHLBf41xLlCugybuoZmiXUyq8nJiMKlk

 Spheres(1969) Norman McLarenAvailable from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiBiO66pOqg

Lines vertical (1960) Norman McLaren
Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnbavAYULUU

Free Radicals (1958) Len Lye

Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEEduQMwB3c
Tusalava Len Lye

Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flJOXMln4C0

When we ended with the screenings, my usual battle of reasoning with the medium again struck me hard. I remember having major discussions with people regarding the same. A friend of mine once told me that the value of a technique or material is only recognized when, in our current state, we are unable to explore our narrative (be it a painting, a symbol or a film) and succeed to realize that the intent can only be satisfactorily conveyed by moving on to the next medium/style/technique or material, through trial and error. This always supports me through the needs and wants of using a style that supports and gels with my narrative just as a building gels with its function, a thin line where as form follows function, function follows form.

After a short tea break around 12 PM, we settled back in the lab to discuss how we can finally get our project on full swing today. Groups were divided, the few on sound, the few on animatic, the few on story boarding and the few to begin animating with sand on the two provided setups. I, am a part of working on the sound and the background score, as well as this blog entry.  Sound is a very lovely part to work with. Considering it gives a film at least a 50% of its value, it has to be developed with as much a thought. How and what sounds are used, and where do are used, enriches any experience. Being a musician myself, I keep sound in high regard.

Tribal music is interesting, the source of their sounds make up for the signature of their tribe. We were listening to it constantly to see how it could be manipulated to be put into the film, giving it the feel of this Kom tribe story. The rest of the sounds, like the footsteps, the ambient, the mattered animals, were collected using a free source on internet. As the animatic without sound took its shape, the sounds were added on.

Meanwhile, I had been trying to contact a senior from Manipur, to get more info on the tribal sounds, because internet only has so much information. He isn’t from the Kom tribe but did promise to get me in touch with one of his friends. I’m really excited about this.

As the day was coming to an end, I walked in to the sand animation room to just see how it was going on. A lot of progress was made, and it was fun to watch, to see sand moving on its own is a delight! The beauty of sand lies in its shape morphs, and that’s how the narrative had been developed. It is tough though, sand, to maintain its shape as we proceed on to animating. It has a very powdery texture that is hard to handle. Oh! And the joy of being messy! We need a lot of precise tools to control sand, from a paint brush to a sieve, from just a tiny pinch with fingers to a credit card or an ear bud.

I’ll just end here exclaiming that the project finally proceeds on full swing! A late entry hopefully made it worth the wait.

Cheers!

Shanthala Setty

After completely discussing the story yesterday that we are going to animate, along with our thumbnail drawings and having our hands on exploring experience with sand, we started off today with a refreshing dose of experimental films that truly depicted experimental animation cannot be confined in any definition. The films were -

Promised Land  by Benjamin Probanza, available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vuyk8If5hJQ

En Tierra by Cesar Diaz Melendez (2006) available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYTB6ic3Odk

Sand Animation: 'Making of' The Hunter (2012) by Marieka Walsh, available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDnvZ9Lm0Bc

Rainbow Dance (1936) by Len Lye (using batik technique), available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L00R9Drn1mc

The Peanut Vendor (1933) by Len Lye, available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQYZPwEdPoo&spfreload=10

The highlights of the session were -

Lapis (1966) by James Whitney,  giving an eye pleasing experience synchronizing sitar music with hand drawn dots, available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzniaKxMr2g

An Optical Poem (1938) by Oskar Fischinger, using paper cut-outs and invisible threads.

These two were indeed a treat to the eye, available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=they7m6YePo

After viewing the films we geared upon the final discussion about our story in terms of visuals and then put the foot on the pedal and tasks were divided.  Animation was started. Some were busy refining the storyboard, some took the research task, and some held the sound department.

While researching for the sound, I came across these two videos about the Kom tribe, which I thought might be useful to all. The links are given below-

1.       Folk cultural dance of the com tribe at the Hornbill festival.

     Hornbill Festival is the premier festival of Nagaland held every year in the month of December.    Also called the 'Festival of Festivals', Hornbill festival showcases stunning natural beauty and great cultural traditions, Nagaland can offer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5CxxM4tvn8       

2.       This video emphasizes the traditional attire of the Kom tribe. This clip was shot during the shooting of documentary "Journey across tribal arts in North east India" 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huqNdspAeOA

All in all, the day didn’t end at all.

Cheers,

Amruta Bakshi

Taking off from our initial understanding of the story, we tried to break down our interpretation into a visual narrative. Individually, we the participants of the workshop tried to thumbnail our ideas along with engaging into a discourse to strike a narrative. Thumbnails were drawn onto separate paper cards, and then arranged and juxtaposed. Multiple ideas and alternative were thrown on to table and through a discussion with our workshop mentor, Tara we sketched a rough outline of the visual narrative.

Alongside, our other task for the day was to create our light-table-setup for our sand animation. With the available resources of the Institute, we were quickly able to create a setup for the same. We then split our batch into groups of two, and then started experimenting with the medium. This helped us in understanding sand as a medium and also gets a warm-up before taking on animating the final film.

Dipanjan Dutta Chowdhury

Films watched today include two made in sand at NID:

Chai Break (2006), available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQMnp5ejsrU
Srujan (2009), available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJSOIt2Mmo4

as well as:
No  CorrasTanto (Take it easy) (2008) , available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhqr-P2O0XI, and a film about the making of this film, available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTycuUWRcxU

We also watched  The Sand Dancer (2010), available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29UvR0dDhwU as well as two short documentaries about cave paintings.

Today we have started the new year with a two week long Experimental Animation Workshop, with Post Graduate students of Animation Film Design at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad, Gujarat.

I am coordinating this workshop, and we have decided to use sand as the medium to work with.  This is not the first workshop that I have been involved in at NID using sand, that took place in 2008, and finally it delivered a beautiful short film called Srujan (Creation).

This time we are also taking the theme of origination for our project.  The reason for this is that sand is such a simple, basic medium that suggests the beginning of time.  Sand is a hard medium to animate with, as each and every image has to be created by hand, transforming the moving elements in the picture, while trying hard to keep the rest still - which is a frustrating task when one is handling sand.  Therefore, we are working within our limitations, and also the short time that is available to us, so we are planning to use simple images based on geometric and other basic shapes, tribal patterns and characters inspired by prehistoric cave paintings, with the idea that this will work well in sand.

For our source material regarding the story, we have consulted Augustine Kom, who is the son of Guru Achon Kom from the Kom tribe in Manipur to share their traditional story of how man emerged into the world, and how he had to find a solution on encountering his first adversary, the Tiger.

We have seen three outstanding sand animation films today, for inspiration for our work.
These are:

The Gift (2005) by Jessica Langford
9 minutes duration, a five minute extract of the film can be seen here:
https://vimeo.com/23765800

The Metamorphosis of Mr Samsa (1977) by Caroline Leaf
Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHvy-J1BFu8

The Owl who Married A Goose (1974) by Caroline Leaf
Available from:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fusYZ7eIhps


Tara Douglas
Adivasi Arts Trust