The man who made Amitabh disappear

Animation is becoming an important part of the movies these days. From Hum Tum, Hanuman Returns and Taare Zameen Par to the upcoming Roadside Romeo, these films have varying lengths of animation.

 

Bhoothnath, releasing this Friday, has its share too -- 30 minutes of it!

 

And the credit goes to Biju Dhanapalan and his team. The 40-year-old expert has done some interesting animation in this story of a ghost, starring Amitabh Bachchan, Aman Siddique and Juhi Chawla. Bhoothnath has been directed by Vivek Sharma.

 

Patcy N spoke to Dhanapalan about how he made it happen:

 

Tell us about yourself.

 

I am an engineer by profession. I came to Mumbai to do my post graduation. I was doing product design for anything from cellphones to cars. During that time, I had to make models of the products. In those days, designing models on the computer had just been introduced. I liked it so much that I changed my job and got into animation. I was interested in making things move. After working on this for four-five years, I set up my own company, Blue Dew.

 

BR Films invested in my company and now, they have a financial stake in it. We have expanded and renamed it Pix-n-Trix.

 

Do you only do animation for BR Films?

 

No, we are an independent company. Our major clients are BR Films, Vidhu Vinod Chopra and IBM Productions.

 

For BR, we have done Bhoothnath and a fully animated film called Pandavas.

 

What type of animation has been used in Bhoothnath?

 

Different kinds. Like in one scene, a teacher draws a lion on the blackboard. When she starts talking about it to the students, the lion acts likewise. Amitabh Bachchan, who plays a bhoot, is in the room so he gives life to the lion.

 

How different is clay animation from graphic animation?

 

It's like an apple and orange; you can't compare. Clay animation has its own beauty. You can make a complete feature film with clay animation, and some people are die hard fans of that. Both the types of animation are time consuming.

 

Why is it difficult?

 

It's difficult because the real lion has its own properties, a chalk lion has its own properties and the pen and paper have their own properties. To match all this is tough.

 

What was the brief for the animation in Bhoothnath?

 

According to the script, Amitabh comes hunting for this boy, Banku (played by Aman Siddique).

He hunts from class to class, and then gives life to the lion. Then we made the storyboard around the brief.

 

It's a collaborative process between the story writer, director and the person doing the visual effects. All of us did our homework before we met. The director was almost a permanent feature in our office. We completed the animation in six weeks. We have about 30 minutes of digital special effects, right from a simple wire sequence to a leaf sequence.

 

Did you go on the sets?

 

Yes. I had to be present on the sets while they were filming scene requiring animation. I had to approve the shot. At the end of the day, we would work on it. If I don't get my kind of shots, I cannot do good work.

 

How was it working with Amitabh Bachchan?

 

He understands his profession well. He understands even before you explain. Even though he has not done too much animation in his movies, he must have watched films from all over the world. So he knows how it is done.

 

How were scenes with Aman Siddique?

 

There were quite a lot of scenes with him too. There was a scene where he falls from the stairs. We strapped with cable wires so that he didn't get hurt but that cannot be seen in the film.

 

Then, there is a cricket scene where the ball goes over the fence and automatically comes back. Then Amitabh starts bouncing the ball but he cannot be seen. Then Aman tries to hit the ball but Amitabh is holding it, and doesn't let him play.

 

The ball was part of the animation too.

 

Wasn't it difficult for Aman to do this particular scene, as he just had to imagine a ball that wasn't there?

 

It is difficult. He had to practice a couple of times. We would take a rod and ask him to hit in the direction of the ball. He did it pretty well.

 

What is BR Films' Pandavas about?

 

Pandavas will look into their childhood only. If you see carefully, the war in Mahabharata was in the making since their childhood. The animation used will be a mix of 3D and 2D, like Lion King.

 

What about Vidhu Vinod Chopra's animation film?

 

The film is called Talisman. But that is under wraps.