Emagic team with their 24FPS animation award in Mumbai

A young team of animators from the city is creating waves in the national as well as international animation arena.

Emagic, the super six from the Maya Academy for Advanced Cinematics (MAAC), Park Street branch, have won two awards for their film, I Forgot Something, at the 24FPS Animation Awards in Mumbai recently.

The movie revolves around a man who goes to work forgetting to put on his trousers. He returns home to don his trousers but gets distracted by a running tap on his way home and again leaves without his pants. The movie was awarded for its outstanding cinematography and lighting effects.

The three main animators of the film, Arijit Gupta, Somnath Saha and Kaushik Bose, garnered lots of praise from the international jury, which included Joe Auguliar and Shelley Page of DreamWorks Animation, MEL?s Jai Natarajan and Virendra Chauhan of Crest Animation.

The Mumbai success is also paying them dividends, with many western animation firms outsourcing their work to the team.

But how was it possible for them, even before passing out from the academy?

?It helps a lot when you have a long standing fascination for animation. Cinematography and animation have charmed me from my early school days,? said Somnath.

?Our parents were incredibly supportive and positive about our work. Many parents tend to ignore such talents in their children, but we were lucky that our parents didn?t force us into engineering or literature,? smiled Arijit Gupta.

With the success, the team is working even harder than before. ?Sometimes, we work all through the day and even the night, without taking a break,? said Gupta.

But the members feel that their strength lies in their ability to work effectively as a team rather than individuals.

?Our strength lies in our group. Before this, we hadn?t worked in a team. And see, we won ?The Bronze?. We did a lot of reference work for the characters, studying from books like Animator?s Survival Kit and Illusion of Life ? especially for facial animation. It was difficult, but as a team it was not,? added Gupta.