Name: Umesh D Wagh
Guide: Prof. Sumant Rao
Course: Animation and Film Making
“Unconditional Love” – a Short Clay Animation Film
“There is a power in love that our world has not discovered yet.”
– Martin Luther King, Jr.
In our day to day life we interact with lots of people, differently with each person. Sometimes they are the ones who we care for, our loved ones! And sometimes they are just the people around. Can there be the same positive interaction with everyone, even if he or she might not be “beneficial” for us in the future?
My film is about loving unconditionally. It’s a step towards spreading unconditional love in this busy world, bringing smile and positivity, which has power to cure anything! It gives a simple message – “Our positive response can change the misbehaving person too. It may take time but the change will happen!”
The choice is ours to create a world of joy and happiness, love and goodwill!
“Pre-production – Research, Storyboard, Character Designs
For my short animation film, I had chosen the topic – “Unconditional Love”. So, the first step was to do the research. I did primary as well as secondary research, created a mind map and developed some concepts for the stories. After many iterations, I reached to the final story and started with the storyboarding.
My aim is to bring the smile and positivity in audience’s minds through my film. It will be a simple step towards spreading the feeling of unconditional love.
I chose claymation as the medium and started exploring it. First – the character designs.”
“Pre-production – Set Design, Art Direction
Before going to the set design I had to figure out the scale of the set. I did camera blocking for each shot in the film using carton boxes and the puppets. It gave me proper idea about the scale and the subsets I would need to make for the film.
I chose sunboard as the material for the set to make it strong enough. Parallely, I did research for adding the details in the set. For coloring I used N.C. Putty and Automotive paints. I also made the props like scooter, van, carpenter’s tools, etc.”
“Production – Animation
Shot breakdown was already done after finalising the animatic. Also I had noted down the camera angles. Still, setting the lights and camera for each shot was a bit time taking. Anything may go wrong during the animation. So it should be taken care of before starting the animation.
For facial animation I had decided to sculpt the head for each frame and for that I had made the head removable. After animating each shot I compiled it and did final render simultaneously.
Here is the link for sneak peek of my film:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLT9g4Dld9o“
Some clicks during the production.