India's first Open Source Film

Open source content development is increasingly seeing traction in creative areas such as films. The availability of software tools that are comparable to Hollywood Studio class, has created a new possibility for creative content creation.

Blender is a 3d sophisticated 3D software platform that is capable of and has proven to be able to produce 3d Animation films end to end. 

The Blender institute's open movie project has seen the coming together of some brilliant minds, from across the globe and create 3d films and a highly interactive 3D game with stunning quality both in artistic content as well as technical. 

The stunningly spectacular movie the Sintel, is hard to believe to have been shot entirely using open source software, and primarily using Blender.

 Chamba Swathanthra Cinema Project is the first such initiative from India aimed at creating an animated short using open source tools, and social networking and license it according to Open source Initiative.

The project is currently in pre-production, with the script completed. Its a great script well suited for some amazing animation and special effects. 

Folks from all corners of  the world are welcome to contribute and participate in the various departments and creative areas, such as Character design, Environment design, Story boarding, Modelling, Texturing, Rigging, Animation, Sound and Music, Editing etc.. to name a few.

This would offer a great platform to learn the exciting process of animation film making , and the use of sophisticated software such as Blender. Experts in any of these departments can contribute to make this project a success and a showpiece of collaborative creativity.

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Blender Introductory Workshop in India

ICFOSS (International Center for Free and Open Source Software) is conducting a Two-day introductory workshop on Blender.

This is a great opportunity for folks to get introduced to the Blender interface , and get to model, create and render a scene completely hands-on.

Date and Venue
16-17 September 2011
Travancore Hall,
Technopark,Trivandrum

About the Workshop

This introductory workshop is meant for professional animation artistes, digital media professionals, students, and teachers. As a hands-on workshop, participants are expected to bring their own laptops.
A fee of Rs. 1,000 per participant will be charged for the two-day session (Rs. 500 for students). Working lunch and tea will be provided for participants.

About Blender

Blender is a FOSS-based 3D graphics application, available for multiple Operating Systems.Blender's features include 3D modeling, texturing, rigging, skinning, animating, rendering, particle, water, smoke & other simulations, video compositing, and the ability to create interactive 3D applications, video games, animated film, or visual effects. It can be downloaded free of cost for any of the supported platforms. Blender has been used in numerous
applications including full-length movies. It provides an extremely cost-effective, efficient and complete solution to most common 3D animation requirements.

Attending
Seats will be allocated on a
first-come-first- served basis. Kindly
contact ICFOSS for more details.

International Centre for Free and Open Source Software (ICFOSS)
VII Floor, Tejaswini, Technopark
Trivandrum - 695 581, Kerala, India
Tel: +91 471 2700013
Email: info@icfoss.in

Book Review : Chandamama Art Book

Chandamama is a classic children magazine from India known not only for its unique story telling, but also for the stunning art work. The magazine has been engaging and captivating the imagination of the young and the old for over six decades in thirteen languages.

Recently the folks at Chandamama have done great justice to artists by bring out a two volume book , Chandamama Art Book, containing their art work , in a large (9.5 x 12.5 ) hard bound format, reproduced in great detail and quality, on very high quality art paper.

Each volume contains about 200 pages of the finest illustrations from India. A page is dedicated for each illustration, and on the left side a brief synopsis of the story is give to set the context.

Volume 1 has art work from Sankar, Chitra and MTV Acharya.
Volume 2 covers Vapa's art, and an interesting section that compares art work of these artists, for the same story. (In six decades I guess you do repeat stories in different contexts, and interesting to note how they recreated them rather than reprinted them)

Sankar's iconic rendering of the Vikram and Vetal... there were 700 stories in all that he illustrated for.


Chitra's own style and palette... Story of Troy


Another from Sankar's beautiful works ...


Here's one of MTV Acharya's masterstrokes..


And the uniqueness of Vapa ..


I have never seen most of these illustrations in such splendor, since when they published it, they were either cropped, or were in pulp paper and never in such original form.

Here are the interesting illustrations comparing the different takes ...



This is not only a feast for the eyes, but great reference for artists.


For me the relationship with the magazine ever since a kid was Summer and the four names that get attached to each one of those gorgeous drawings. Sankar, Chitra, MTV and Vapa. Each artist had his unique style as well as a palette, which one can identify instantly.

They were equivalents if not more of the Alex Raymonds, Norman Rockwells, Hogarths, and Al Dornes and the likes.

The magazine itself was on par with the mighty Classics Illustrated, though it was not in a comic book format.

Most of the pictures would be in monochrome wash with pen drawings, the covers however would be done in full color. Combined withe these beautiful drawings capturing the olden days and the folk tales that were spun in a simple yet enchanting manner, Chandamama would offer hours of entertainment, in a world that had no TV or internet.

For those who want to relish the golden age of Indian illustration, Chandamama has an Archives site. Check it out to read in full the magazines all the way back to the 50s !