Press Release 27 February 2012

The Animation Workshop currently being held at the Manipur Film Development Corporation in Imphal is gaining momentum on the second day.  Participants have come armed with folktales and the group is delving deeper into Manipuri culture.  The young animators from the National Institute of Design are advising the group to choose a story that will have appeal to both adults and children; “While children seem to prefer cheerful funny entertaining cartoons, adults will be attracted by the mature wisdom underlying the story”, points out Sephin, adding,  “the film can be funny and intense”.  Rahul also agrees that the story should express emotions that a child can connect with.  Many of the stories offered by the Meiteis are long with complicated relationships that would require considerably more than the target of five minutes to communicate and understand.  There are also a few stories with versions that are common to the Meitei and some of the tribal groups and there is a feeling that somehow the tribal communities that are not represented in the workshop should still be included in the production in some manner, though how this is to be done is much less clear. 
The way of telling stories certainly determines the interest and engagement of the listener.  One of the participants, Beeshantam Yumnam was able to bring an audio recording of his grandmother telling a mythical tale of the Goddess of Wealth (Emoinu) and just by the tone of the storytelling it is easy to recognise that the older generation has lived with the oral tradition that is now fast getting lost in this part of the world;  In contrast to the grandmother’s tale, the young participants in the workshop struggle to read out stories that they have documented for the first time, and in the course of it, the essence of the tale is missed.

Dr. R.K Joykumar Singh, local coordinator for the project is also an art and animation expert in Manipur.  An afternoon session was given by him on the basic principles of classical 2D animation.