Press Release 12 March 2012

A group of participants for an Animation Workshop in Manipur supported by the Government Department of Art and Culture have taken the opportunity to organise themselves into a production team to work on a short animated folktale from their own cultural heritage.  The story they have chosen is a mischievous tale about a phantom of the night - the mighty “Tapta” - and all the amusement he creates.  It is well known by children in Manipur, and the team have decided to give it new life through the animation medium. 

“Tapta” will be a two dimensional cut out film made using hand painted puppets manipulated with computer software.  But it will not be like any other film: The team have been watching artistic animation shorts made by dedicated masters, that have been provided to the workshop by Tara Douglas, Secretary of the Adivasi Arts Trust, and they have decided to delve into their own folk art tradition of Manipur to come up with a charming artistic style more suited for their story than the commercial cartoons that they are exposed to on television.

“We are going to make this film as a team.  Some of us will be animators, some of us in character design and some will be working on backgrounds”, explains Okram Chandranath.  Yamnam Sapha Wangam Apanthoi M. (Swam) has assumed the role of lead character designer.  He comes from an art college background and his print making experience has been helpful for designing characters with clean ink lines.  These are hand painted with poster colours on acetate by Rahul Laishram, a student from the National Institute of Design and they are scanned by Chandranath.  Many props also have to be designed, scanned and coloured to create the environments for the story, and the team are maintaining consistency in the patterns they use throughout the film. 
During this final week of the three week long workshop the team is aiming to complete an animatic – considered to be the blueprint for the animation sequences, the animatic  is essential to any animation film production for it places the storyboard images on a timeline, to be subsequently replaced by the animated as they get done.  They also want to animate a test sequence from the film, with the idea that it will be helpful for everyone involved to see how the film will look, and also to gain further financial support for the completion of the film. 
Several visitors drop in to the Manipur Film Development Corporation out of curiosit, and the workshop is also attracting interest from students of the Art College.  The film will be dubbed into English and Hindi in addition to Manipuri, and the team are expecting to screen it in schools, film festivals and on cable television.