Kshiraj Telang: August 2008

My idea of date is slightly different. I choose to shop, that too of stuffs which interests me. ARR music keeps playing whenever possible. And thus the maximum amount of the time gets spent in purchasing DVDs for myself, searching books and exploring gadgets. My dearie isn't as crazy as me about them. Even then she is always smiling and involving in everything I do. At the end of the tiring day, when we sit together, I have all my time employed at unpacking DVD covers and flipping books. But while I do that, there is someone sweetly waiting with a spoon to take care of my appetite.

In the Foreword of the book 'Burton on Burton', Johnny Depp mentions about how he got the opportunity to play Edward in Tim Burton's Edward Scissorhands. The first sight of Tim is described by him as pale, frail-looking, sad-eyed man with hair that expressed much more than last night's pillow struggle. The first thing he thought was, 'Get some sleep.' Well, that's Tim Burton. Tim as a director has always fascinated me with his artistically directed genius works like Corpse Bride, Edward Scissorhands, Sleepy Hollow and many more. His recent movie, Sweeney Tood : The Demon barber of Fleet Street drove me crazy. Here's a small piece of tribute to the legendary work done on Sweeney Todd:

Last week I managed to find the newly launched toys from the Storm Hawks series. Out of variety of character selections available, I chose to get Dark Ace. He's my favourite character from the series. Even after being an arch villain to Storm Hawks, I am addicted to him because of his ruthless warrior nature, loyalty to Master Cyclonis and no compromise attitude. Although not enabled with much articulations, I liked the toy's closeness to the Dark Ace we see on television. The proportions are brought just identical. Play time!

The time when I was ordering Surf's Up : The Art and Making of a true story, I was trying to add one more book in the order merely to complete it. I was skeptical about the impression it would make as compared to the highly anticipated Pixar Art Books I ordered at the same time. But I was proved wrong after it was in my hand and I was done with flipping just first few pages. This book is full of concept art, sketches, 3d WIP imagery and movie stills.

Insight Editions, the publisher has included some great collectibles along with the artworks within the book. They come as postcards, stickers, a poster, supplementary thin booklets and a DVD which exclusively speaks about the process and journey experienced while creating waves for the animation. So not just art students and mature audience, but even little kids will go crazy as they notice those colorful goodies.

There is ample amount of character designs of Penguin, along with environmental concepts of the island and color keys of various sequences from the film. We also get to see extracts from the screenplay here and there, which makes the book travel along with the film. They have covered art of almost every visual element from the competition beach. The color spreads on each page is as fresh as a holiday on a similar island, as they illustrate the layouts of the beach. There is also a sneak at the character creation phase where we get to see phases from concept sketches to 3d models. I have become a big fan of Sylvain Deboissy, the Character Designer of the film after I was hugely impressed by his art found in the book. While Cody our surfer penguin covers the text from the book, there are also comments from Director, Producer and Animation Supervisors sharing their experiences.

At the ending pages there are a bunch of photographs of the crew's time at beach and VO recording sessions. On an whole, a must have book for everyone be it into or outside animation.

Okay fine! I am crazy, as I have seen The Dark Knight a dozen times in the previous month. And I shall see it many more times no matter how crazy you call me. Because no one can go as crazier as the Joker, the performance excellence from Batman's latest edition, The Dark Knight. Nolan's TDK features the Batman we all wanted to see. In a Spidey ruled cinema when it comes to super hero movies, I never thought someone else will ever manage to reach anywhere close. But The Dark Knight surpasses all milestones of super hero tales on the big screen. The two and a half hours movie is filled with excellent screenplay, majestic performances, action and struggle between order and anarchy. The dialogues are so brilliant, I am all prepared to memorize and rehearse them everyday, the day the screenplay comes in my hand. For those who have not seen it yet, book your tickets today!

Those who know me closely must be aware of the fact that I am a die hard fan of A. R. Rahman. His music is always in my ears, with the help of iPod plugged in loaded with ARR's music. Aneesh and I can travel to any part of India to attend a live concert of him. I can never forget the day when ARR was here in New Delhi to perform in a live concert. I went so crazy after getting the tickets that I started creating caricatures of him, believing that I will hand over it to him if I get to meet him during the concert. But the performance was quite inaccessible for us to make anyone personally reach ARR. Even after disappointment at caricature front, it was truly a big day for me, getting to see ARR for the first time. Post to that, I was looking for every possible way by which I can make the caricature reach ARR. And one day the opportunity came knocking at my door. It was Alan Hadley from Chennai who was about to begin a magazine named SCORE which focuses on Music, Art and Lifestyle. In its inaugural edition, Alan was keen to use the caricature done by me as that issue was exclusively on A. R. Rahman. Without any delay I requested him to go ahead. In a few days, this is what I get to see:

This is the cover page of the magazine:

That's the caricature done by me, published in a page within the magazine:

Here's ARR reading SCORE:






Undoubtedly the greatest achievement for me! Thanks to Alan, it all happened because of him.

This is an artwork done on a requirement from my friend and colleague Ajay. He is looking forward to 3d model a scene on pirates following the visual language we both admire. Hope it is coming out like the way he want.

This first post on my blog, is dedicated to my beloved fairy. Its because of her, that I am always motivated to do better work and become a better man. Thanks to you dearie!