"375 Spectators - 180 Minutes - 1 Stage and ENERGY UNLEASHED"
12th of July, 2008, Saturday, Kolkata: The incident - Around 350 Arena Park Street students and 25 of their teachers were held captive in Gyan Manch Auditorium this morning for three hours by a gentleman. He did not possess any ammunition except for a microphone. The anticlimax – the captives expressed a sincere desire to hold back their captor after the three hours of captivity.
The event – The second seminar of HAT-Tricks. The captor – Mr. Prosenjit Ganguly.
The Precap – A faint buzz had started doing the rounds at 105 Park Street from Monday morning (07.07.08) that had turned into a strong wave of excitement-cum-curiosity by Friday evening (11.07.08). Looking forward to Saturday's seminar, the 375 strong above mentioned audience had thefollowing piece of information at hand to acquaint themselves with the person who was going to take them by storm the very next morning.Designer, Director, stop-motion animator and educator, Prosenjit Ganguly's short films have received 3 international awards and have been screened in over 20 countries. He has also served on the faculty of the National Institute of Design. Presently, as Director, Special Projects at Toonz Animation India, he is primarily involved in the development of original animation content and creative direction. He also makes time to teach specialized Courses in Visual Communication and conduct animation and creativity workshops for children.
Ninety percent of the above mentioned audience had come to hear a three-hour long lecture about the "Actors behind the Actions" from the man whose above mentioned profile suggests but five percent of his persona. The tricks that Mr. Ganguly held up his collar, ensured that a hundred percent of the audience went back home on Saturday, if not with an amazing growth in their knowledge base, then at least with hearts ignited with a passion for animation. The audience laughed with him, responded to him and felt united with him as he took them through an enriching experience of falling in love with the entire process of animation film-making.There were no presentations, no pens, no paper (at a point of time, even no lights and no microphone – owing to a power cut), but Mr. Ganguly, or PJ, as his students and the industry know him, held rapt attention of his audience though words. Rather, what held the attention of his audience was the passion behind those words. He was a treat to listen to and to watch as he spoke, mimicked, acted, joked and pranced about the stage, making it his ownin his signature style.
The whole while he drew examples from his life, making the audience identify with profound values with utmost simplicity. His talk ranged from the simple differentiation between a story- which is for reading, and a screenplay –which is for performing; from the primary lesson of the vitality ofremaining a student for life, to the significant aspects of design-visualization and pre-production like ideation, story-telling,story-boarding and character design before taking the actual plunge ofgetting a film into the production stage. Without once mentioning the actors behind the actions, he explained their substance beautifully.
Anecdotes from his student-life at NID brought alive a whole new perspective to the total process of learning and teaching animation. And even as he accepted a small token of appreciation from the spellbound audience, it wasa unanimous feeling that it was actually he, who had left them the magnanimous gift of a new dream, a new passion, a new love and a new vision-that of transforming oneself from just a student or a teacher of animation to a film maker. At the end of the day, the audience walked out with the same camera they had walked in with - but with different eyes.
The event – The second seminar of HAT-Tricks. The captor – Mr. Prosenjit Ganguly.
The Precap – A faint buzz had started doing the rounds at 105 Park Street from Monday morning (07.07.08) that had turned into a strong wave of excitement-cum-curiosity by Friday evening (11.07.08). Looking forward to Saturday's seminar, the 375 strong above mentioned audience had thefollowing piece of information at hand to acquaint themselves with the person who was going to take them by storm the very next morning.Designer, Director, stop-motion animator and educator, Prosenjit Ganguly's short films have received 3 international awards and have been screened in over 20 countries. He has also served on the faculty of the National Institute of Design. Presently, as Director, Special Projects at Toonz Animation India, he is primarily involved in the development of original animation content and creative direction. He also makes time to teach specialized Courses in Visual Communication and conduct animation and creativity workshops for children.
Ninety percent of the above mentioned audience had come to hear a three-hour long lecture about the "Actors behind the Actions" from the man whose above mentioned profile suggests but five percent of his persona. The tricks that Mr. Ganguly held up his collar, ensured that a hundred percent of the audience went back home on Saturday, if not with an amazing growth in their knowledge base, then at least with hearts ignited with a passion for animation. The audience laughed with him, responded to him and felt united with him as he took them through an enriching experience of falling in love with the entire process of animation film-making.There were no presentations, no pens, no paper (at a point of time, even no lights and no microphone – owing to a power cut), but Mr. Ganguly, or PJ, as his students and the industry know him, held rapt attention of his audience though words. Rather, what held the attention of his audience was the passion behind those words. He was a treat to listen to and to watch as he spoke, mimicked, acted, joked and pranced about the stage, making it his ownin his signature style.
The whole while he drew examples from his life, making the audience identify with profound values with utmost simplicity. His talk ranged from the simple differentiation between a story- which is for reading, and a screenplay –which is for performing; from the primary lesson of the vitality ofremaining a student for life, to the significant aspects of design-visualization and pre-production like ideation, story-telling,story-boarding and character design before taking the actual plunge ofgetting a film into the production stage. Without once mentioning the actors behind the actions, he explained their substance beautifully.
Anecdotes from his student-life at NID brought alive a whole new perspective to the total process of learning and teaching animation. And even as he accepted a small token of appreciation from the spellbound audience, it wasa unanimous feeling that it was actually he, who had left them the magnanimous gift of a new dream, a new passion, a new love and a new vision-that of transforming oneself from just a student or a teacher of animation to a film maker. At the end of the day, the audience walked out with the same camera they had walked in with - but with different eyes.
Comments
Expecting more in near future.