Incorporated animation or animated inspiration?

I had asked Rolf Baechler, my former mentor, for animation contacts in India. He hooked me up with Bill Dennis, who hooked me up with Vina, who hooked me up with Uma. So far everything went by email.

I was supposed to meet Uma at Rhythm & Hues already on Thursday, but luckily we could postpone for Friday morning. Once more I would travel North by train, this time equipped with a book. A taxi rickshaw brought me out to the mindspace towers near the shore, where people were a bit taller than average and dressed fashionable.

Except for a handful of people the facilities of R&H were deserted: "The Kingdom", a movie they had adorned with special effects, just had a screening. But Uma would soon return, and although there wasn't a real purpose in me seeing the place she would kindly show me around. There were no surprised except for the unusual ethnic interior architecture. I explained I had a meeting with Vaibhav Kumaresh lined up, and she recommended to also go round another 2D-studio called Animagic and gave me their contact.

I remember laughing histerically when seeing his MTV-shorts "Poga" a couple of years ago, so I was excited to meet Vaibhav Kumaresh. He had done a lot of clay animation, but also ventured into all kinds of techniques and styles. His studio was a 2 bedroom apartment in an rundown building in Borivali, with some very basic equipment. Picnic tables bending under the weight of CRT monitors. - An alchemist's kitchen. A major project had just been finished and there were basically no other people left working at this point. He kindly took me for lunch, recommending "Idli", a couple of palm sized rice based cakes with a fine grain like cous-cous, and a fresh lemon soda.

On the way back I stopped at the Animagic studio. I knew nothing about it and didn't quite know what to expect. In any case I didn't hold my breath when I entered the house in the suburbs.

I found the same warm welcome as before, and more. The three friends Chetan, Gayatri and Sumant who had been running the studio for the last ten years provided an almost family-like environment. They all lived in the neighborhood and would hang out at the studio long before and after the regular hours. It was their place of inspiration. They told me they started out as animation enthusiasts, learning everything from scratch out of the few books they had, watching as many movies as possible teaching themselves all sorts of techniques. In the meantime they had grown into an absolutely professional allrounder enterprise, covering everything from cereal commercial-style 2D animation to 3D special effects, even to feature film storyboarding and production design.

They all spoke excellent English, and Chetan spoke a lot of it. And he had a point. "What is it we're supposed to do?" he asked. Make McDonald's commercials or make movies with a message? Indeed they had already won a bunch of awards with a 20 minute commissioned film regarding child abuse. While that project was basically done for free they had always kept a stack of commercial jobs to keep them alive. Now they're in the preproduction of an absolutely amazing feature project and for that matter try not to invest too much energy in other things. - A passionate attitude that I can only admire!

I showed them my short "Swiss Fuss" on my website, and to my surprise they all laughed spontaneously! I didn't expect anyone other than the Swiss to really get the point. Talking away it also turned out they shared my point of view on the movie "300" as a simplistic and dangerous depiction of ethnic groups, very fatal in the present world situation. - And what's more: They don't drive cars.

They offered I stayed for dinner, and around 22:30 I finally left from there. Six hours had just vanished in a moment.

Sunk into my book on the way back on the train a foul stench cut through me. Looking out the window I could make out a creek in the moonlight. I tried not to breathe, but it was too late: It had crawled inside me and caused me physical pain in my ribs. - Mumbai was a stinky city indeed, smells of feces and diesel follow you almost everywhere you go (one exception was luckily enough my hotel room). On the upside you could blast the most atrocious fart and everybody would take it for a fresh breeze.