Purple patch for Greenfield Toons

Trainers from India give animators hands-on training at Greenfield Toons

Nafid Imran Ahmed of The Daily Star (TDS) recently met Sarwar Alam (SA) , managing director, Greenfield Toons, to check out on the potential of animation in Bangladesh and where Bangladesh's leading 2D animation company is heading for.

Others who joined in the candid conversation are Moshiur Rahman Rana (MR) . production supervisor, Soul Hache (SH) , assistant production supervisor, Kamruzzaman Vashkar (KV) , digital supervisor, and AFM Shahnawaz Shudhi (SS) , layout in-charge.

Following are the excerpts:

TDS: Could you explain how did it all began?

SA: Greenfield Toons is the animation wing of its parent company, The Decode Limited, which has been involved in 3D animation since its inception in 1996. 2D animation is just a peripheral activity and was launched as an expansion programme in 2001, the year Greenfield came into being.

TDS: Did you have any formal training in animation before you started?

SH: Some of us who are working with Greenfield from the beginning had some 2D animation learning experience from some animators back in 1998. At present, our animators are formally trained by professional animators from India and other countries.

TDS: Could you explain what kind of 'Animation Technology' is in use at Greenfields? Do you use the traditional cel-based animation?

KV: 2D animation has mainly two parts -- the manual hand drawing part and the digital part. Cel-based animations were done by hand drawings only, we don't do that anymore. In the digital part, we use a bundle of vector-based software known as 'US Animation'. We also use a special 'Fujitsu' scanner for the input to the animation software. The output of this software is very impressive.

TDS: Could you explain the manual part?

SS: The layout section is divided into two basic parts background layout, which is mainly hand painting and character layout, which depends on the background and framing. Then it goes through many layers of work, such as line test or logic test, clean-up section, in-between section and animation check department. When the work goes through all the sections and is finally approved it moves on to the digital section.

TDS: What kind of animation do you like most and what are your favourite shows?

SH: In classics, I specially like 'Tom & Jerry' and the Disney's full length animated movies.

TDS: Tell us about 'BugaBuga', 'Ant and the Dove' and any other latest products you are working on.

MR: 'Ant and the Dove' was our very first production. It was done in 2001. Back then we did not have any prior experience. But we wanted to do something, so we created a story board and then worked on it. Without the proper equipment such as the software and the scanner we started our work. But we enjoyed doing this five-minute production.

'BugaBuga' came after that. Our first professional studio work, a complete 24 (minutes) X 5 (episodes) cartoon, which is the story of a little ghost kid who becomes close friend of a young boy named Sagar. At present, a 52 X 4 special called 'Night of the Pumpkins' is under production. The first episode will be released this Halloween. And by 2004 all episodes will be completed.

TDS: What out there really strikes you as creative and innovative in Bangladeshi animation?

SA: It is too early to say anything on this. Animation is a new and creative field here and definitely we shall do something in the near future.

TDS: What are the biggest differences between the animations done in the US or other countries and the ones in Bangladesh?

SA: What we are doing here is western animation. The module pack and the creative part have already been done. We shall experience the big difference when we develop our own style in animation.

TDS: Did you participate at the Centre International Du Cinema D'Animation (CICA) 2003? What was the output?

SA: Yes, we did participate at the CICA 2003, which took place in the first week of June. We had our own stand there and displayed our products. The results were encouraging. We received very strong response from French Channel 1 & 4, who have shown interest in our products.