A lump of clay waits to be moulded into a champion. And to meet the other winning heroes, step into the House of Animation at Famous Studios.Here’s Poga in his various forms — with a door stuck on his bag, with his nada falling out. Kumbhkaran’s here too, the politician who ends up with bad car batteries. Kumbhkaran just got himself a few ABBY (Advertising Club of Bombay) awards, thanks to claymation, a technique which animates clay figurines. The Amaron batteries television spots created by Ogilvy & Mather used claymation to bring alive the parable of the hare and the turtle.But this is not about slow and steady winning the race. It’s about an animation technique that’s fast picking up. ‘‘In fact, the clients pushed us to use claymation,’’ says O& M’s Pushpinder Singh, who scripted the commercial. So, in came the turtle who narrated the script in Maharashtrian katha style and the hare in a Lamborghini. Kumbhkaran loses the elections because his car batteries fail.‘‘The level of reality that claymation lends to characters is incredible. Besides, the regular 2D animated characters can’t be half as nasty as the claymation guys,’’ says Cyrus Oshidhar, General Manager (Creative) MTV India, who conjured up Poga and Gaseous Clay. That explains why Poga not only made it to the top at the South East Asia Animation competition but was also crowned Best 3D Animation Film at the Asian Creative and Technical awards last year.The medium has been around for four decades now, but it’s three years old in India. Also, claymation is laborious and costs approximately three times as much as a regular cartoon. It took a fortnight just to shoot one Poga series for MTV. That’s not counting the time spent on post-production. “Claymation is organic and offers a medium which is more flexible,’’ says Vaibhav Kumaresh, Head of Animation, Famous Studios.Says E. Suresh, Creative Director. ‘‘Claymation stands out and we need ideas so that new forms of animation like sandmation and material animation are accepted.’’ He knows claymation may not become as popular as cartoons. But claymation has lasted long. Really long. Ting tong.
