Bo Mamo! Sreedhar Gee!

Technical Director at Alvina Films, Sreedhar has also held the position of Animation Supervisor /Technical Director at Virtual Valley Studio, Technical Animator at Aurona Technologies, Animation Supervisor at Skyworks Studio, Freelance Animation / 3d Pipeline In charge, SyncereArts (Canada.), Assistant animator, DQ Entertainment Limited, Final Cleanup Artist, Penta Media Graphic Ltd., Drawing Teacher, Rishi Public School, Hyderabad. He attended Osmania University.

CG Today : Sreedhar, welcome and thank you for agreeing to speak with us.

Sreedhar : Thanks with pleasure.

CG Today : Music Director Aadesh Shrivastava had recorded the title song for the 3D animated feature film Bo Mamo with 10 known singers - Sonu Nigam, Shaan, Neeraj Shridhar, Kunal Ganjawala, Aadesh Shrivastava, Vijeta Pandit, Roop Kumar Rathod, Juhi Chawla, Richa Sharma and Kailash Kher. Aadesh Shrivastava has said “This is first time that ten known singers are singing for a 3D animation film” and yes, this is really BIG. How do you feel working in such a magnanimous project?

Sreedhar : First of all it is a challenge for my career to work with this project, Thanks to Mr. Shabuddin Chowdary, Creator and Director of Bo Mamo. I am proud to be a part of the unit, working with a mix of a young and enthusiastic team and also with some experienced and well renowned technicians in the Bollywood Industry. And regarding the song, yes it has happened for the first time in the Indian film industry and that too for a 3d Animation film. This is certainly an added advantage for this project. The lyrics are good, and all the world knows about the compositions of Aadesh Shrivastava. The song is good and our technical and animation team is currently working on the song to live up to the expectations of the audio.

CG Today : At Alvina Films website, we find a huge list of animation feature films with the release year as 2010 (Bo Mamo, The Mystery Of Guyana, Simba The KingLion, Hercules, Christopher Columbus, Hua Mulan, Quasimodo, The Thief Of Baghdad, Ulysses, King David, Pocahontas, Simba Junior In New York, Simba Junior And The Football Worldcup, The Black Corsair) There should be a magnificent team churning out these movies behind the scenes. Are you the only Technical Director behind these films? Can you share with us more about these projects?

Sreedhar : I cannot discuss about all the projects you mentioned at present, our full concentration is on Bo Mamo at the moment. We have many plans. But I can say that it is true and we are just distributing some of the projects.

CG Today : It is noted that the vision of Alvina Films is to “raise the industry stands in film making both in live action and animation in terms of story telling and technical brilliance.” We are sure you are working towards that; are there any major changes we can see in near future?

Sreedhar : Definitely the story telling is different from others. We are trying to give our best.

CG Today : Bo Mamo reminds one of Ice Age, is it not?

Sreedhar : You may have the feel of Ice Age, looking at the way the characters have been designed. May be the success of Ice Age has given some inspiration in designing of the characters. But, the story and screenplay are completely in our (Indian) style.

CG Today : While you were working at Virtual Valley Studios, you did an animated promotional short for the movie ‘Greeva – Return of the Lost Hero’. Could you tell us a little about the promo and the film?

Sreedhar : Greeva is a very interesting project on which I had worked. We have motion capture data as well as manual animation in that promo. The character designs are made by Mr. Aditya Chari kept the project at high level, but the project is on hold which I cannot disclose here. I hope it will hit the silver screen and I would love to be a part of it, if it happens.

CG Today : At Aurona Technologies; the gaming company, you worked on a project named Dancing With The Stars. Can you share with us the motion capture technology used in this project?

Sreedhar : Dancing with stars is based on 3ds max and Torque Game Engine. For all the dancing movements we have worked on motion capture and it was entirely shot at Hyderabad in Annapurna Studios, Mobility arts. There were more than 3500 animation clips and that too with cloth motion. It was a heavy task and it will take a long time to work manually. So they have planned for motion capture. Even fine tuning the motion capture data of more than 3500 clips needs a good amount of time. So, I have designed some scripts both in max and Maya to automate the process and thereby cutting short the task and completing it on time and keeping the limitations of the game engine in mind like texture size and number of joint limitations etc.

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