Invisible Rabbit… is now visible

Nupur Bhargava is currently the Creative Director at Invisible Rabbit. She was Supervising Producer and Animation Director for MTV India / Viacom 18. She has done freelance work and was Art Director at Corner shop Entertainment. Ms. Bhargava has done her graduation from the National Institute of Design; her experience is varied and her work has won numerous industry awards.

CG Today : Ms. Bhargava, thank you for your time and your insights.

Nupur : Thank you for having me here.

CG Today : You have started your own animation studio, Invisible Rabbit. With your experience and expertise, this was, no doubt, a good career move. Give us some details about your studio.

Nupur : Invisible Rabbit is a boutique animation studio based in Mumbai. We are a small but very efficient setup. We love what we do and it reflects in our work!

At Invisible Rabbit we create international standard work with great storytelling. Our goal is to create effective communication for our brands / clients with great eye catching creatives. We have worked for several clients from Footcandles Films, Britannia, TATA AIG, Yash Raj Films, Danone ,SBI to name a few.

CG Today : You have said, “Experimentation interests me and it is visible through my work in various different mediums”. You really do have a diverse background. Did you feel at the beginning of your career that heading up your own studio would be the definitive job for you?

Nupur : After working for the past 5 years at various great places, starting Invisible Rabbit felt like a natural progression. I was getting good projects to do independently with the creative freedom I desired. So starting up on my own was inevitable. I don’t think Invisible Rabbit is like a job for me it’s a space where I can choose to work on projects that excite me and do them well.

I hope to keep experimenting and learning throughout my career.

CG Today : Animationespress.com had a nice write-up about your 3-D commercial for Danone Dahi and Yoghurt. This is obviously an important and complex project. Tell us more about it.

Nupur : Danone is an international brand that was making its entry into the Indian market. Hence the branding needed to be very clear and still have an Indian flavor to it.

My 30 sec. film was part of the 6 Film launch campaign spearheaded by the legendary Pushpinder Singh; Saints and Warriors Communications, Mumbai.

The project gave me ample freedom to play with the treatment and its visual storytelling and we thoroughly enjoyed the whole process.

CG Today : You designed and directed the short animated film “Jingle Bell” for MTV, India. It won several Indian awards (and can be seen on You Tube). How did this project come about?

Nupur : Jingle Bell is an animated promo done during Christmas for MTV, India in 2008 and 2009. MTV always initiates such interesting projects.
We wanted to spoof and add some more fun to the festivity.

The First Jingle bell Punjabi Tadka, music was composed beautifully by Amartya Rahut and the music for the second film Jingle bell: South and Gujarati was composed wonderfully by Ishq Becktor. Each music director was asked to go wild and have fun with the Jingle. We didn’t want to start with constraints. The idea was to change the original music with a few regional flavors thrown in.

The design was an extension of my character design explorations called the Monster series. The design was to enhance their humor factor and make them very animation friendly.

I am very glad that it was so well received not just in India but also internationally. It just makes us believe that a good creation can cross borders and find an audience.

CG Today : Your public service spot, "MTV Flavors", is a jewel, and won the Best Public Service Announcement, The Golden Cursor Excellence in Animation Awards’09, thhe Silver at PROMAX’09, Mumbai (BestAnimation), and was nominated at PROMAX’09, Mumbai (Best Public Service Announcement). This was a clever concept. Tell us more.

Nupur : Flavors is a 3D animation PSA done at MTV. Vishwesh Krishnamurthy conceived the idea and he even voiced it. I did the Design and Direction. I had a very limited budget and a small team to execute the same. It was our belief in the project and the idea that kept us going.

The character animation nuances were very important and my team constantly worked on it till I was satisfied. Each character sketch was clearly defined and we took time, acting out every character, whenever in doubt. I think acting is one of the keys in creating lovable and believable characters.

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