Upamanyu Bhattacharyya, a graduate from NID (Ahmedabad) is a well-known Animation filmmaker who works on short films, title sequences, music videos, and often dabbles in comics and illustrations.
He is also a partner at Ghost Animation Collective, an animation studio in Kolkata which made headlines for their film ‘Wade.’ It is a short film on climate change set in Kolkata and is currently under production.
Unlike other people who wait for the production houses to fund their animation project, Upamanyu launched a crowd-funding campaign for their short animated movie in lieu of the traditional format. Through their campaign on Wishberry, they successfully managed to reach the target of Rs. 4.5 lakhs in less than three days. It is said to be one of the fastest campaigns to date.
We spoke with Upamanyu to get a better understanding of the film, the animation industry, and their crowdfunding experience, all this against the backdrop of the inevitable Climate Change Crisis.
Read on to know more about his amazing experience and Wade.
1. Why did you choose animation as a profession?
I have been sketching for as long as I can remember, and I have loved watching animation too. It appeared to be a feasible, process driven job to me fairly early on, as I was exposed to an animated filmmaking workshop in class 7 (the output of which was an animated stop motion short film).
2. Tell us about your most successful projects till now besides ‘Wade’.
Besides Wade, my studio (Ghost Animation Collective) has an exciting calendar of more animated short films coming up. We’ve also worked on a large number of title sequences, music videos, animated segments for documentary films, short films and so on. Our full project list is up on www.ghostanimation.in
3. What motivated you to create Wade and come up with such an interesting concept?
4. Why did you choose the Crowdfunding route for the film? Did you approach any producers before that?
Crowdfunding, for us, was a very good means of gauging the interest of the public as well as the animation/ design industry. It’s a very empowering means of creation which subverts the need and assumption that animation is only possible with large budgets.
5. How would you describe your Crowdfunding experience? Was it easy to get the money/ What was people’s response/ How did you market your idea?
It was extremely exciting. As soon as we put out some early visuals, people started responding with interest in the ideation of the film. Artists from around the country came forward and contributed artworks based on the imagery of tigers in a flooded, abandoned Kolkata.
Thanks to them, it was easier to help people get interested in seeing the project happen.
6. Your Crowdfunding Campaign managed to raise over a lakh within 15 minutes of it’s launch and reached it’s target of 4.5 lakhs in less than 3 days. This is definitely one of the fastest campaigns to date. What made this possible?
I think it was to do with the fact that we put the word out early, and the help of the artist community in generating interest that I mentioned earlier. We made sure the date of the campaign going live was well known, so that meant that the heavy contributors interested in an associate producer role contributed early.
7. Would you recommend Crowdfunding for such projects to your fellow (animation) designers?
I definitely would. It’s a good reason to stop delaying your project because you’d rather live with the assumption that you’ll never be funded by a major production banner. Even with a small crowdfunding campaign, you can get started and make at least a little bit of your film, and that helps it inch towards realization.
8. With the climate crisis being at the peak of its time, what impact do you think Wade will have on people?
We’re hoping that looking at an almost familiar landscape will make the audience believe in the impending threat. We may be a little jaded because we expect doomsday to look a certain way. Hopefully, if our viewers feel a bit of the fear we feel, they can choose to translate that into some form of action.
Check out Wade‘s trailer below.
9. What advice do you have for young Indian aspirants in the animation/ filmmaking space?
It would be extremely exciting for everyone to focus on the stories they want to tell, go out and have experiences and read and enrich themselves to the point that they’re reasonably capable of telling a said story, and to trust the fact that it can get made if done bit by bit. If we have a lot of animators in the country making a lot of small projects, it’ll nicely build an ecosystem of filmmakers that look out for each other and love the medium.
If you are interested to see more of Upamanyu’s work. Go and check out his Instagram to enjoy some amazing sketching, animation and more here.
