2014 marks the very first anniversary of Native Puppets, an online character animation training program that was jumpstarted by Anand Baid w
ith the spirit of bringing together experts from the Animation Sphere to inspire the aspirants.
AnimationXpress.com had a conversation with Anand to know about the milestones achieved in the past year and plans for the year ahead!
Anand, Heartiest Congratulations on the very first Anniversary of Native Puppets, How has the very first year been?
Thank you! The first year was very promising and we are excited with the steady progress we have made at Native Puppets. The support from the fraternity has only been uplifting and an assurance that our offerin
gs are a step in the right direction. We also found ourselves evolving through time and continue to make upgrades to better the system and stay updated with technology.
What was your vision when you started Native Puppets and have any newer aspects added to your vision?
The first batch started on January 7th, 2013.Native Puppets was started with a simple vision of senior and experienced talent being available to nurture the younger and willing ones. Well, like I mentioned earlier, the support from the industry, who are looking towards us to provide well-trained students in the coming time is surely motivating to bring about a change in the quality levels of the students passing out of schools.
Please take us through a quick flashback of the work done by Native Puppets & milestones achieved?
Some of the major milestones were to provide a platform to connect senior creative talent with students looking to make in-roads in the industry, regardless of geographical boundaries.
We are doing that with our ‘paid-for’ classes as well as with the free webinars that we have been conducting. There are been some extremely supportive artists offering their time to be available for the benefit of the community – we were happy to have the likes of Paul Chung, Dhimant Vyas, Vaibhav Kumaresh, Javier Alonso, PC Vikram who shared their experiences and creative journey other than giving away tips & tricks of the art-form. In the past we also had Shiva Adloori, Prashanth Cavale, Rishabh Chitroda and myself talk about Character Animation.
Most, if not all of the these students happen to be remotely located and caught up with geographical boundaries and conducting such free webinars has only benefited them to receive first hand information from those who have been around in the Industry for a while.
Earlier in the year, we also collaborated with Autodesk to conduct an ‘All India-Level Animation Competition’, conducted live workshops, collaborated on a crit-fest which had winners receive free critiques on their show reel from the mentors at Native Puppets. There were participants from the UK, Spain, Colombia and India.
We are also happy to be making international in-roads with our student intakes and have so far had students from 5 different countries.
Towards the second half of ’13 we released our first student reel, which had assignments from Level 1, 2, and part of 3 and the feedback we got has been promising. We are now headed to Level 4 and 5 and cannot wait to see what the students come up with.
What were the challenges?
Fortunately, it has not been that difficult as we spent a lot of time in planning the program, structure and training methodologies. We did face initial technical glitches in the beginning when it came to the process of live video classes and giving and receiving feedback but we have overcome these hurdles and in fact have upgraded to a newer better system.
And what are the reviews that you received from the Industry?
All in the right direction and need of the hour, the reviews are very positive and motivating. You often hear this – India has the talent, nourishment is missing and so here we are. There are more and more people within the industry who are aware of Native Puppets. It is nice to be recognized and we look forward to delivering the goods in ’14.
We would like to hear about the Upcoming plans of Native Puppets?
We have Level 5 Batch starting this March, which we are very excited about. We are happy to be offering our own branded character designs and our rigs have constantly been upgraded and can confidently say are up to international standards.
With the start of 2014, we have completely revamped our Student Site. It is far more interactive, faster and intuitive. We have gone a step ahead and now students can stay connected on their smart phones anytime – So you could be anywhere and you can still watch what’s going on in the Student Site and even view your critiques from mentors and share notes with peers. All on the go and we are super excited with that.
