Born and Brought up in Kerala ( God's Own Country unearthing brilliance in an artist ) the World's inspirations etched on his mind translating into a sketch on his canvas, Dhaneesh today has a story to tell. The story of Wilson Periera!
Dhaneesh Jameson all of 26, his thoughts meandering towards Dark humor, has won several accolades for One Fine Friday. Again to prove his mettle at handling the melancholic with subtle wit, he is on the threshold of bringing Wilson Periera to light. Here is a little chit chat that we had with him and he pours out his travels in conveying yet another interesting story. Here's to Wilson Periera and the artistic wilderness of Dhaneesh's talent.
We are waiting to watch the entire film, the film that allured Naseeruddin Shah, Tom Alter, Mohanlal and made them give voice overs for the protagonist! As for now we can view the preview. (trailer)
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Hi, could you please tell us something about yourself, the work you are doing and your past projects and future projects?
I am a graduate in animation film design from the National Institute of Design. Born and brought up in Kerala. As a kid I used to like drawing and painting. The world outdoors excited me more than just shutting myself inside with books. I love traveling, meeting people. I am not an obsessive reader but love poems and short stories especially mysterious ones and dark comedies.
Having finished a film now I am working on how to find more audience for it. At the same time I am preparing for future projects. I have been associated with animation since 7 years now. I have worked on couple of animation short films and commercial assignments in past few years. One of my student projects (Co-Directed) won an Award and have screened at few festivals abroad. I have also worked on an interactive CD for kids. I interned with UTV Motion Pictures and some TV commercials as a student. It was my experience at NID that gave me a better orientation towards my interest in animation film making. Currently, I am working on some freelance projects to fund myself and preparing to release 'Wilson Periera'. Thanks to CG Tantra for all the commercial support.
I don't really stick to my plans always. Sometimes it helps because it gives a freedom for improvisation at any moment. If my intuition says something is good, I take the risk. I will be looking for some commercial assignments now. Also I don't want to make films until and unless I have something really exciting and new. I don't want to do it for the sake of it.
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Wilson Periera, A strange Man with strange obsessions, what inspired you to come up with the story? What intrigues the thought process? Whose works inspire you?
It's very difficult to say a specific answer for this. Wilson Periera became a strange man with strange obsessions much later during the character development. All the aspects of the story have control on each other. So a theme was kept in mind during the development of the story, and then worked on each aspect hand in hand to deliver the story effectively. I have a soft corner for dark concepts. It could be one reason for I developed such story to deliver this theme.
To some extend I can say a short film by Tim Burton has some influences on my film. I really adore that film, it is one of my all time favorites. There are a lot of people who inspire me with their work. It's not always only big names. Every day you are exposed to many people and films over YouTube and blogs. It's not like the old days where such exposure was limited now it's endless. |
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How has your formal education helped in creating this movie?
I would say the education at NID is pretty "informal", and I like it that way, one can learn a lot from other sources than from the classrooms. The years that I spent in NID, I have been fortunate to meet lot of people who are way smarter than I am. It could be seniors, juniors, teachers or professionals. Formal classes helped me to give good start. Being too formal is dangerous in any creative field I feel. Formal or informal, education is very important. This film wouldn't have been possible without that. In my case, education at NID helped me to reach my goal little faster.
Your love for stop-motion animation is clearly visible through your previous projects, what makes you choose this medium of presentation?
Yes I do have a soft corner for stopmotion, I have worked with couple of stopmotion films but this time Wilson Periera has no stop motion animation in it. Probably the miniature sets give the stopmotion feel to the movie. I love to do things which have a hands on experience than virtual. Wilson Periera is pretty much a mix media animation. The reason I chose to do a miniature set was to get detailed lighting which would have been difficult to attempt in 2D. I chose not to do a stopmotion in this film because there were so many things I had not tried and it seemed like a potential concept for these experiments.
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Tell us about the planning you had to do to make Wilson Periera, the character designing, the storyboarding
The characters in the story other than the character of Wilson Periera also have a human approach. They talk and behave like humans. So for developing characters for them I came up with some human parallels from real life that I could associate to my characters and their behaviors. This helped me to come up with the character designs both in terms of appearance and the character's mannerisms. For example the character of the big fish is developed from the images of Khali-the wrestler. Story boarding was done very intuitively. Many versions were tried before coming to the final stage. The detailing of the sets has been made after studying real places in Kerala where the story is set. That gave me a better understanding about the space, textures and props. |
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Can you elaborate a little on the character and the story that revolves around him?
The protagonist Wilson Periera is an imaginative character I made. I imagined him to be an old man who lives in a village in Kerala and has Christian beliefs. He lives in solitude in a social context but he considers his pets as his friends and family. He makes photo frames for his pets when they pass away. So now you will find his house is full of pictures of the dead. The story revolves around his quest to find out some of his missing pets- a school of small fish. The story also acts as a metaphor where it is not about just an old man and his pets. It talks about perceptions and perspectives in our day to day lives.
You love to scare the audiences, One Fine Friday was a hair-raising experience, do we expect a similar effect with Wilson Periera or it is on a different note?
It's not at all scary. It's very different from 'One fine friday'. There you could have just sit back and enjoy without much attention to the details. Here the story has multiple layers; also it is like a puzzle where clues are there throughout the film which can lead to a conclusion. It's very easy to understand but you will still find more information in the film if you see it 2nd or 3rd time. This might interest the viewers. I am sure Wilson Periera won't disappoint you.
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What measures you took for the quality benchmark this time? What hurdles have you faced whilst working on the project?
This time it was ‘Time’. This was a project that should have finished in 6 months time and I took 30 months. Don’t get me wrong, this wasn’t pre-planned nor the best method to get good quality. I had lot of wrong calculations on deadlines but I did not want to compromise on quality. Whatever happens I decided to stick to it to finish it to match the quality I had in mind.
I did not attempt to do anything that I am not very good at and make it a one man film. I have got music done from someone who is very good at it. Dialogues for all the languages I got it done the way wanted and also got it reviewed from eminent people. And it is delivered in the film by the best people. In fact I had tried other voices for narration but had to scrap all of them because it could have been better. |
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What was the team's strength? Could you please tell us something about the team members?
There were many well-wishers involved in the film at different stages of its making. The dialogues for the film are written by three of my friends who have better command on the language. I wanted it to be very poetic and each one is beautifully written. Dialouges in English written by Amruta Parande and Malayalam is written by T U Shaji, and Hindi is written by Neha Bahuguna. Sound and music is done by Adarsh S Nath. There were lot of my other friends with whom I have discussed each stages from the early days of this project. Also during the miniature set production I got assistance from my friend Roney Devassia apart from that I have received helping hands from many including my seniors and juniors. I worked under guidance of Mr Immanuel Suresh who is faculty in NID. He has been very supportive from the beginning to the end. |
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How was it working on the blend of the two mediums?
None of the animations were done using stopmotion techniques other than little bit sand animation in the movie (comparatively very little). The backgrounds were done in miniatures and videos were taken from it. Later 2d animation was composited into the video. I have kept a 2d feel to the characters as it is, without merging it completely by matching the lighting of the miniature sets. And it works well as a unique treatment I feel. The animations were done with keeping the background in reference. Also I made sure that the characters interact with the static props in the set to give a feel of its sharing the same space. |
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The entire process of creating miniature sets and CG is a tedious task, apart from the will to tell your story what kept you on? How much time and pain went in creating the miniature world of Wilson Periera?
Apart from the urge to tell the story, the fact that I had never tried doing these multiple mediums of animation within one movie kept me going. It has been a period of remarkable learning for me.
Each stage was a hurdle to cross and I enjoyed that. There had been frustrations and tough times. Pain turned into sweet memories once I saw the result. It took 2 and half years to finish the project.
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You have an admirable cast of voice over artists like Naseeruddin Shah, Tom Alter and Mohanlal, how did you win this opportunity, our best guess is the story is excellent!
I was very honored by their presence in my film. I have no connection or links to any of these actors otherwise; neither have I used any reference to approach them. Considering that they showed interest in doing this for me is one of the greatest compliments I received for this project. One of them even voluntarily sponsored my studio charges after the recording which was a great surprise to me when I went to clear the payment. Three of them really enjoyed dubbing for my film and were happy doing it as a compliment. I feel very lucky. |
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We have watched trailers and now we are eagerly anticipating the whole movie, when do we get to see it?
Movie will be available online soon and I am also planning to screen this film along with other couple of films in different cities. This will allow me to interact with more viewers and professionals personally. You can visit www.wilsonperiera.blogspot for updates.
Last but not the least, your message for CGTantra Community?
May be I can share something that I am trying to practice myself. Keep two rules, rule one - As a student you should always aim at an ideal greater than the one you can attain immediately. Rule two - be like a student always.
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