Donate to Raghavendra Brindavan
Download
Tamil Fonts
|
 MGR is to appear in a
film to be released soon! He will be dancing with the lead pair! You may ask how this is
possible. It is possible with experts in computer special effects like Trotsky Marudu.
Marudu has been active in this field for the past few years. A self-taught but sought
after expert these days, He has always been in search of movement and is keen to
understand the spirit of the movement, as it were. As a young boy in Madurai, he had a
great attraction for animation and never missed any animation cartoon films or spectacular
films like 'Solomon and Sheeba' or 'Benhur' that had optically "composited"
shots; even though he could identify painted portions in those shots.
A former student of the college of Arts
& Crafts, Chennai, Marudu was almost the first to use computer for art; after that he
taught himself digitizing, special effects, etc.  He has done optical
animation for a number of advertisement films and storyboard for about 60 ad films, of
which Sarangan produced 30. He has also created stop motion animation as well as cut out
animation for film titles for films by Velu Prabhakaran such as 'Sariyana Jodi'.
Four feature films had art direction by
him. Mr. Prasad, Saasanam, Asuran and Devathai. For the last one, he designed elaborate
costumes for lead actor Nasser, colour schemes and film realisation. The film has made a
mark in realising a period - the first part of it begins 250 years ago. It authentically
represented that period. Apart from this, there is liberal fantasy when Nasser's group
comes into the city; 'Devathai' has only digitally composited shots, some of which were
painted, some miniatured and some using puppetry. At the spilt second of death, several of
his previous births are revealed to the hero. Each shot had different artistic tasks.
Students of Pondicherry College of Arts helped Marudu and they have also acted in the
film.
Marudu has had fruitful collaborations in
director Ramanarayanan's films like 'Maya; and the Tamil New Year release 'Raja
Kaliamman'. For the latter, he directed many digital and special effect shots and has done
the compositing along with 3-D animation, helped by four other artistes. The film has some
thrilling and dramatic scenes. In another film, he has used old dance sequences of MGR and
composited them into shots with the artistes of the film under production, where it would
be difficult to make out that the whole thing was not filmed at the same time. What a boon
to hardcore MGR fans!
 Marudu has trained 50 animators who are currently busy in the field.
He has been a major influence to many students of the College of Arts & Crafts since
1990, to take animation as a career. In the last two years, he has conducted an animation
camp for children organised by Don Bosco Communications. Marudu is also a sought after
artist for illustrations in popular Tamil magazines, in which he has established his own
individual style. He has made unflinching efforts to introduce a contemporary style;
accepted in the story illustration area in magazines, which has opened the field to many
young contemporary artistes at present.
Lakshmi Venkatraman
More
Articles |
