The Animation Workshop to develop the character of Verrier Elwin as the Presenter of the Tales of the Tribes collection of short animated folktales from India, has started.  The three week long event is taking place at the Centurion University in Bhubaneshwar, Orissa, and will continue until the end of the month.

The location is a sleepy setting.  Located amidst the lush green fields of Eastern India, the pace of life is leisurely, and existence is much less stressed than has become our normal experience.   At the end of the second day and the eager team of five that have come for the event, are yet to be introduced to the students.  In the meantime, they have a large, well equipped computer lab available for their use, and have been making it 'ready', essentially getting the systems into place to bring the character to life.

The first stage has been to go through the script, written by the co-ordinator, Tara Douglas.  The three young animators who have decided to get involved in the visualisation of this project, are now deconstructing the requirements and examining the sequences, shot by shot.  These sequences will establish links between the five stories, through the artwork and the narrative, as Verrier Elwin introduces each of the films, recaps the punchlines and guides our audiences into the supernatural and sublime world of tribal storytelling.  This phase will result in a storyboard, which provides the plan for the labour intensive work of actually bringing the scenes to life in animation.