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Masters to Speak Out at Animation Masters Summit 2021

Click here for the AMS 2021 – Live master session Jiggy George

Screenwriter Meg LeFauve, Music composer Vidjay Beerepoot, Licensing and Merchandising expert Jigy George, Advertising veteran Rahul daCunha & Writer, director & creative producer Vani Saraswathi Balgam are the five ‘masters’ for the Animation Masters Summit 2021 edition organised by Toonz Media Group

Masters of animation industry will share their thoughts and speak their mind out at the 2021 edition of Animation Masters Summit.

Screenwriter Meg LeFauve, Music composer Vidjay Beerepoot, Licensing and Merchandising expert Jigy George, Advertising veteran Rahul daCunha and Writer, director and creative producer Vani Saraswathi Balgam are the five ‘masters’ for the 2021 edition.

Oscar nominated, Annie Award-winning screenplay writer Meg LeFauve holds the writing credits for some of the most popular animation features of our times. Marvel’s blockbuster Captain Marvel, Pixar hits Inside Out and The Good Dinosaur to name just a few.

Meg began her film career as a producer and President of Egg Pictures, where she produced Emmy and Golden Globe nominated films. A storyteller par excellence, Meg has taught at the American Film Institute and served as co-chair of the Graduate Producers Program at University of California’s School of Film and Television, where she taught master level story and development classes for several years.

Vidjay Beerpoot is the man behind the soulful score of the new animation feature Ainbo and the edgy soundscape of Netflix’s The Little Vampire 3D.

Adopted from India and brought up in the Netherlands, Vidjay has gone through an interesting creative journey through different cultures all the way to Hollywood. Today, based in Los Angeles, he composes music for movies, TV shows and video games all over the world, including for Disney, Netflix, Universal Pictures, Warner Brothers, Sony and Nickelodeon.

Jiggy George began his career as a designer and then went on to work with some of the top media and entertainment brands, right from MTV and Pogo to Viacom and Times of India.

Throughout his career, Jiggy George deftly balanced the ‘ying’ and ‘yang’ of creativity and commerce, achieving what very few in the industry can boast of – an undying passion for creativity, coupled with a nuanced understanding of management. Today, Jiggy is a successful entrepreneur and founder of Dream Theatre, one of India’s leading brand management and licensing companies.

From award-winning commercials to the country’s longest running ad campaign, ad man Rahul daCunha’s portfolio is formidable, to say the least. Working with some of the biggest and oldest brands in India, Rahul mastered the art of snugly positioning brands in the public psyche through immensely relatable, riveting campaigns.

Most notable being the campaign for Amul, widely adored for its subtle, superbly-timed social commentary. But advertising is only one side of this creative genius. As a theatre artist, Rahul has worked on some avant-garde productions as a director and playwright. His plays have travelled across the world from Australia to USA.

Vani Saraswathi Balgam started associating with the animation industry at a time when the rest of us would have just started watching animation. Thanks to her dad, who started an independent 2D animation studio out of their home, Vani grew up in an exhilarating creative environment throughout her childhood.

Starting with painting, photography and amateur film-making as a teenager, she went on to establish a successful career in animation. She worked as the Head of Creative Management for DreamWorks Animation in Shanghai and as Executive Director of Rhythm & Hues studio in India. She managed the teams of artists and technicians that created the VFX and digital characters in Academy Award- winning movies like Life of Pi, The Golden Compass and The Chronicles of Narnia.

Organised by Toonz Media Group, the virtual Summit will be held from May 4 to 8, 2021, over the Zoom platform.

At the inaugural session, the welcome speech will be delivered by P Jayakumar, CEO, Toonz Media Group. This will be followed by a keynote address by filmmaker and founder of Whistling Woods Films Institute Subash Ghai.

Then comes the felicitation and AMS Awards declaration by Ashish Kulkarni, FICCI Chairman for Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming and Comic Forum.

Prof Nina Sabnani, winner of the Legend of Indian Animation Award at Animation Masters Summit 2021 and Ketan Mehta, winner of Special Contribution to Indian Animation Industry Award for his overall contributions to the industry, will deliver the acceptance speech.

On Day 2, the Ed Tech panel discussion to start at 10 am IST will have Ashish Kulkarni as moderator. The panelists are Dhimant Vyas, Chief Creative Director, Byjus, Dr M Srinivasan, Founder, GEAR Foundation, Prerna Jhunjhunwala, Founder, Little Paddington and Creative Galileo and Sasikumar Pillai, Executive Director, Toonz Education Services. From 11.30, there will be an in conversation session with Rahul daCunha.

While Day 3 will have an in conversation session with MegLeFauve and session by Jiggy George, Day 4 will have sessions by Vidjay Beerepoot and Vani Saraswathi Balgam.

On the last day of the summit, there will be an AWN panel discussion. Dan Sarto will be the moderator, and Monica Lago Kaytis, Co-Founder, Rise Up Animation, Bryan Dimas, LatinX in Animation, LXiA Co-Founder and Co-Director, Jinko Gotoh, Vice President, Women in Animation and Mansi Darbar-VP, Corporate Strategy and Development, IN10 Media will be the panelists. This will be followed by Ri8brain launch.

Animation Masters Summit (AMS) is an annual event celebrated by Toonz Media Group, a leading name in animation and Kids & Family Entertainment. Established in 1999 as the first ever animation event in India called “Week with the Masters”, it was recently renamed as Animation Masters Summit (AMS).

Animation Masters Summit celebrates the beautiful art of animation, bringing talents and experts from around the global animation Industry to interact with aspiring young talents. The event also offers a platform for masters to offer inspirations and insights on what it takes to create, connect and drive engaging content in this invigorating new entertainment era.

 

Source:  Pickle

 

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India catches Fifa World Cup fever

India…India….India…India. That is something you won’t be hearing in this 2018 FIFA World Cup.

Coming to the sore point about our country’s participation in the global event, even though we have a population of more than 1.3 Billion of which more than 50% fall under the age of 25. It baffles me why we cannot have a team capable enough to make it all the way. Again, I am not trying to demean the efforts of the existing players and in no way suggesting they are incompetent. It is more to do with the environment and facilities that are almost non-existent. We have never been part of any world cup although the team did qualify by default in 1950 after all the other nations in our qualification group withdrew. However, we withdrew prior to the beginning of the tournament.

There has been some progress lately and we are seeing a shift in sports preference from the newer generation and thanks to the huge investments in football by Reliance, the ISL has grown considerably popular and viewership has increased year on year. The audience with the exposure to the various European leagues fixtures and UEFA’s various formats have accepted football as a viewing sport and the matches have made itself a talking point amongst youngsters, with each one choosing a team which they associate. The fan base for each team has considerably increased especially the teams from England and Spain and the largest followers being for Real Madrid which stands at 77.3 Million across all digital platforms.

FIFA brings in great interest in football and most fans are for Argentina and Brazil, with Portugal, England, Germany, Spain and Italy being the other countries. We see great enthusiasm and match screenings are the new way to catch up with friends. The world cup truly gets people together irrespective of your country’s participation and this particularly holds true for us. SET India the broadcast partners for the world cup has used this as a campaign idea and created an amazing connect with the audience using the idea “Meri Doosri Country”.

Russia 2018 will be a defining world cup for two of greatest legends to grace the field; Messi and Ronaldo. It will probably be their last world cup and both with their respective teams will try their very best to lift the golden trophy. One team that will be missed is Italy and it is still something the fans need to overcome. The world cup has always seen Italy’s participation and this will be the first time in 60 years that the Azzuris have not qualified considering they are 4 time champions and have players of exceptional quality. Of the other teams Brazil is always the crowd favourite because of the way they play, its pure magic. They will this time be out for revenge against Germany for the humiliating defeat they suffered at home turf in 2014. Germany the current holders will try to do a double. The team looks in good shape apart from a few ageing players. My dark horse is the Belgian side A.K.A Red Devils. They are the side to watch out as they have players with exceptional talent and good both in attack and defence. Let us hope to see a fantastic battle between the teams and I am hoping my doosri country wins.

On the merchandise front we have been witnessing this change from early 2013, when we first decided to take a shot at the FIFA world cup 2014. We were unsure of how a cricket crazy country would react to the merchandise though we knew that as an aspirational sport the merchandise would sell coupled with the interest in football. Our bet paid off and we did some unbelievable sales. This gave us confidence to look at football offerings more closely. We now have Real Madrid and of course FIFA 2018 merchandise in the market with more categories activated.

2018 FIFA World Cup Russia has a whole host of authentic licensed merchandise ranging from Apparel to Bags, Sippers, Footballs, Footwear, gifts and novelties and more with prices beginning at INR 299. The Alcis 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia fan wear range comprises over 550 products with T-Shirts, Polo T-shirts, Shorts, Track pants, Tracksuits, Hoodies, Jackets, Sweatshirts, Jerseys and Caps. The range starts at INR 399. The merchandise is available from 1000+ apparel stores and large format stores like Lifestyle, Shoppers Stop, Max Retail, Central, Globus, Sports Station along with leading e-commerce platforms.

So while you will be watching the biggest sporting event from 14th of this month, do show your love for the assortment of merchandise we have put out for you. Help us create more fanatics and support our cause, which is none except it makes good business.