An animation team of 225 has been creating fresh content for two popular TV shows by tweaking their working process from home
Himesh Mankad (MUMBAI MIRROR; May 12, 2020)

The Coronavirus-induced lockdown has brought the film and TV industry to a halt, with shoots being cancelled, releases pushed indefinitely and TV channels forced to air reruns of popular shows. Reliance Animation is among the few entertainment companies actively working in isolation on two TV shows, Little Singham and Golmaal Junior. Playing on Discovery Kids and Nickelodeon respectively, they are animated versions of two Rohit Shetty franchises, Singham and Golmaal, both fronted by Ajay Devgn.

COO Tejonidhi Bhandare (right) informs that they have created around 25 episodes, of 22 minutes each, during the lockdown. “It takes us around 10 days to lock the script, followed by 15-20 days of animatics and another 15- 20 days for animation,” he informs, admitting that there is a minimal 10 per cent loss in quality because the units are working in isolation.

The team of 225 has been collaborating daily on different aspects of the shows. They had divided the data among themselves a few days before the lockdown. “Around 70 per cent of the team had machines at home and the remaining were equipped with systems from the office. The file sizes for 2D animation are relatively smaller and can be transferred easily on cloud. The only challenge lies in the voiceover and background score,” says Bhandare.

The working process has been tweaked to help the animaters work from home. “Earlier, we’d write the script, do the voiceover and proceed to animatics and animation. Now, we start with scratch voices, move to animatic and animation and finally do the voiceover based on the final output,” he explains, encouraged by the fact that ratings of all kids channels have gone up in the lockdown and the delight of their TV partners to receive fresh episodes even during the crisis.

Shibasish Sarkar (left), CEO, Reliance Entertainment, reveals that the team had anticipated the lockdown following the pandemic across the world in the second week of March and provided their employees with infrastructral support as per their requirements. “We managed to provide fresh episodes of Little Singham when all live-action series have settled for re-runs. It’s a positive development,” he exults.

Chaya Unnikrishnan (DNA; April 12, 2018)

Little did Rohit Shetty imagine that his hero-cop Bajirao Singham essayed by Ajay Devgn in Singham (2011) would become so iconic that three years after the release of its sequel Singham Returns (2014), there will be an animated series called Little Singham for kids. “The first Singham became so popular with children and cops that we made a sequel. And, now there is going to be a 156-episode animated series for the tiny tots, and I can’t wait to see their reaction,” beams Rohit, who has co-produced it. Here, he talks about the idea behind it, his desire to make more such series, and his next outing.

When did you conceptualise Little Singham?
A year ago. We have an animation company in Pune, which merged with Reliance Animation. They came up with the idea of making Little Singham. We started working on the story and made a short episode. That’s when Discovery came on board and it became exciting as a project.

Creatively, did you contribute to how the character will look and behave?
More than me, it was the animators who had the idea about how he should be. I was only following them but keeping an eye on what is right and wrong. I was just worried about the language and the treatment, which I looked into. The traits were given by the animators. I didn’t want the cinematic touch, but purely a cartoon. This Singham is totally different from the adult version. Obviously, he has the ‘Aata majhi satakli’ moment when he becomes powerful, the lion tattoo brightens up, and he starts beating up the baddies, which is like in any series where kids wait for that particular moment. 

What kind of stunts will Little Singham do?
Singham himself is larger-than-life and in animation, there is no rok-tok. He will do all kinds of stunts. When we were small, we would love to see over-the-top, larger-than-life visuals, so this one will be doing 100 times more than what Singham did in the film. What happens in animation is that you can incorporate whatever you think of, make him as macho as you want to, something that kids will enjoy. 

Has Ajay Devgn seen any episode of the series?
We have spoken about it. He was in Paris on a holiday, but now that he is back, he will see it.

This is an animation series. What about doing a film for kids?
If I get a good subject, I will definitely do it because I want to experiment with a kids’ film starring children. In fact, we were planning one, but it did not turn out well.

Have you thought of making a film with a lady cop?
Yes, at some point, I want to make a film with lady Singham. I will be working on the script, but it will take a lot of time. We are planning to create a universe where there is a lady cop. In fact, in Little Singham, there is a girl cop.

Whether it is the Golmaal series or Singham, your films are liked by kids. Do you factor that in when you are making them?
Yes, it is important to me, especially while making a Golmaal or a Singham. I see to it that a large chunk of family audiences like it. I know kids will be coming to watch movies, so as filmmakers, we definitely know that responsibility towards the audiences. We do take care of that while scripting as well as shooting.

While there is a lot of humour in Little Singham, even the film raised a lot of laughs, especially Prakash Raj’s character despite him being the villain... 
Yes, we tried to make it lighter. We didn’t want it to go dark. In the climax scene, there are too many cops, and they have come to kill a person. It could have been gory and gruesome. It was a big risk to make it humorous, but that worked more than a normal blood-and-action scene.

Besides Singham, which other film character do you think can lend itself to an animated series?
There are a lot of characters in different movies, but it is up to the director which one he wants to take forward. If they want to do so, my company is there (laughs). Talking about my films, I think all the characters of Golmaal have those traits required for an animated series. Even in the live action film, they are lively, loud and over-the-top, almost like animated characters!

Coming to films, when do you start shooting for Simmba?
We are currently doing the pre-production and will go on floors by the end of next month.

What prompted you to cast Sara Ali Khan opposite Ranveer Singh?
They make a good pair! Sara is a sweet girl and when she came to meet me, I could picture her in the role; she fit it perfectly. This will be her second film — I don’t know if this will be her first release — but she is a hardcore commercial heroine. She is very clear she wants to do all kinds of films — a solo-heroine, a two-heroine, love story, a commercial film — she is just starting her career, her energy is right, and she is in the right space. 

On TV, you have just finished judging India’s Next Superstars. What next?
I will be shooting for the next season of Khatron Ke Khiladi in July for a month ­— the place is yet to be decided, as recce is going on. I come back and shoot Simmba. KKK is close to my heart — it is a lot of hard work, every day there is a new challenge, a new stunt, which is exciting. 

After Simmba, there is buzz that you will be shooting Singham 3...
I will be collaborating with Ajay after Simmba, but we haven’t decided if it will be for Singham 3 or the next instalment of Golmaal. Let’s see, we are working on the script and will take a call after that.