Stop Motion Unveiled for the students of Arena Park Street

Followed by a successful Stop Motion seminar, the students of Arena Park Street experienced a very inspiring and helpful 3 days workshop on Puppet making and Stop Motion, which was conducted by Delwyn Jude Remedios.

About Delwyn Jude Remedios:
He completed his PGDP Animation and Film Design from National Institute of Design. From clay to paper to sand there isn't a medium which he hasn't experienced and brought the best out of it. His film ‘Chai Break’ secured 1st Place at FICCI Frames BAF Awards 2009 and Digicon Tokyo, Japan 2008. It also received a Special Jury Mention at Monstra International Film Festival Lisbon, Portugal 2009 and Asifa India 2009. Another film titled ‘0200’ has also bagged the 1st Place at Monstra International Film Festival Lisbon, Portugal 2009 and 2nd Place at Digicon Tokyo, Japan 2008. His latest film ‘Deluge’ has been nominated for TVCA this year.


On Day 1, an eager bunch of about 15 students were divided into three groups with the assigned task of coming up with a story concept and idea for a short stop motion film. The rest of the day was spent in discussing the ideas and thrashing out the detailing of the characters and the flow of the story, with inputs and guidance from Delwyn.

They were asked to bring the “ingredients” like aluminium wires, thermocole, M-Seal and Leukoplast for the rigging of the puppet the next day.

They ended the day by watching a few short films on stop motion, some of the NID diploma Projects and a full length feature film titled “My Neighbor Totoro” by Miazaki. The students were full of excitement and their enthusiasm and eagerness could be felt by the animated conversations as they trooped out of the classroom.

Some of them took out Delwyn for Chaat and Kulfi in the rain washed streets of Kolkata in the evening. An experience, which they will cherish as memories.

On Day 2, Delwyn taught puppet making using the ingredients the students brought with them and showed them the process and technique of creating a base for the models for the characters of their planned films. Some of the adventurous amongst them even created a quadruped character even though they were only shown how to make a biped character.

Delwyn explained to the students the importance of creating light weight characters to facilitate the animation process.

There was also a brainstorming session for the storyboards of the stories decided upon by the three groups. Delwyn shared a few tips and tricks of drawing and made suggestions for treatment and stylization of the scenes.

There was another feature film screened, titled “Coraline” which left the students spellbound. The session was wrapped up with the screening of a few of Delwyn’s works. The assignment for the day was to complete the storyboard before the next day.

Evening menu for the day was Egg Rolls and more street food, courtesy students.

Day-3 was the day for the final wrap up of the concept and storyboard and the students were told to prepare the animatics for their films before venturing into final production.

Sensing opportunity a lot of students also discussed their upcoming films, projects and concepts with Delwyn and he patiently heard each one out and gave his valuable suggestions for improvements wherever needed. He suggested them to watch a lot of films to enrich their experience of film making by taking pointers and learnings from these viewings.

Since Delwyn had a flight to catch in the evening and wanted to go on a tram ride, the students gladly went along with him and along with the tram ride also treated Delwyn to a river cruise on the Hooghly and fed him ice-cream to sweeten his departure from Kolkata.

Overall it was a fun and exciting experience for this bunch of animation enthusiast from Arena Park Street and they finally bade farewell to Delwyn but not before extracting a promise for him to come back soon.

The students learnt a lot of tips and tricks about animation film making and were left behind with a lot of memories and learning which, hopefully, they would utilize in their next animation venture.