When his career was put on hold by the pandemic, Vishakh VM of Haripad started making 2D animation videos, and unknowingly carved himself a new career
They reach for the same book, love and love only, at a bookstore, and it is love at first sight for Sudhi and Mini. As the song ‘Oru Rajamalli’ plays in the background, he gives her the book, and leaves. This cult is a scene from the Malayalam romantic film, Aniyatipravu, Starring Kunchako Boban and Shalini as lead characters,
Now let your imagination run wild. What if they got into a fight? And can you make out the connection between the book and Kerala’s notoriously fraudulent antique dealer Monson Mavunkal? Young animator Visakh VM in his latest animation spoof video has done so much to the delight of the social media audience.
There are many such gems on his YouTube page ‘Kadalasmation’ (coined from ‘Cadalas’, Earth Paper and Animation), which has 139k subscribers. These 2D animation videos, which are going viral, are spoofs of popular scenes from films, mostly Malayalam.
Most viewed video. based on a scene from Misa Madhavan (897k views), Nayak, a thief, breaks into his rival’s house to steal some documents and manages to seize the gold ‘aranjanam’ (waist chain) of the heroine while she is sleeping. In the spoof, the heroine wakes up and shoots the thief.
Another is from a scene in the viral video Nandanam, a romantic fantasy story about Balamani (Navya Nair), an ardent devotee of Lord Krishna. There is a scene where Balamani breaks down in front of the deity’s picture and says that she will never light a lamp for him. In the mother of all turns, the gods give her one ear and extinguish the flame! Navya had shared this on her social media page. It was a big validation for me,” says mechanical engineer Vishakh.
Beating Epidemic Blues
Kadalasmation was born a year ago during the lockdown. Visakh was all set to go abroad for a job when the pandemic spoiled his plans. “I love to draw and am a self-taught animator. I decided to try something new, so I started experimenting with 2D animation spoofs. If I went abroad, the dream would not have come true soon,”26 Says year-old Visakh, who hails from Haripad in Alappuzha district.
He says there is no particular strategy involved in choosing the scenes he works with. “The idea just comes, mostly after watching a few movies or scenes over and over again. But there is no guarantee that this always happens. So I don’t watch movies or sequences for the purpose of making spoofs,” he says .
Once he has finalized a scene, a story board is created. Animation comes next and involves several steps from creating the first set of drawings. “Then I do a rough animation to finalize the timing and difference before moving on to the final cleaning step,” he says.
As a freelance animation artist, he hopes to develop the art. Admitting that it is a time-consuming task, he says, “It is a long, tedious process as I do not have a team. So after one task is uploaded, there is a long break before the next video arrives. Even if the video is a minute long or less, it takes me at least a week to create the final product,” he says.
So why does he do this, we wonder. “Despite the challenges, what drives me is the desire to see the final product. I want to enjoy it and want others to enjoy it too!” he says.
This page contains videos on the scenes of rest thumpuran, Kalapani, And bahubali, among others. Visakh has also posted short animation videos and pictures.
Follow his works on YouTube (Kadalasmation) or Instagram (@kadalasmation)
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