Motivation
When I was coming out of the cinema hall after watching Chaar Sahibzade I immediately made my mind that I 'll be continuing this story with Baba Banda Singh Bahadur Ji.
Editors Note: Pankaj Bambri took on this project before we all found out that the makers of the Chaar Sahibzade movie had planned a sequel on the character of Banda Bahadur something Pankaj had coincidentally started on himself. Back to his explanation of why he made this video:
Because being a designer I felt that I overall quality of production lacked somewhere despite having amazing heart-piercing storytelling in the film. So this whole idea started from that only I started discussing with my close friend Satwinder Singh . He is also an artist with a focus in life we started doing our research from there and he was based in Patiala at that time so once we both got free time from our jobs we decided to meet and I went to Patiala for kick-starting the process. After brainstorming on the production pipeline and how we are going to execute this as this was the very ambitious project and I would not be able to handle it alone with my skill-set . I was from the 2d Animation background and Satwinder was from 3D. So After few days I came back and we both again got busy and put this personal project aside for some time and I kept on researching more and more to make my foundation strong on the narrative side of it .
My hunger to learn and adapt new skills in 3D animation brought me to Media Design School. I started learning new skills and building my base in 3D so that I can bring this project to life, and when a final project came I proposed it to my faculty and they were quite dicey as it was whole production film from concept to production.The best thing that happened to me was a big support from the faculty. My teachers motivated me and instilled confidence that, yes, I can do it and then I gave it a shot to this project. Satwinder and myself were in touch and I use to send him my progress and he use to give his feedback and where ever I get caught into technical he use to help me in that. He was a pivot point in the whole process. My classmates also were very supportive who use to give me valuable feedback and criticism .
Production process
The duration of the project was 16 weeks in whole so I made a schedule for myself that I have to finish this job on the given date to keep myself on track.
It started with scripting a story-board which further broke down a 2d Animatic with rough folly to see the timing of the shots. Then I started designing characters, environment designs following that I wanted to try out new approach for production. I wanted to learn game engine and real-time rendering techniques this really helped me to fasten my workflow. After creating good amount of 3D models, I took the assets into game engine and started exploring the possibilities of rendering and started working around virtual camera. The game became more interesting once I jumped into the production. The process was quite challenging, I had so many ups and downs highs and lows during the production process, but I was firm and with Baba Ji's Grace every issue was resolved and I was able to complete and showcase my hard work in time. I hope everyone loves and enjoys it .
Here is my Making video (behind the scenes )
Future plans
Well After creating a teaser I would love to make a full short film or would love to work on feature films exploring our Rich Punjabi culture and history. Currently, I am working for a brand called Khalsa United as an Illustrator for their upcoming line of T-shirts. I love bringing our culture and glorious heritage up with my skills.
Warm regards,
Pankaj Bhambri
Visual Artist