MIHIR LELE
OUT OF SYLLABUS- GENDER IDENTITY
Direction | Screenplay | Animation | Edit
Client
Abish Mathew for "Son Of Abish"
Written by
Anuya Jakatdar
Abish Mathew
Character Design and Layouts
Mihir Lele
Screenplay and Animation
Mihir Lele
Hrishikesh Deshpande
Music and Sound Design
Mehar Chumble
Sharukh Makani
Brief
"Son of Abish" is a widely popular online variety show, that features hilarious weekly news take downs & special celebrity guests who talk & perform for the audience. Abish Mathew, the creator of the show, that is now in its 6th season, wanted a follow up animated segment, after the success of the previous one (the sexual health segment that featured in season 3 of the show. Click here to watch it). The concept was similar to the initial one, to showcase important ideas through a series of nursery rhymes. The topic for this segment was "gender identity".
Process
Once we received the scratch sound for the entire segment, an animatic was created, where the entire screenplay was visualised. Mr. Mathew gave us complete freedom to visualise the script and take all creative decisions pertaining to the screenplay.
We decided to keep the setting of the video in a classroom since the overall point of the video was to "educate" the viewer. This way we could use the classroom setting and the elements that come with it, to our advantage, such as the chalkboard, books, the projector, etc and highlight the songs in the video, basing each one in a different setting within the classroom and make the overall video engaging.
The film was hand drawn and colored using a digital tablet in Adobe Animate (formerly known as Adobe Flash) and composited on Adobe After Effects.
The lip sync animation began only once the entire film was animated.
The 4 minute film was completed in a month and a half, from stoyboarding to final delivery.
Post its release, the video was well received by audiences and a couple of well known media houses even ran a story about it-
Watch the full episode here.
The film was officially selected to be screened at the 11th Kashish Mumbai International Queer Film Festival 2020.
The film won "Best Digital Content (Animation)" at the TalentTrack Awards 2020- One of India's largest digital content awards.
It has won the "Best Writing" Award at the Reel Love Film Festival. You can watch the award ceremony here (5:20 onwards)- https://vimeo.com/523578606
The film also won the Judge's choice award for the Best Animation/ Stop Motion at The Equality and Diversity (EQAD) Film Festival, The Midlands, UK. It was a
semi-finalist in the best music video category at the same festival: See here.
The film won the Best Animated Film at the Out and Loud, Pune International Queer Film Festival, 2021.
Other Nominations-
Anim Arte 2021, Brazil.
2nd Annual International PSA Competition 2021, Bethel CT.
Paris International Animation Film Festival, 2021.
Ecocine - Festival Internacional de Cinema Ambiental e Direitos Humanos, Brazil 2021.
Semi Finalist- Les Mains Gauches- Queer Feminist Short Film Movies, France, 2020.
Transition International Queer and Minorities Film Festival, Vienna, 2020.
