From the Film Maker

I was immediately attracted by the skull, the dark tone of the painting and the contrast between light and dark. Transposing the theme of memento mori to an Indian context, my animation reminds us that we are mortal and can fall in love with material possessions as a means to escape the scary reality that one day we will die.

I used traditional and semi-realistic animation inspired by body movement. This is mainly a soft animation as it matches the age and personality of the character. Combining techniques in Autodesk Maya and Adobe After Effects, I experimented visually with the focal length and distance to provide depth between the character and his background. The set design and main character are inspired by Bollywood movies.

Prakash Mohanty

A piece inspired by Harmen Steenwyck, Still Life: An Allegory of the Vanities of Human Life, about 1640