It all started with Adhiraj narrating a story he once heard from his grandfather about the circle of life to Sumit. The story moves like a force of nature.A dynamic narration which constantly looms in your head. What followed was wanting to adapt this evergreen story into an illustrated comic and then finally into an animated film. 

After creating an illustrated version of Chaar Ram, we wanted to work on an animated video and bring to life this story that will always be relevant and stand the test of time, a story about the circle of life. 

The concept was pitched to an insurance company that we had previously worked with. And guess what, they loved it! A story about the circle of life, breaking out of generation cycles and making a life for yourself and how, it always comes back to the same point, if you don’t plan your life enough. It was only obvious to get this project onto the storyboard. Chaar Ram was finally happening. 

This was also a first step towards brand-integrated content which involves a small plug of a brand in the concept and with the intent of plugging the brand at the very end, the project was slated for production. 

For the main characters, we wanted to show different stages of wealth and living situations. To represent this variety, we worked on other body structures, clothing and facial features. From a lanky and impoverished daily wage worker to a healthy and wealthy businessman. We had to represent different financial stages over time. 

We also used AI technology for the first (Ebsynth) for colouring the frames and here’s a little tutorial for you to take a look at.  

The backgrounds were done with not a specific brief in mind. The main backgrounds appear in this specific order: in the start of the sketch, with the train passing by – starting the drawing, Dadaji ka ghar and the backgrounds which appear at last where we see Dadaji once more in a different setting and the last train shot. We’ve used a technique of washes in colours for these backgrounds.

Here’s the final animated sketch for Chaar Ram