Venture
Social consciousness through animation
Chhutir Diney: A Bangladeshi cartoon
Afsar Ahmed
Cartoon films can be an effective medium for creating social harmony and awareness among children. World famous cartoons such as Mickey Mouse, Tom and Jerry and even Meena, a UNICEF production, have been widely appreciated among the young ones of Bangladesh. Keeping this in mind, the multi-media company Shailee Digital Prakashoni will soon launch Chhutir Diney-- an educational cartoon script to develop the moral sense in our children. This is a presentation of live, 3-D and 2-D animation on CD.An ancient Haitian proverb says, 'Children have wide ears'. So they can gain knowledge through their daily environment. In our country children lag behind their western counterparts. To bridge the gap, Shailee's venture will promote learning among our children. The story, Chhutir Diney, starts with a grandfather who tells a story to the children and this part is shot live. Then the story unfolds in a 2-D animation. The story depicts the rickshaws in Dhaka, Kama-lapur Rail Station, potters, proper sanitation in cities and villages, scenarios of villages and patriotic songs, children playing in the paddy field and swimming in a pond. Another vignette of the cartoon film tells the true story of a little boy, with whose help a major rail accident was avoided. Another facet of the story is about a city boy being rescued from drowning by a village boy. The message : learning to swim is essential for all. There are other components of the story. For instance, there is a small play on sound pollution, which is done by 3-D animation. A small girl, while going to the school, faces sound pollution and she cannot escape from it even inside the school and home. As a result she gets sick. The last attraction is a wonderful presentation in 3-D animation of Tagore's famous song Megher koley rod heshechhe. Live, 2-D and 3-D animations, recordings -- the whole process is done in Shailee's own studio with the help of a group of young animators and multimedia developers. Elaf Trading Limited sponsors the film. Chhutir Diney is a powerful tool to promote moral values amongst children. However, the question is whether it will be accessible to the downtrodden children of our country as well .
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A scene from the 3D animated song Aj amader chhuti O bhai from the Bangla cartoon film Chhutir Diney |