Saturday, April 10, 2010

Swaminarayan Temple Kalupur Ahmedabad Junagadh News Gujarat India

As school-going kids and living in the walled city, the Shaikh brothers used to often pass by the 200-year-old Swaminarayan Temple Kalupur Ahmedabad, not knowing that years later they would be telling the story of the sect’s founder in ‘3D’ technology.

In the first of its kind stereoscopic 3D film, Ahmedabad-based Mohammad Naim Shaikh, a graduate from National Institute of Design (NID), and Mohammad Nadeem Shaikh, an architect, have depicted the birth, transformation, life and learning of Swaminarayan Bhagwan in a 20-minute film to be released on May 1, marking 50 years of the foundation of Gujarat. The film is made by MSquare, the firm launched by the brothers two years ago.

The film — ‘Sahajanand’ — is directed by Praful Kharsani of PK Films, an Ahmedabad-based production house of Gujarati films.

Claimed to be the first initiative of its kind in the country, this film has been shot by S3D cameras. “Though there have been a few projects in the country using stereoscopic technology, they are all imported technology. For this film, we have customized most of the equipment and cameras. For editing we are using licensed version of software,” says Naim.

The film, which is in the post production stage right now, will be screened as part of the 20-day-long idol installation ceremony at the newly-constructed Swaminarayan temple Bhuj through a special projection installation, where close to 30 lakh devotees from across the world are expected to visit.

“Prafulbhai was exploring the idea of how the story of Swaminarayan Bhagwan can be told in a different and more interesting way. He visited Mumbai after which he learnt of the work I had been doing in the virtual 3D field. This 3D motion film is the first such project for us,” said Naim, who was a consultant with NID on the designing of Mumbai’s Monorail project.

As a part of the research, they visited various Swaminarayan temples, read the stories, talked to devotees about costumes, set and found the perfect setting in Junagadh City Districts Villages. “What we really liked about the sect is their teaching method, which includes aspects of many religious groups,” says Nadeem.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Popular Posts