MYTH OF THE MAYAN BALLGAME
(The twins who tricked the gods of death)
Our second collaboration with TED-Ed brings life to the ancient Mayan myth of the twins who tricked the gods of death. The film is produced in hand-drawn frame by frame 2D animation, using fluid transitions with a textured feel.
The story follows the two hero twins, Ixb'alanke and Junahpu as they find their father's ballgame equipment, and avenge their father by descending into the underworld to play the gods in a ballgame. Being a myth video, we had a great time exploring different treatments and visual directions for this piece!
CREDITS:
Client : TED-Ed
Production House: Totem Creative
Sound Design: Bamm Bamm Wolgang
Music by: Adam Alexander
TEAM TOTEM:
Creative Direction: Arvind Singh Jeena, Nikhita Prabhudesai
Storyboards & Animatic: Nikhita Prabhudesai
Visual Development: Ashish Phadke, Nikhita Prabhudesai
Background design: Nikhita Prabhudesai
2D Animation: Gaurav Dhaimodkar, Ashish Phadke, Elisha Bansode, Arnav Gaikwad
Cleanup & Colourists: Ashish, Gaurav, Nikhita, Arvind, Elisha
Compositor: Arvind Singh Jeena
RESEARCH
Since the story of the myth takes place in the ancient Mayan civilization, we thought to look into the art, architecture and culture of the time. We looked at the 'chunky' motifs used in their ancient texts, artefacts and murals and tried to incorporate that in small ways in our film.
Since the story is a myth and not a historical piece, we had a lot of liberty to stylize the characters and world. The idea was to explore a 'pop' and graphic treatment for the film, considering it's quirky and humourous tonality.
VISUAL DEVELOPMENT
Initially, we planned on giving the piece an authentic Mayan look, but it since we had already seen so much art with that approach, we decided to try something more stylized and graphic.
explorations by Ashish Phadke
Styleframes by Ashish Phadke
explorations by Nikhita Prabhudesai
explorations by Gaurav Dhaimodkar
Initial 'Mayan' colour palette explored for the film, using earthy colours and natural dyes.
.png)
Going in a completely different direction with 'pop' graphic colours. We definitely liked these more, but realized it would be too much on the eyes for the lengthy duration of the film.
CHARACTER DESIGN
Top - Character Explorations for the twins by
Nikhita Prabhudesai & Gaurav Dhaimodkar
Gods character explorations by Arvind S. Jeena
Since the film is fully done in frame by frame 2D hand drawn animation, model sheets and turn arounds were designed to keep the characters consistent across the film.
Model sheets by Gaurav Dhaimodkar
COLOURSCRIPTS
Colourscripts are developed to inform the mood and lighting of each portion of the film, and to maintain visual continuity across scenes. Below is the final treatment developed for the film.
Colourscripts by Nikhita Prabhudesai
ANIMATION TESTS
