Taking eight years to complete, a new stop-motion short by Suresh Eriyat and his production company Studio Eeksaurus tells a heartrending story about family, mistakes, and forgiveness. “Tokri” features a young girl’s attempts to remedy breaking a precious heirloom by weaving and selling baskets to passersby.
Director: Suresh Eriyat Producer: Nilima Suresh Eriyat
That Tokri should take 8 years to create. One of India’s foremost independent animators, Eriyat is astonishingly prolific, with over 450 completed works in a multitude of styles: stop-motion, 3D, and 2D hand-drawn, among other techniques.
Much of this output is commercial work, for which he’s been duly recognized—honors from the Clios and Cannes Lions are on his resumé, as well as the status of being India’s first winner of an Annecy Cristal, but now a decade out from the creation of his own studio alongside his wife, Nilima, Eriyat’s ambition has grown to ever more elaborate personal projects, of which Tokri is the crowning achievement to date.
Tokri will always remain a celebratory milestone for Studio Eeksaurus. It’s been 3 years now since the film came out and the accolades continue even after 100s of official selection and more than 30 awards. Take a look at what went behind breathing life into the world of Tokri.
Story and Direction: Suresh Eriyat
Producer: Nilima Eriyat
Director of Photography: Srinivas Reddy
Music Director: Rajat Dholakia
Sound Design: Jayesh Dhakan
Animation Production: Studio Eeksaurus
Storyboard: Ritvik Roy, Mukund Bhalegare, Arun Rane, Suresh Eriyat
Character Design: Nikhil Joshi, Mukund Bhalegare, Arun Rane, Amey Dhamnaskar, Pravin Kadam
Animation: Mukund Bhalegare, Adam Wyrwas, Sanjay Patkar, Swati Agarwal
Art Direction: Sandeep Meher, Krishna Kedar, Sandeep Shelar, Ashok Lokare, Bhaskar Shindey
Character Modelling: Mukund Bhalegare, Sanjay Patkar, Shailesh Chindarkar, Ramesh Jhadav, Vishal Mhatre
Props Design: Sandeep Meher, Bhaskar Shinde, Krishna Kedar, Sanjay Patkar, Shailesh Chin- darkar, Ramesh Jhadav, Vishal Mhatre, Amey Dhamnaskar, Alpita Parkar
Colourist: Michele Ricossa
Grading facility: Prime Focus- Mumbai
Prop Lighting: Sanjay Patkar
Layout Exploration: Rupali Gatti
Exterior shoot coordination: V.S Bargav
Post Production
VFX Supervisor: Nilesh A. Dhore
Compositing Team: Shakti Mehra, Priyansh Gupta
Roto Paint: Studio V Sync, Amey Dhamanaskar
Title design: Nijin Nazeem
Title Animation: Priyansh Gupta
Post Production Coordinator: Jivan Gaikawad, Rohit Mokashi, Punya Krishnan
Sound Studio: Ajivansh Studio, Brahmanand, Futureworks Media Ltd.
Sound Re-recording: Rhitwik Raj Pathak (Futureworks Media Ltd.)
SFX Editor: Debraj, Biswal
Violin:Manas Kumar
Banjo: Rashid Khan
Additional vocals: Ananya Eriyat, Suresh Eriyat
Documentation and editing: Tintu K Philip, Bargav Sridar
Accounts: Chetan Varia, Vijay Desai
Technical Support: Praveen Parameswaran
