What is Friends Forever all about?
The film centres around the unusually true friendship between a toy (Zampano) and the main protagonist Juhi (Hrishitaa Bhatt). The toy invented by Juhi’s uncle and gifted when she was small is a livewire; full of energy, naughty, witty, passionate by nature and is constantly up to something or the other. Possessing the power to do just about anything , Zampano can talk in several dialects and accents. Zampano plays cupid in the lives of Juhi and her lover Raj (Ashmit Patel). Moreover, he even foils the designs of two goons who want to steal him.

How did you zero in on the character of Zampano?
We had to keep in mind that he should be cute and loving and naughty. We also had the idea that the character should be between 6-7 inches in height. At the outset, different sketches were made. We referred to John Lasseter’s Toy Story. After a lot of search, we unanimously zeroed in on the character that we have used. We then came up with the texture, the clothing (jeans, T-shirt). We also designed Zampano’s magic wand which, when wanted, converts into a flying bike.

What next?
While we were designing the character, Manoj Lalwani finished the screenplay and the dialogues. Since we had Hrishitaa Bhatt on hand, we chose her to play the main protagonist and other characters like that of Ashmit Patel, Malvika etc.

Tell us about the shooting process?
Once the model was ready, we did a test shoot finalising the lighting for each scene. First we shot the live characters, then shot the action of the animated character. Later, keyed in both the scenes together. But since the process was taking a lot of time we decided to go in for motion capturing. In fact, Friends Forever is India’s first film to use the motion capture technology. For that we had to go to Malaysia where the characters and the choregrapher Remo participated. In the process, we shot scenes on the characters and later keyed in the same on the scene with that of the animated character.

How long did the character designing, shooting and motion capturing processes take?
The character designing process took as long as eight months, the shooting process took 45 days while the motion capturing one, took a week. This because we had prepared ourselves thoroughly before we could embark for Malaysia.

How long did the whole process take?
Once we were through with the motion capturing process, it took us another 10-11 months to be ready with the whole film. In-between in the post-production process we did the background score, dubbing etc.

How many songs does the film have?
Well, there are four songs of which two features Zampano. One song has been shot on a blue screen. This scene, a dream sequence, featuring Zampano and Juhi is the one when Zampano brings Juhi to his world. The song full of animation- both background and characters - is the highlight of the film.

You are also looking after the animation of two of Celluloid Dreams’ future projects.
Yes, the company has two films on which I am working for. The first is Raju The Joker. The film has been inspired by Raj Kapoor’s Mera Naam Joker. Though the second film Mermaid - A Love Story has been announced, the makers are still hobnobbing with the idea whether to make it an out-an-out animation movie or to make a animation cum live action film.