Rourkela: This is the story of the journey of one Mandeep Singh, just another name in the crowd, who grew up in one of the nondescript lanes of Rourkela, the Gandhi Road. But, here lies the clue, he is in the team of one of the top-grosser movies of the year from Hollywood, Avatar 2 as an animation artist. Mandeep, who is now based in Wellington in New Zealand, fondly remembers his days in Rourkela and how he was absolutely hooked on cricket. “However, after completing my twelfth, I felt there was no fun in choosing commerce as a career.
At that time, we had a computer on which my sisters used to work and I was quite adept at using the machine. I got hooked on to computer and gaming,” mentions Mandeep in a prepared text mail. “One day I saw an ad for a course in animation and immediately contacted the institute in Mumbai. And my family stood by me as I left to start my tryst with animation, and my destiny as well,” said Mandeep. For someone from a small town like Rourkela, it was really tough and challenging to adjust to the fast life of Mumbai and especially with the local trains. “So, I would sit in the station to avoid the peak hours and draw my homework. Then I would go to attend my classes and come back home very late in the night as I was staying in the suburbs and my institute was at Andheri,” continued Mandeep. The first break was when he worked in the institute’s filmmaking team and then Transformer had just been released. His project was adjudged best and also won some awards on different platforms for best animation. It was inspired by Transformer. “I was just 21 then.
And finally, in 2010 I got my first job in Prana Animation and I worked on the movie ‘Tinker Bell’, but that was just for a month. And soon I was out of the job, but it was a nice experience,” said Manjeet. Meanwhile, he was being hired for projects on a daily basis and they were worth it as he started working on series like Moto Patlu and Vir. “I was going nuts because I had no permanent work and wanted to study further abroad but there was no support for me financially. But, fortunately, I got a break in Malaysia and went there and stayed for two years. And I came back when my grandmother passed away and worked from home. But, staying in Rourkela was not in my mind. Once while browsing through Linkedin I, learned about a studio in New Zealand and by that time I had a decent portfolio to show and got the job,” wrote Manjit. He got to work in Hu Hu Studio there in a cartoon movie Mosely. Incidentally, he met his partner Hannah there.
“In 2021 Weta FX was hiring animators for AVATAR, I was then surely ready for a change and I and my partner moved to Wellington. Working with Meta has been very inspiring – the amount of detailed work that goes in here is absolutely crazy – Weta FX is one of the top-tier VFX companies in the world and there we got to work on different projects apart from working on Avatar, I got to also work on LOTR series for a very short while – A very little time on the recent Flash that just released – Godzilla x Kong which is set to release, and then Transformers,” mentions Mandeep’s mail. And when he was visiting India in March, he learned that his team had won the OSCARS. “After I returned one random day, our head of animation for Avatar brought the OSCARS and BAFTA and left them on my table, and sent me a picture. It was very emotional to hold the Oscars in my hands, especially with Mum not around anymore who passed away last year when we were working on Avatar 2,” informed Mandeep.