Mail News Service
Born in Jharkhand’s Dhanbad, Pradipto was highly creative as a kid. His mother introduced him to the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the magical world of Jules Verne and movies of Satyajit Ray at a very young age.
Since childhood, he wanted to make movies; however, as he grew up he realized that it was a difficult dream to live. Coming from a middle class family where education takes precedence and also being a pass out of prestigious Ramakrishna Mission, Purulia, one of the best schools in West Bengal, it was extremely difficult for him to convince everyone that he wanted to leave studies and make movies.
When asked why he chose to be an animation filmmaker, Pradipto reflected, “Animation is one of the most difficult yet satisfying form of filmmaking. It is an art form that can bring joy to people of every age, especially kids. It is also a medium which can fulfill the dreams of small town guys like us with limited resources to be a part of the movie industry. All you need is creativity, passion and perseverance to be successful.”
Pradipto currently works at Dreamworks Animation in LA, one of the finest animation studios in the world that made ‘Shrek,’ ‘Kung Fu Panda,’ ‘Madagascar’ and many others.
However, the journey to become an animator was not easy. He started by borrowing money to study at Toonz Webel Academy in Kolkata and got his first job in a studio at Pune, where he worked on an Indian TV series ‘Little Krishna’. He fondly remembers that when he started he had never imagined that someday he would be part of Dreamworks Animation. His only regret is that India, which is known for Bollywood and its movies across the world, does not produce many world class animation movies.
“The general awareness and media coverage about animation work is less, and unlike the rest of the world, animation is treated as kids’ movies in India. I still have a hard time convincing half of my family that I make films for a living and I have credit for working in 10 critically and commercially acclaimed Hollywood movies”.
The lack of awareness also meant that there were not enough parents to support their kids to venture into animation filmmaking as a career in India. Sudipto stated that during the global COVID pandemic when kids and adults were stuck at home and there was a hunger for newer content especially since traditional film shootings had been stalled or delayed, the animation movie and TV industry thrived through the past year .
Pradipto’s most recent work is on Sony Picture Animation in collaboration with Tencent Pictures and BseFX’s, ‘Wish Dragon’ which is currently available on Netflix and trended No1 in US and Dreamworks Animation’s ‘Boss Baby: Family Business’ distributed by Universal Pictures in theatres across the world and streaming on Peacock, in which he has played a lead artiste’s role. With his story of journey into animation, Pradipto wants to inspire more aspiring artistes to chase their dreams of becoming animators .
