Arena Animation Dilsukhnagar: Arena Multimedia Dilsukhnagar Achievements

Student of the Quarter

Bhakti Dholakia
Course - ADIM
Drive-In Centre, Ahmedabad

Arena’s Student of the Quarter, Bhakti Dholakia, is from Vastrapur, Gujarat,
and is completing her Advanced Diploma in Multimedia (ADIM) at Arena Animation’s Drive-In Centre at Ahmedabad. Now in her third semester, Bhakti created her winning e-project at the end of her second semester. The
animation addict shares some of her winning mantras:

I have been a student of Arena Animation since July 2006. Having completed the Professional in Multimedia (PIM) course, I upgraded to ADIM.

Childhood dream

As a kid, I loved to draw and paint and to watch cartoons. In fact, one of my childhood dreams was to make at least one small cartoon film in my life. By choosing this field and opting to study with Arena Animation, I have taken a concrete step towards fulfilling that dream.

When I was in the second year of my Bachelor’s in Computer Applications, I had only one thought: That I would go for a career in multimedia and animation.

What gets me going

The kind of work that really excites me is something that challenges my imagination, something that stimulates me and gets my gray matter swirling. Then, executing all those mental images and getting them to materialise ‘on paper’ – that’s what truly excites me.

I, as everyone else, look at the stalwarts in animation for inspiration. Who wouldn't gawk at Walt Disney's genius in Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck? Or, for that matter, Hanna and Barbera's Tom & Jerry, and Warner Bros' Road Runner Show? I am a big fan of these creations. I also avidly watch Scooby Doo, Captain Planet and The Fantastic Four. But what really got me going were full-length animated features such as The Jungle Book, Finding Nemo and, most of all, Anastasia.

My winning project

The E-projects team at the Arena Head Office assigned me this E-project: To create a CD presentation about an engineering college which could be given to its prospective students. The students would go through the CD to get more info about the college, its courses, history, background, etc.

The best part about the project was that they gave me the freedom to choose between an existing college and creating a fictitious one. I preferred to concoct something out of nothing, and decided to create a fresh new college in my head.

After trying a few options, I came up with the name, ‘Karma Institute of Technology (KIT)’. Thanks to this name, my CD is called ‘KIT on CD’ – which I think is quite funky!

Now, the word ‘Karma’ made me think: Sanskrit > Ancient > Kings > Castle. Continuing with this line of thinking, I came up with a story of how a king donated his summer castle for educational purposes and this castle became KIT, and so on.

As a student, I also had some radical ideas about what an ideal learning place would be like. I incorporated all of these in Karma Institute of Technology. And it worked!

Beating the deadline

The deadline for project submission was one month from the date of getting the project statement. I managed to submit my project in 28 days flat, complete with hard-bound documentation and CD packaging. All in all, it was a fun learning experience!