Spielberg praises Bangalore student for animated tribute

A Bangalore animation student who created a short montage of several classic Spielberg films as a tribute to the director has got a handwritten note from the man himself, praising the effort.

Krishna Bala Shenoi who works as as a correspondent for renowned film critic Rogert Ebert’sChicago Sun Times, uploaded the short film to YouTube and accompanied it with a piece titled, “Steven Spielberg: My animated Tribute”. In the article he says,

“I think I’ve said enough to get my point across: Spielberg means a lot to me. This animated tribute to him took me about four months to make, in part because frame-by-frame rotoscoping is time-consuming and tricky, and also because I’m not at all experienced in animation. And my numerous software and hardware hiccups might’ve also contributed to that long production time.

This was made simply as a salute to Spielberg, the man and the filmmaker, who has inspired me profoundly over the last decade, ever since I started watching movies, and who has affected not only the way I view film, but the way I view art (I was going to say “life itself,” but even I think that may be a bit too much.)”

But Shenoi was clearly not expecting what came next – a letter from Spielberg’s assistant Samantha Becker congratulating him, and a copy of a handwritten note from Spielberg.

“Wow. Steven Spielberg, my favorite filmmaker of all time, wrote, *handwrote*, a note to me after seeing my animated tribute to him. I’m shaking in knees right now. Wow”, wrote Shenoi on his Facebook wall.

The note from Spielberg called the animated tribute ‘sweet and respectful’, adding that “Your image choices and clever transitions gave your tribute film a real narrative”.

You can see a copy of the note here.