Sanjay Patel and Nicole Grindle were the moderators and guests for the Disney-Pixar panel this morning at Comic-Con 2015 for SANJAY’S SUPER TEAM. They had the distinct pleasure to welcome everyone to the first North American public debut of the new short which will debut officially ahead of THE GOOD DINOSAUR later this year.
Patel spoke about his inspiration for the short, growing up as a child of ashamed and embarrassed by his Indian heritage. It wasn’t until Patel was older and started finding himself interested in the rave/club scene where a lot of Indian cultural imagery was popular that he started to get in touch with his roots.
As such, this project was a very special one for Patel as the character in the film faces a similar struggle, wanting to just be absorbed into his world of superheroes and cartoons. When his vivid imagination takes over, he finds an inner peace that reconciles his cultural heritage and blends it with his American cultural influences.
Patel and Grindle led a pretty informative panel talking about everything from concept and layout to lighting and CG and so much more. Patel really wanted the look of the Super Team and it was pretty challenging to achieve. Apart from getting the characters to look like Hindu dieties that were superheroes, he had a really specific ethereal vision for how the characters should move and look.
