I’m Arjun Ram Srivatsa. I am an artist, musician, poet, animator, creative director, video director, video editor, motion designer, graphic designer, sound designer, podcaster, journalist, writer, music critic, birdwatcher, and friend living in Manhattan.
I hold a masters degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.
I’ve made editorial video for publications including The New York Times, Vogue, GQ, and Vanity Fair. I’ve made commercial work for Ford, McDonalds, and Sony Music. From 2020 to 2021 I hosted Diversity Hire, a podcast about being “POC” in media.
You can email me at arjunrsri@gmail.com
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Arjun Ram Srivatsa
Sly Lives!, Animation, Hulu
I made digital collage animation for Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius), a documentary about the legendary funk visionary Sly Stone directed by Questlove and produced by Joseph Patel.
Joseph approached me to add some flavor to the segment about “Dance To The Music,” the infectious masterpiece that Sly wrote when told to make a sellable record.
For inspiration, I looked to the album art of Teresa Alfieri , who designed the covers of Sly and The Family Stone’s A Whole New Thing and Greatest Hits. Teresa‘s use of multiple cutouts added a feeling of organizes cacophony to the composition, as if the band multiplied when they played together.
In this segment, music legends like Jimmy Jam and Nile Rogers talks about how each band member had a distinct role, but when they came together it sounded like nothing else. To drive this home, I built these moving collages using archival footage. I also added a waveform-mapped boarder to encase the band in their own rhythm. Lastly, the colors used reference the cover of “Dance To The Music” as well as colors that were popular in the genre and the era.
Hulu
c. 2024
Animator
Director:
Questlove
Producer:
Joseph Patel