Indians are making a mark globally with their skills and we are not just talking about the biggies like Priyanka Chopra and Sundar Pichai. Young freelance illustrator, Sri Priyatham, has now been brought on board by Netflix to become a part of their original show Stranger Things’ season 3. And the interesting thing is that he was shortlisted after Netflix glanced upon his profile and his creative work on Instagram.
Stranger Things is a popular sci-fi web-show by Netflix America that received spectacular praises in season one and two. The show, set in the 1980s, talks about a bunch of kids and the people around them getting involved in a parallel universe which they term as the ‘upside down’. The thriller-horror show will now start with its third season in July 2019 for which Priyatham has been roped in through the Global Artiste Outreach programme of Netflix which was based on artistes all around the world creating illustrations of the characters and other interpretations from the previous seasons of the show. 16 artistes were shortlisted for this programme and there was only one Indian in this mix, Sri Priyatham from Hyderabad. He made an illustration of Sheriff Hopper, picking out an image from season two, episode five which was then part of the season three promo.
Talking about his work, Priyatham said to a leading news website, “I was quite clear about my career. I charted out my career option right when I was in school. I was a fan of Cartoon Network from the 90s. I knew what I did not want to do and wanted to be better at what I was good at.”
He continued, “It was an exclusive project for Netflix. They hired 16 artists to create recap illustrations from season 2. I have been a fan of Stranger Things but wouldn’t have thought of creating an illustration until Netflix approached me. I had to watch each episode a couple of times and create a gist to identify what could be the crucial elements in my drawing.”
Priyatham also shed some light on his illustration, “I was allotted episode 5 from season 2 called ‘Dig Dug’. It was indeed a challenge to capture the entire gist of an episode in one illustration tying all the threads together. But it was fun jumping out of my comfort zone and challenging my skills. It was totally worth it and the liberty the creative team gave the artistes felt good.”