FUTURE OF ANIMATION IN INDIA

The Indian animation Industry has been fighting a few big problems in the past. Effective production pipeline, skilled workforce and infrastructure has been some of the major hurdels. The leading Companies of today have all these roughly in place. When I say roughly it means that there remains huge scope of improvement and the future of the Animation industry is in fact based on how well we can better ourselves in these. From this point onwards the Journey can only be towards bigger higher and better.

Animation as an art requires extreme discipline and organized effort. Countries like Philippines have lost out in spite of having a rich talent pool mainly because of its disorganized Freelance environment. Organizational strength is the core component of all BPO s. Improvements in the existing pipeline and the emergence of 3d animation as a lucrative business will help the animation studios take up the BPO model.

The recent popularity of 3d animation has hit the 2d traditional animation market badly. This is to gradually change. When the initial enthusiasm settles down 2d animation will reinforce itself and in future 2d as well as 3d animation will go hand in hand to entertain the toon lovers.

Animation is a work intensive business, thus to build a conducive environment for Artist we might see some of the big studios setting up their residential campus where the artists freed from their routine tensions can dedicate themselves to their work.

In the training front, till now only major studios were taking initiative to train fresh talent to cater to their huge demand for skilled workforce. With the rate of growth increasing this will be insufficient and the future will see Major animation training colleges setting up to provide a steady flow of talent to the industry.

The current animation business in India revolves around Production, Post production and VFX. This is soon to change with the incorporation of preproduction into the existing pipeline. With the increasing confidence of the International community, India is soon to be trusted with the generation of original content. Our rich cultural heritage can cater a new taste. The international ordinance till now has been feed with either Traditional Disney style animation or the Japanese anime. There has been an ongoing effort through out the world to evolve alternative styles of animation and soon India will join hands with the rest of the world to create original content. France, China, Korea, Japan, Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia has already gone ahead of us in this respect and India is to soon catch up

When talking of original content one cannot help but envisage a Full length Feature film from India which will awe the world in terms of story telling and international appeal. The efforts in the past in this direction have been either without vision or without conviction .The main retarding factor has been Finance. Making an animated movie costs a fortune and the returns are uncertain . India might see its studios coming together in the future to share the financial burden and to deliver a product which is truly world class. The recent success of ‘Hanuman’ in the box-office will definitely inspire a revolution in the Indigenous Animated feature industry. Creative people in the industry will have to enhance their attention to detail. A smart product in the hands of a smart salesman can definitely create history. This will by far enhance India’s identity in the International Animation business.

Like a mountaineer focusing on each foot hold is destined to reach the Peak, so shall we reach our mighty targets by giving our best for the present. Indian Animation industry is relatively young. With fresh minds teeming with ideas, great story telling ability and with loads of commitment and initiative we can definitely come out victorious. Lets do it …

Author:Anandaroop Mukherjee(2006)