Tooning in to exports

Freeze Frame

In 1937 Walt Disney created Mickey Mouse and animated movies really came to life.

Today a different mouse is leading a new revolution in animation "� computer animation is big business now. IT companies and film and TV production houses are all discovering that animation can be the next big export item from India.

Globally, the animation (entertainment and industrial applications together) industry is a $ 45 billion industry. If you include gaming, you can add another $ 35 billion to it. India currently has an animation industry of about $ 600 million.

However, most of this is in the lowest segment of outsourced work and is barely confined to less than 30 companies.

The continued success of animated films and TV shows around the world is testimony to the fact that this genre is still a crowd puller. India has been a laggard in this area. We have hardly made any cartoon or animation film worth mentioning.

For decades the only animation being done was by the Films Division and a few brave individuals like Ram Mohan and Bhim Sain. Even our advertising films have had very little animated content till very recently.

One reason for this is that animation on celluloid was and still is a very expensive option. Even as late as the eighties, animation films were made by exposing hand painted individual frames.

Considering that movies run at 24 frames a second, you realise how many thousands of hand painted drawings make up a single feature film.

With computers and digital technology, things have become much simpler. Suddenly, there is a revival of animation films. The proliferation of television programmes has made it one of the most popular programming genres globally.

Indeed, the digital space is opening large new vistas for both Indian entrepreneurs as well as creative artistes. The most obvious model is of outsourcing.

In fact, for several years a handful Indian studios have been doing job work for foreign clients. This has usually been inking and simple 2-D computer graphics.

At present about 3,000 basic animators in India do this kind of work and still generate half a billion dollars worth of business.

Compare this with the 50,000 animators in the Phillipines. Or for that matter the numbers in South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Malaysia, all of which lead India in the animation sweepstakes.

The basic problem so far has been the lack of trained professionals and shortage of hardware.

The reason we have still managed to get a decent amount of business is purely one of labour arbitrage.

In the high value 3-D animation market, India has a minimal presence. In the branded shows and feature films, its presence is virtually absent.

In the last couple of years a handful of Indian companies including Toonz, Pentamedia, Crest, UTV, Maya Entertainment, Padmalaya, DSQ Software and Escotoons have begun looking at the huge potential which animation presents.

Tentatative attempts have been made at attending film and TV trade shows at at showcasing Indian products. Some of the more enterprising ones have even opened offices in the US which continues to be the major market for these services.

For the first time at least half a dozen Indian companies have started to make branded TV shows. Zee and Pentamedia have made full-length animated films.

Even US majors like Disney and Cartoon Network have commissioned original Indian content for the first time.

The movement up the value chain has begun. The easy availability of bandwidth and good connectivity are also providing much-needed impetus to foreign content aggregators to look at Indian content generators in real time.

This has prompted the National Association of Software and Service Companies and eE@ to talk about exporting $ 1 billion of animation content and services by 2005.

Yet the basic problem still remains. We just don't have enough trained professionals.

Except for the National Institute of Design and a few polytechnics, there is hardly any institution where you can be trained to become more than just a data entry operator.

Graduates from art schools end up being inking artistes. The Pune Film Institute and the Satyajit Ray Film Institute are about to begin courses in animation soon.

Some other universities are also looking at visual design courses. Private companies like UTV, Zee TV, Arena Multimedia and Maya Entertainment are running extensive training programmes.

Some state governments like that of Andhra Pradesh too are offering incentives for such training institutes. Yet if we have to scale up this business to global levels we need at least 25,000 animators.

This sector has several other upsides. Mobile telephony and other hand-held devices are opening huge markets for all kinds of animated content.

Flash animation, for one, is one area where Indians can seize the advantage given our IT skills and much lower cost of talent.

Similarly, India virtually has no presence in gaming. Gaming is the fastest growing segment both in the entertainment and IT sectors. There is no reason why we should not climb on to the latest gravy train.

Many of the existing entertainment companies are looking at both animation and gaming, as are several venture capitalists.

If we get our act together there is a lot of money to be made in this frame-by-frame business.

Amit Khanna is chairman of Reliance Entertainment. The views expressed here are his own