Digital magic in regional foray

Chennai-based Digital Magic, the digital video and film production house that also lends facility for special effect and animation productions, is investing close to Rs 25 crore in setting up new training centres, recruitment of skilled manpower as well for newer projects like animation movies for children.

Arul Moorthy, managing director, said Digital Magic was eyeing the Bengali movie market for digital format movies.

"We created the Bengali movie 'Kranti' recently. We have almost finalised deal for one more digital format 3-hour long Bengali movie, which should be released by December this year," said Moorthy.

Moorthy is also in the process of converting Gautam Ghosh's 'Kaalbela' into the film format from video format. It is also finishing the online editing for Kaalbela, which is scheduled for release end of this year.

Both the Bengali movies are service-based where Digital Magic gets to pitch a price for its work and the client agrees or disagrees.

Digital Magic is also pitching to other Bengali movie directors for digital format movies.

According to Moorthy, the primary reason for encouraging usage of digital format movies, as opposed to film format movies, is that it is cheaper in the ratio of Rs 1000:Re 1, the latter being the price of shooting a movie in digital format.

For a close to 3 hour-long movie, digital format shooting would cost anything between Rs 10 lakhs to Rs 16 lakhs.

"In 3D movies, we made Chota Chetan in 1997. The movie was made on the service-based model and collected a revenue close to Rs 15 lakhs," informed Moorthy.

Digital Magic is also working on 'Lost Treasure', a 30 minute movie, which is scheduled for release sometime early next year.

Lost Treasure is in partnership with a US-based production house which decided on the script for the movie while Digital Magic did the animation and character designing for it.

"We have also bagged the distribution rights for Lost Treasure in India. We are also thinking of dubbing the movie in local languages like Tamil, Telegu and Hindi. We are in the process of deciding on the marketing plan for it," Moorthy said.

Digital Magic has also finished the animation and digital creation for 'River of Promise', another 30-minute animation movie with a US partner. This would be available in DVD format sometime in 2008.

All its co-production projects with US-based clients would be on profit sharing basis where Digital Magic would make money depending on the profit collected after release of the movies.

"We are also in desperate need for professional animators and technicians to manage all our future projects. So we have decided to train more than 1000 students at our training centres this year," Moorthy added.

Over the last two years, its two training centres at Chennai have trained 150 students of which 20 per cent were offered jobs at Digital Magic itself.

Others bagged jobs in television channels and other studios.

It also inaugurated Digital Magic Animation Academy in Kolkata and plans to open 15 centres in Kerala in the next two months. It also plans training institutes in Madurai and Pondicherry this year. According to Moorthy, his animators could earn anything between Rs 6,000 to Rs 10,000 initially which go up to Rs 15,000 after a year.

Digital Magic Animation Academy trains students in visual effects, non-linear editing and 3D cartoon animation for a cost of Rs 45,000 to Rs 75,000 depending on the subject chosen. It is in the process of finalising two animation projects for US-based clients and is also looking for an overseas partner for a 100-minute animation feature film for theatrical release.

"The 100 minute animation feature film would be for all age groups and would be a theatrical release. We would also plan CDs and DVDs for this movie as well as merchandise. At present, we are looking for a US partner for this movie who would handle the script while Digital Magic would do the animation and character design for it. We plan to release the movie by May 2009," said Moorthy.