Lending voice for animation becoming a craze

Rajat Mitra, a senior manager with one of the country's leading bank, nowadays reaches home quite late though Mitra's office at Nariman Point in Mumbai closes shutter by 7 pm.

In the off duty hours, Mitra, a member of one of the leading theatre groups in Kolkata, is very busy lending his voice as a tiger named 'Sheru' completing assignment for an animation film making company. The company is working overtime to meet deadline set by its US-based client to ready a 24-episode animation film in 60 days.

With more and more overseas buyers looking to India as a potential, low-cost animation film making country, voice-over is becoming a preferred part-time profession for people coming from a cross-section of the society.

A bank manager, a child specialist, an employee with a BPO company and even a journalist of an English newspaper and an aspiring model""they all are listed with the voice-bank of one of the leading animation film making companies based in Mumbai.

"The money I earn from lending my voice as Sheru, will not be that much but will help me to contribute for the EMIs I pay for the new Skoda vehicle I recently bought. During my college and university days, I was a regular at Utpal Dutta's People's Little Theatre (PLT) in Kolkata and used to take part in theatre even when I got a job in Kolkata. But life in Mumbai is different as travel and job responsibility leave little time for theatre," said Mitra.

After being introduced to the animation film company, last week Mitra was called to lend his voice for 'Sheru,' the tiger who speaks Hindi and has a great friendship with Veeru, a lion, staying in the same jungle.

Ronnie Screwvala, chief executive officer (CEO) of UTV Software Communications, which has so far created 300 episodes of animations, said, "Of late voice-over has become a hot part-time profession for so many people as it helps one to meet inner creative demands and also to make some money to meet extra expenses in life. These people sometimes reach us through references of the existing voice lenders and also sometimes they simply walk-in following which we record their voice and preserve in voice albums for future reference."

"When we work on an animation film, we check the voice bank and try to match voices of these people with the animation characters following which we call them for an assignment which pays between Rs 500 to Rs 5,000 for a 30-minute episode. It has not picked up yet as a full-time profession in India but with Indian companies such as UTV doing more animation films for overseas entities, demand for good voice-over has suddenly risen," Screwvala told Business Standard here on Tuesday.

A source close to one of the animation film companies based in Chennai, said, "Most of the dubbing takes place in Mumbai and so we also maintain voice bank of people mostly based in Mumbai and surrounding areas and though these people always remain an anonymous lot and are hardly given any credit on screen, they are seen happy with the profile of the job. More and more women are also joining this profession alongwith teens and kids."

Mumbai-based Crest Communications also maintains a similar voice-bank which was extensively used when it did Tenali Raman animation for a Singapore-based company.

Interestingly, there is even a portal www.opuzzvoice.com in which aspiring voice-over artists and even the freelancers are allowed to record their voice free to become part of the voice-bank.

"As and when required, animation film makers use these voice for dubbing and the website is basically an instrument to bridge the voice-lenders and the animation makers. Voice-over is also solicited for various ad jingles and commercials but more and more people prefer to lend their voice for animations, though it pays less than ad jingles but they find it more creative," said a source close to Toonz Animation.

Indian animation industry is pegged at $150 million and expected to grow by 20-30 per cent per annum.