No child's play

Toronto's Kahani Inc ties up with Animation Bridge to create 3D films for a global audience

The estimated $2 billion-strong Indian animation industry is expected to touch $4 billion by 2008. May be the growth rate, at 30 per cent a year, propelled the Toronto-based edutainment products company Kahani Inc., to ink a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Mumbai based animation production company, Animation Bridge.

Kahani Inc. creates educational and entertainment books and CDs for children while Animation Bridge was set up in 2003 by Biren Ghose, the former UTV Toons executive.

In the MoU, Kahani Inc. promises to invest $30-$40 million over the next three years in making films with Animation Bridge. While Kahani's Canadian artistes will develop stories and characters for films, Animation Bridge will manage, produce and market the shows. Explains Kahani Inc.

CEO, Akash Sahai: "We will craft the storylines and scripts in Canada, leveraging the robust Canadian children's entertainment and animation industry. The product development and promotion will be done in India."

Aimed at mainline TV channels in the US, Europe and Canada, the 3D animation films will be ready by the end of 2006. "If the funding remains healthy and we manage to streamline investors in India, then we will broadcast the series simultaneously in India too," says Biren Ghose, CEO of Animation Bridge.

The alliance with Kahani Inc. fits in with Animation Bridge's business plans too. The company has already co-produced 2D and 3D animations with Japanese, French and UK companies. It has entered into a co-production deal with a Japanese company for a 2D series called Guardians of Luna. The series will be aired on a Japanese channel in August 2006.

Ghose is keen to produce and "immortalise" animation characters. "Characters like Mickey Mouse and Power Puff Girls are big brands. We, too, will look to merchandise our characters in a similar way."

Sahai, who jumped into the animation business at the behest of his grandson, is focused on creating create animation which is "fresh and in sync" with the Indian themes. "I didn't want to repeat Ramayana and Mahabharata tales for the kids. That has been done before," says Sahai, the former financial manager for an Air Miles reward programme.

Meanwhile, Animation Bridge wants to produce at least three animation shows for television in the next four years. It costs roughly $7 million to produce a television show, says Ghose. He admits that currently foreign venture capitalists are fueling the domestic animation industry.

"Offshoring is imperative and several low cost locations like India, Brazil, Mexico, Phillipines, Hungary, Ireland are easily available. Additionally, one cannot find an Indian VC who would invest $5-8 million on animation shows," he says.

The company is also looking for tie-ups with animation studios in Bangalore and Hyderabad that can help in multi-location production.

Kahani Inc. and Animation Bridge are also ready to showcase their animation shows for the first time next month at Cannes Mipcom, a summit where mobile, broadband and interactive professionals from 95 countries will come together and connect with broadcasters, producers and distributors.

According to a NASSCOM report, animation production from India has risen from $0.6 billion in 2001 to $1.5 billion in 2005 clocking a significant growth for the young industry.

"Digital animation provides great opportunity for India to capitalise on its two great competencies namely software and entertainment. This partnership aims to create brands that would have a 'wow' factor," underlines Ghose.