Getting Indian Animation Right. Why is it such an uphill task?

The world waits eagerly for animated films that the US makes. European countries have had a long standing tradition of animation. Our Asian neighbours like Japan and Korea have also managed to get it right. Then why has it been so tough for India to achieve true animation success?

There are some obvious factors and then there are other reasons which we tend to overlook. As we stand on the threshold of a new chapter for Indian animation, now is the time to take stock and to honestly assess ourselves.

– One of the most common issues that studios raise every time the topic is broached is the severe lack of ‘quality’ talent. India has a rich history and culture of both art and story-telling. Then why is it that we fail so miserably when we need to combine the two? Should we blame the so-called ‘talentless’ animators or the ones who are supposed to have trained them? It is sad but true that many of our institutions, even famous ones, have failed our animators.

– India is a smorgasbord of myriad cultures. We have 22 languages recognized by the constitution and thousands of dialects. It is next to impossible then to group the audience and adhere them to a common cultural trend. Very few live-action films have met with nation-wide audience approval and applause. You only have to look at the regional film culture to see the diversity. Compare the films in Marathi, Bengali, Bhojpuri, Punjabi, Gujarati, Tamil and Kannada. They are all significantly different from each other. If, after so many decades of film-making, live-action regional films have not met with pan-Indian success, how can we expect ‘one formula’ to work when it comes to animation?

– Producers and Distributors don’t want to bet on this horse called Animation. Or didn’t want to, until Hanuman came along and like a true super-hero, rescued the Indian animation industry. The less said about its quality, the better but at least the film brought Indian audiences to the theaters to watch a home-grown animated feature! And in the process grossed enough money (of course, aided by smart licensing and merchandizing) to get the financiers to sit up and take notice of this dark horse.

– With Animation, one needs to think long-term. It takes a good three to four years to make a good animated film whereas in one year your average live-action film is ready to screen. This long-term vision is beyond the understanding of producers who are looking at quick cash returns. All this, hopefully, will change as the market and the industry matures.

– In their new-found excitement and zeal for animation, as many as 70 animated feature films have been announced by various groups (studios/production houses/Bollywood film-makers), but who will create them? We need feature film ready talent and we need it soon. If the studios feel quality animators don’t exist, then shouldn’t they train the ones with potential. Ultimately who will reap the benefits? It is an investment that they must make if they wish to earn rich returns. There are examples right before our eyes of studios who have taken care of their animators and yielded fantastic results. But we shall discuss good HR practices in another blog.

– Story, story, story! Most of the films that have been released or are currently under-production are banking on stories either from mythology or rooted in Bollywood. Why don’t we stretch our imagination a bit (or even a lot!) and break free from the shackles of our obsession with both? We have a long history of story-telling. Why can’t we create new stories?
– Scriptwriting for Indian animation will HAVE to evolve. It is serious business and we need to treat it like that. Screenwriting for animation remains an on-going challenge and we have a long way to go before we have professional animation script-writers in our industry.

– In Hollywood, making a mainstream live-action feature is 2 and half times as expensive as making an animated film. Its no wonder that producers are happy to invest in animation. In India, people have 50 crore budgets for live action features but are conservative when it comes to budgeting for animation – they would rather pay the top Bollywood Star in Crores than even a quarter of it on animation and visual effects.

– Animation in India is still in its infancy and studios are still in the process of setting up the feature film pipeline, the evolution of which will take time and experience. We are yet to get the numbers right and learn to capitalize on Licensing and Merchandising like our international counterparts who have mastered this aspect of business.

– India is still a baby and a novice as far as the animation industry is concerned. We first need to establish a culture of animation before we can build an industry out of it. We don’t even have our own signature style – like the Japanese Anime or early East-European puppet animation films. We are still trying to fit ourselves into the Disney-Pixar-Dreamworks mould. It will take us some time to first master what exists, experiment with it and finally come out with a style of our own which the world will recognize.

– Bollywood makes over 800 live-action films a year. The animation industry is miniscule in comparison. Though 70 plus films have been announced in the past one year, less than half of those will actually get made. We expect 8-10 of them to release this year. As they say, we have miles to go before we sleep!

So let us not aim big. Let us first win over our Indian audiences and then attempt to impress the international crowd. Due to the novelty factor, so far even poor quality animation has managed to achieve a fair amount of success. But for how long? Audiences, specially the younger ones are extremely discerning and flaws don’t go unnoticed. They are being bombarded with good quality international animation through TV shows and are very aware.

More than Hanuman (parts one and two), I credit Taare Zameen Par for giving Indian animation a shot in the arm. TZP can be truly called the ‘crossover film’ for Indian animation. The animation had a purpose and it blended seamlessly into the narrative. It carried the story forward and enabled the audience to connect with the protagonist in such a way that wouldn’t have been possible through live action. But that is a subject for a new blog altogether!

(Coming up next… “Why Taare Zameen Par is a major achievement for Indian animation?”)

There are 6 comments

  1. anand

    for the matter that we lack quality is in fact that we get satisfied very easily with the work done and not that enough time is spent on animation movie project from start till end unlike other successful studios in the world who spend few years in each project, the trend perhaps has to do with the influence of mainstream motion pictures in India who churn out movies in few months so does it go out of halls even faster. so the little time spent on our movies will eventually affect its quality.

    As for the training part, in a culture where the teaching profession is looked down upon like its for people who could not make it in the industry. currently the situation in training industry in India is staffed by people who have a very little or no working in a production house, and the ones who are in the production house would not think of changing to a teaching profession as the pay is not on par and they will be expected to be skilled in more than few softwares and and few disciplines in them like modeling, texturing or animation,etc., and also because of fear of loosing the challenges faced in the production. Teaching on other hand is slightly monotonous job with limited challenges.

    The training industry in India is mostly franchisee based except a few training institutes. Most of the franchisees who invest in this field are least inclined towards art or quality or animation for the sake,the first priority is money compared to quality training.

    The training in India is also priced high and and only those who can afford are able to get into good schools. This scenario might be a reason for not being able to tap all the potential that country has, And those who settle for less have to compromise on quality.

    The awareness and scope of careers in animation industry is still very less. The student population is more driven to take up professional careers. Many students who enroll for animation courses are people who have graduated in totally different discipline, Or are students who could not make it any other field and a career in animation industry seems to be a last resort as the admission into the institutes are not based on any merit system or entrance tests.

    The whole animation industry be it training division or production houses are of people from the first generation of direct exposure to this animation field. This is not the case in Hollywood or other international studios.

    It would be asking for more from Indian animation industry who have just started making animation movies or series compared to other studios in the world.

  2. Gaurav

    The simple reason why we cant seem to get on the boat is that we dont know how to. If you compare an entry level animator in say North America vs Bombay or Hyderabad you get a deeper understanding of the differences between us and them.

    This difference carries itself through all the way to the top of the heap to producers and distributors or animated content.

    NID and JJ are just two schools, we need a ton of them, maybe not as good but at least smart enough to bridge the gap rather than work as a training chop shop which does a 9 month program and announces animator….

  3. Anirudh

    I don’t completely agree with what anand said. It’s true that we get satisfied easily but what is missing the point is that we are aware that it’s not finished and still we leave it as it is. We are lazy people, without doing much we want all the results. Let’s face the fact; our work ethics and sincerity are nothing to boast about.

    He said about training and about the very profession of teaching. Yes he is bang on target by mentioning that even the training institutes don’t care about the education they are providing, all they want is money. But his views that we don’t have enough teachers just because teaching is a looked down profession is like completely missing the bus. Who said teaching is looked down badly upon? Not at all, it’s a very respectful and a noble profession.

    Quote –

    “and the ones who are in the production house would not think of changing to a teaching profession as the pay is not on par and they will be expected to be skilled in more than few softwares and few disciplines in them like modeling, texturing or animation, etc., and also because of fear of losing the challenges faced in the production. Teaching on other hand is slightly monotonous job with limited challenges.”

    These are contradictory statements. A person whose primary motive is to make money won’t care about less whether he is being challenged or not. How do you define what is at par or what is not at par? For example, if for me at par is say rs. 50k salary, but I am aware that the CEO is earning probably 10 times than that, wont I accept the job if they are ready to pay me rs. 50k? Of course I will! Just because my salary is not par with the CEO’s salary doesn’t mean I won’t take the job. If that was the case, then there won’t be any teachers left, all would join the mainstream jobs. Teaching is a different vocation all together which whether you like it or not, everyone cannot do. And nowadays teachers are paid quite nicely also.

    Quote –

    “They will be expected to be skilled in more than few softwares and few disciplines in them like modeling, texturing or animation, etc”

    This is a very important comment and requires to be addressed at a broader level. It means that even those in production are not taking the part of teaching seriously. Why should an animator if decides to teach, needs to know modeling, texturing and so on. Animation itself requires many many years of deep study. It shows that he is himself being prejudiced and judgmental that if I become a teacher I won’t focus on one thing but rather touch the surface of everything. He is himself doubting his own methods. It’s the thoughts which create the circumstances most of the time. If animation education is bad this is the reason.

    Training in India in Animation is still very cheap compared to outside. But what hurts is that the training they are providing doesn’t justify the price they are charging. And if you’re talking about animation education specifically there is no less or more (in terms of quality). All are bad (though new ones are coming and hopefully they will be different).

    Quote –

    “The awareness and scope of careers in animation industry is still very less. The student population is more driven to take up professional careers. Many students who enroll for animation courses are people who have graduated in totally different discipline, Or are students who could not make it any other field and a career in animation industry seems to be a last resort as the admission into the institutes are not based on any merit system or entrance tests.”

    I would put it in a different way – awareness “of” the scope of a career in animation is less. It’s a very nascent industry for India. So we are not sure how it actually works, what are the skills desired and how to train them. Of course a very fraction of the people knows about this but majority have no clue. We are still following the trial and error process whether its education or production. People are coming from graduating in different fields because when they graduated animation as a career didn’t exist! If anyone is able to gain admission into any institute since there is no merit based entrance system, by no means it means that he will actually get a job. Of course if he has the skills he/she would make it, but my point is Animation is certainly not a last resort as it is a very challenging job. Our entire education system is based on learning from books, rules, formulas and so on. But in animation what works today may not work tomorrow. Every day we need to think out of the box. The better we realize this the better for all of us. People who think that lets go into animation, it easy work and easy money, sorry to say but you all are gravely mistaken. First get your facts right, know about animation as a career and then decide whether you want to do it or not. By having this misconception and spreading it, instead of solutions all we are creating is more problems for the long term.

    Quote –

    “The whole animation industry be it training division or production houses are of people from the first generation of direct exposure to this animation field. This is not the case in Hollywood or other international studios.”

    I am sorry but what is first generation has to do with the overall standard of animation? And what do you mean; this is not the case with Hollywood and other international studios?

    Quote –

    “It would be asking for more from Indian animation industry who have just started making animation movies or series compared to other studios in the world.”

    I completely agree but nobody is willing to accept that we have miles and miles to go. We are in the illusion that we are as good as other international studios like Pixar, DreamWorks, and ILM and so on. The first step to finding a solution is to first accept that we have a problem. “Problem ? What are you talking about…there are no problems man !” You got the picture?

    I totally agree with Gaurav, the difference between us and them is huge and it flows from top to bottom and vice versa.

    Yes we definitely need more “good” schools who actually know what are they suppose to teach and then design a proper curriculum to execute that.

    P.S – This is just my views to the comment on this post. For my in depth comments on this post visit my blog.

    OR

    direct link – http://abtheanimator.blogspot.com/2008/05/my-views-on-getting-indian-animation_24.html

  4. Gaurav

    Another little observation. I was sitting in the conference room of a studio with an American & European animator, film makers (which shall remain un-named)who were trying to get some work done with the studio on hand.

    the duo were completely exasperated, the files were not in order, the folks had to be mollycoddled, it was just chaos.

    I was looking at the level of organization the two were at (they had shot lists, descriptions, with images at the press of a button) i wont go into any more detail but it was shocking how prepared they were.

    on the other hand the studio folk were more like headless chickens, most apologetic, which is terrible because some of the work was pretty good.

    The coordinator spent more time saying ill give it to you later than anything.

    At a studio level what we lack is organization and confidence.

    then again, i was only there for 2 hours….

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