The "Secrets" to Writing for Animation

Creative Screenwriting, a widely read and highly referenced magazine publication for those in-the-know of Hollywood screenwriting and direction trends, has announced the sale of a DVD release dedicated to animation. Hoping to serve as a sort of catch-all guide for curious writers to lend their hand to the film or television spheres of entertainment, the DVD release "Secrets of Animated Movies & TV Shows" by Ken Rotcop (Richie Rich, Superfriends, Charlotte's Web) claims to tackle everything from graphic novel adaptations to Disney-Pixar styled scripts.

Currently on sale as a part of Creative Screenwriting's collection of the Craft and Business of Screenwriting, "Secrets of Animated Movies & TV Shows" -- for $19.95 -- aims to open up the mind of the writer and delegate what one should and shouldn't do when writing for animation. Noted as the former Creative Head of Hanna-Barbera Studios, Ken Rotcop, the instructor for the "Secrets of Animated Movies & TV Shows" DVD, is also the author of the screenwriting-based book publication The Perfect Pitch. In this home video release, Rotcop introduces "the art and business of writing for animation," using his experience and knowledge of the industry to teach viewers the important points in writing for the medium.

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Going global is the way forward for animation films

MUMBAI: In the emerging global scenario, animation is the new buzzword. The limits of quality and technology are being pushed constantly and workflow is not restricted to geographical boundaries. In fact, people are working in large scale, networked environments.

In studios such as Disney, Pixar, Sony and Warner, the average budget of an animation movie is close to $100 million (Rs 400 crore). The latest Dreamworks animation flick Bee Movie being budgeted at $ 150 million (Rs 600 crore).

With such big monies involved there is a need to spread risks of creativity and finance, increase geographical areas for content exploitation and provide access to media funds available in different countries, even tap global revenues from licensing and merchandising.

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“Only the strongest will survive in the animation industry”

DQ Entertainment (DQE), has tied up with a two-decade-old Japanese content company, THINK Corporation, which is developing four animation serials – Coluboccoro, Love Rollercoaster, Honeinukun and Pooky . DQE chairman and CEO Tapas Chakravarti reasons why it does not make business sense to create properties (animation serials) just for the Indian market. Excerpts:

What does the collaboration with THINK Corporation, Japan, mean for DQE?

To begin with, THINK has been developing these four properties, a post-modern era Pokemon and Digimon Tamers series if you will, for the past one-and-a-half years and now our teams in Hyderabad, Dublin, Paris and LA will be a part of it. While the storyline and the draft script is being created by THINK, maintaining Japanese creativity and culture, the draft will then go to our creative office in LA where it will be finalised. It’s important to give story telling and animation a global perspective. The storyboarding to animation production will be done in Hyderabad and the post-production in Ireland—truly a global initiative. We will be ready to introduce the four properties by fall 2009 up to 2011.

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Digital animation will be the spitting image of 80s satire

Politicians will come to dread Sunday nights again when ITV reinvents Spitting Image as a computer-animated show with a fresh mandate to be merciless.

So many suffered at the comic hand of Spitting Image’s latex caricatures that the only ignominy worse than being lampooned was to be excluded.

Twelve years after the programme ended, Spitting Image’s head writer, Henry Naylor, and Rory Bremner are preparing to show Headcases, a new £2.5 million topical satire show in the same ITV Sunday night slot.

Instead of puppets, Gordon Brown, Amy Winehouse and Prince William, among others, are captured using CGI-animation in the style of films such as Toy Story.

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Animation world gets competitive

Studios challenging Pixar for toon throne

The world of feature animation -- once thought to be the exclusive domain of Disney and DreamWorks -- is getting increasingly competitive, as studios left outside the gates of the toon kingdom are employing aggressive tactics to break in.

With the successful bow of "Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who," Fox Animation reaffirms its place in the top tier, thanks to a string of hits from its Blue Sky CGI studio, capped by "Horton."

The other studios are jockeying to join that select crowd.

n Universal successfully courted former Fox toon topper Chris Meledandri, who oversaw development on "Horton" and the "Ice Age" franchise, by helping him establish his own independent family entertainment company. The studio's exclusive deal with Meledandri includes partial ownership of his production house, Illumination.

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State govt plans training school for animation

MUMBAI : Maharashtra government is planning to start a national centre to impart training in the field of animation and electronic games to cater to the growing demand of professionals in entertainment industry, a top official said on Tuesday.

“The institute for animation will start in Pune within the next three years,” Union information and broadcasting secretary Asha Swarup said on the sidelines of a conference organised by FICCI here. The ministry is awaiting a report from a consultancy firm, which is expected to submit its report in four months.

The I&B ministry is also in talks with the Ministry of Labour to come up with Industrial Training Institutes in the country, she said. “We are in talks with them to start ten ITIs across the country for training in animation and gaming,” Swarup said.

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Singapore Animation Studio Releases 3D Animation Marketing E-book

Mediafreaks Pte Ltd, a 3D animation studio based in Singapore, has released a free e-book titled ‘True Case Studies of How Animation Can Help Grow a Business’.

Mar 23, 2008 – Mediafreaks Pte Ltd (http://www.media-freaks.com), a 3D animation studio based in Singapore, has released a free e-book titled ‘True Case Studies of How Animation Can Help Grow a Business’.

The purpose of the e-book is to educate business establishments on the benefits of using 3D animation to market and grow their businesses and also using character licensing (http://www.media-freaks.com/character-licensing.html) to increase the salability of their products and services.

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' Brand India ' animation ready to boom

Ten years ago, India's animation industry was keen to promote the "Brand India" label, a pitch that suggested the quality of work might be better than foreigners imagined. Nowadays, nearly all the major animation studios in the world have some kind of Indian presence or make use of Indian facilities and personnel.

The last year alone has seen Thomson and DreamWorks invest in Bangalore-based Paprikaas Animation; Disney pact with Bollywood's top-ranked live-action shingle Yash Raj Films to make three animated films; and UTV commit to build a full-scale animation "pipeline."

Animation houses have been producing in India for more than 25 years, and South Korea and China were in the subcontracting sector long before Indian companies, so why has the pace of change picked up now?

"Twenty years ago the boom began to happen for the software industry in India; now it's animation's turn," says Taapas Chakravarti, who heads DQ Entertainment, which recently listed on the Alternative Investments Market section of the London Stock Exchange, and also chairs Ficci's (Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry) committee on animation. "The IT industry has brought tremendous organizational and educational skills into this country."

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What’s affecting the animation industry?

KOCHI: The animation industry has come of age and the world demand for Indian animation is growing at a rapid pace. But the country is unable to cash in on this opportunity due to acute shortage of trained manpower.

The National Association of Software and Services Company (NASSCOM), the organization which monitors the software industry, says that the country is facing a whooping shortage of 1.5 lakh people, though the industry is growing at an incredible rate of 30 per cent annually.

The big jump in growth is triggered by the wider application now. Earlier, it was generally used in visual entertainment industry. But now it is widely used in aerospace, automobile and pharmaceutical sectors as well.

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Animated Repatriation: Disney Art Returns

A Japanese university plans to return about 250 pieces of original animation art to the Walt Disney Company that were mislaid in storage after traveling to Japan nearly five decades ago.

Disney said that the art — cels, backgrounds, preliminary paintings and storyboard sketches — was part of a collection that was handpicked by Walt Disney himself. It was sent to Japan in 1960 for a touring exhibition timed to the opening of the film “Sleeping Beauty.” The exhibition opened at Mitsukoshi Department Store in Tokyo in May of that year and traveled to 16 other stores throughout Japan.

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Animated Repatriation: Disney Art Returns

A Japanese university plans to return about 250 pieces of original animation art to the Walt Disney Company that were mislaid in storage after traveling to Japan nearly five decades ago.

Disney said that the art — cels, backgrounds, preliminary paintings and storyboard sketches — was part of a collection that was handpicked by Walt Disney himself. It was sent to Japan in 1960 for a touring exhibition timed to the opening of the film “Sleeping Beauty.” The exhibition opened at Mitsukoshi Department Store in Tokyo in May of that year and traveled to 16 other stores throughout Japan.

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‘Only the strongest will survive in the animation industry’

Japanese animated series Pokemon, Digimon Tamers and Beyblade are already ruling the cartoon world globally and in India. Now more are on the way. One of India’s leading gaming and animation Companies, DQ Entertainment (DQE), which is listed on the London Alternative Investment Market (AIM), has tied up with a two-decade-old Japanese content company, THINK Corporation, which is developing four animation serials—Coluboccoro, Love Rollercoaster, Honeinukun and Pooky for pre-schoolers and tweens (7-11 years)—for global consumption. DQE chairman and CEO Tapaas Chakravarti says, while the look, graphics and the story will be handled by THINK, the entire process, from scripting to post-production, is DQE’s responsibility. Chakravarti talks to Sudipta Datta on the synergy with THINK, how India is slowly opening up to high quality animation and why it does not make business sense to create properties (animation serials) just for the Indian market.

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How do I… Use Flash animation to duplicate the marquee tag effect?

Most Web designers and developers are glad that the marquee tag is dead and buried. However, if you have a boss or a client that is insistent upon using the marquee tag in a Web site, you do have an option that allows for a lot more control in the looks and functionality of a line of scrolling text. CSS can’t help us here unless you incorporate a rather knotty chunk of JavaScript, so I’ll show you how to create the marquee tag effect using animation and a few lines of ActionScript in Flash CS3.

The marquee tag is one of the more infamous HTML tags. It was a tag that was never fully supported by the W3C. As the name implies, text enclosed by the marquee tag scrolled from right to left when displayed in a Web browser. It was only supported by earlier versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer and was incompatible with Netscape. However, IE7 will still display the tag, as will recent versions of Firefox and Safari.

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The 3-D revolution won't work without real stories

LAS VEGAS (Hollywood Reporter) - Everywhere you turned at the movie industry's annual ShoWest convention this week, executives were looking at the future of the film business through rose-colored, albeit polarized, glasses.

Real D 3-D and Dolby Digital 3-D were busy showing off their competing wares, and the studios were just as busy doing a little branding of their own. Disney, a pioneer in modern-day 3-D, boasts that its offerings come in Disney Digital 3-D, naturally, while DreamWorks Animation, which will be rolling out all its movies in digital 3-D starting next year, will bill its movies as Ultimate 3-D.

DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg, who has turned into the Johnny Appleseed of 3-D -- traveling the world to persuade theater owners to convert to digital 3-D and to do it fast -- was preaching to the choir.

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Secrets of Pixar's inner circle

JIMMY HAYWARD wanted to direct movies for as long as he can remember, and when he started working at Pixar Animation Studios more than a decade ago, it looked like the self-taught animator was well on his way.

He collected animation credits on "Toy Story" and its sequel, and on "A Bug's Life," "Monsters, Inc." and "Finding Nemo." But Hayward eventually realized that if his childhood dream was to come true, he would have to do what very few Pixar employees ever consider: leave the company. And that was precisely the move he made in order to direct "Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who!," which hits theaters Friday.

Pixar is rightly considered the most artistically and commercially successful movie studio around. In addition to winning countless awards (Pixar's "Ratatouille" just collected the animated feature Oscar), the Disney-owned outfit holds an unparalleled box-office streak, with each of its eight feature films becoming global blockbusters.

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Oldest Animation Discovered In Iran

Long considered a modern invention, animation has apparently been lying about its age. A 5,200-year-old bowl found in Iran’s Burnt City in the 1970s features a series of five images that researchers have only recently identified as being sequential, much like those in a zoetrope. Giving the bowl a spin, one would see a goat leaping to snatch leaves from a tree, as seen in the video clip below.

The remarkable piece of pottery was unearthed from a burial site by Italian archaeologists, who hadn’t noticed the special relationship between the images that adorned the circumference. That discovery was made years later by Iranian archaeologist Dr. Mansur Sadjadi, who was later hired to direct the excavation of The Burnt City, located 57 kilometers from the city of Zabol in the southeastern Iranian province of Sistan-Baluchestan.

While no one questions the early instance of animation, researchers have been at odds over the significance of the earthenware bowl’s artwork. It was originally thought to depict the goat eating from the Assyrian Tree of Life, but archaeologists now assert that it predates the Assyrian civilization by a thousand years.

Iran’s Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts Organization (CHTHO) and director Mohsen Ramezani have created an 11-minute documentary on the discovery. A ceremony celebrating the film’s completion was held on Sunday in Iran.

Source : http://www.animationmagazine.net/

Design and animation institute planned in Pune

In a bid to tap more than 80,000 jobs that would come to Indians through outsourcing in animation, gaming and industrial design sectors over next three to four years, the France-based Chamber of Commerce and Valenciennois (CCIV) has joined hands with Pune-based DSK Group to launch the International Institute of Industrial Design, Gaming and Animation in Pune.

The institute will work on parallel lines to CCIV schools to develop designers and animators who can meet the demands of the fast-paced design industry.

CCIV runs three schools in France namely, Iinstitut Supérieur de Design (ISD), Supinfogame and Supinfocom, which are considered to be the top-most design schools in the world.

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The Problem with Japanese Animation

The problem with Japanese animation is that it's too darn popular.

Or in the least, that's one perspective that animators and producers are taking to the local industry's ongoing financial crunch. Having turned a major corner over the past five years in terms of global accessibility, Japanese animation is the most resonant echo of a medium defined by remarkable storytelling, identifiable characters and the reflection of a cultural integrity of some sort. The animation industry of Japan in particular, a widely recognized sibling to the country's intensely competitive comics market, is encountering a few challenges of its own; challenges and concerns whose existence can no longer be ignored.

Those in the trenches of the Japanese animation industry--which occupies 62% of the world market, according to China Daily--have become apprehensive over money matters. The quality of employment for animators has not improved in several years, and for many reasons; while the expanding work load for the overwhelmingly predominant array of small animation studios has become burdensome, forcing producers and financiers to look toward external markets for grunt work. Interconnected in more ways than one, the decline of animators available, the lack of substantial working conditions and the dramatically increased favoritism for outsourcing are each baiting those who care for the anime industry to finally get into action.

"Unless something is done, Japanese anime will be ruined," Koichi Murata, the President of animation production group Oh Production, stated recently.

Although much of the issues regarding high expectations and low pay for animators and animation artists in Japan may sound like old news to those with their ears to the wire, the challenges faced in this market are yet gaining no assistance from the industry bodies that matter. Roughly 2,000 graduates move into animation each year, according to the Association of Japanese Animators, emerging from approximately 200 vocational schools and colleges where animation courses are taught.

With constant on-the-job training and relentless television schedules that call for twelve-hour workdays, for every day of the week, these new graduates and others of the Japan cartoon market are finding themselves vastly outpaced by the demands of wealthy broadcast and satellite television stations (who in turn, contract studios for a fraction of the animated property's estimated worth). For all of the popularity and creative success that anime has achieved over the past fifteen years, growing into a domestic industry some 2.5 times during that time-span, there simply aren't enough hands on board to keep the ship steadily afloat.

Human resources, a blanket issue in other Asian regions, such as China, seems ubiquitous; but nevertheless remains inelegantly specific to Japan in that the animation industry, overflowing with brilliant story concepts, is becoming more and more resolved to developing only the framework for a television animation, allowing Business Process Outsourcing to fill in the gaps. Whereas the market in South Korea has an abundance of talent with nowhere to go and the India market with far too much inexperience (a great many of which, according to sources, are college dropouts or have emigrated from other areas of tech study); the business of anime's lack of a stable working environment is leading to a "hollowing out" of the trade.

Source : http://www.animationinsider.net/

Indian animation industry poised for growth

Mumbai: "Hanuman", "Hanuman Returns" and now "Bal Ganesh"... the string of successful animation movies is an indication of the fast growth that the Indian animation industry is poised for after the development of some very advanced software.

"As far as the Indian animation movie production is concerned, a new phase has now started after advanced software has been developed. Technology is key to the growth of the animation sector," Ashish Kulkarni of Jadooworks, a Bangalore-based animation company, told IANS.

As of today, India has about 200 animation, 40 VFX and 35 game development studios, but the country needs more workstations to make optimal use of the potential that the industry has.

A.K. Madhavan, of Crest Animation Studios, says: "At Crest, we get trainers from the US and Canada to train our staff and help them understand the current trends in animation in the world market. This ensures that the output is on a par with the acceptable levels for international standards, especially Hollywood," he said.

Both Kulkarni and Madhavan agreed that given the demands, animation movie making will soon emerge as a self-sufficient industry and attain a full-ledged stature.

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'Indian animation is finally ready, it just needs a little guidance'

PUNE: Alexander Fernandez, 26-year-old CEO of Streamline Studios, the Amsterdam based six-year-old animation and gaming provider, describes the company as a 'starve up company', where the founders did not take salaries to grow the company.

The tall, well built, slightly bearded CEO stepped into his current position when he was a little over 20 years. The US born Fernandez likes to stress his Latin origins, a Nicaraguan mother and an El Salvadorean father, and believes Latinos and Indians share a common bond, in terms of culture, food, music and the creative arts.

Mr Fernandez, who was recently in Pune scouting for tie ups with similarly driven (starve up) animation companies, said he has been eyeing India for the past couple of years. A visit early this year convinced him that the market here is now finally ready. Excerpts:

What is your view of the Indian animation market?

I have been watching India for the past couple of years and kept thinking the market was not yet ready, in terms of graphics and marketing techniques. It was not very advanced. Then, I attended a Nasscom seminar in January and saw that the market was ready: the animation and youth markets are flourishing.

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Intelligent' 3-D animation for security, architecture?

If you've watched "The Lord of the Rings" or many other visual effects-driven Hollywood films, you have seen Massive Software's 3-D animation software at work.

The New Zealand company's technology is the reason why the hordes of orcs and warriors who cross swords in the screen versions of J.R.R. Tolkien's classic tales do so in such a remarkably lifelike, non-uniform way.

The software allows developers and designers to give 3-D characters -- dubbed "agents" in Massive's parlance -- the ability to react to their surroundings based on factors including sight, touch and hearing. When scaled into a crowd, the agents interact with each other, creating a more realistic result.

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China Animation: TV Quotas and Cultural Prosperity

"After years of development, animation and cartoon technology has improved greatly. But we still have a lot to do to promote the animation industry, especially in the areas of research and development and innovation," Zhang Xinjian, deputy director of the Ministry of Culture's marketing bureau, commented at an arts festival in September 2007.

But according to China authorities, before the cartoons and comics industries can flourish in their domestic market, they must first and foremost have enough room to breath. Room apart from the suffocating onslaught of foreign television animation imports as well as room apart from crowded, (though somewhat intentionally limiting) television markets. And although the business and market for Chinese animation has not necessary skyrocketed over the past year as wildly predicted by industry officials a year and a half ago, the 23-25% growth in minutes produced are still worthy of drawing interest.

Opening the doors for writers, directors and animators has been sort of a mixed bag for China in recent years. With various aspects of the media and entertainment sectors so closely guarded and watched over by the government, the capacity for some to freely develop and produce materials for regional broadcast is not the largest of their problems, but rather, concerns are now directed towards the understanding that channels of distribution are remarkably inadequate.

China's efforts to encourage its animation industry, likewise, have been limited. Good-natured but ultimately insufficient in their scope, initiatives imposed on television stations to curb their broadcast of foreign programming, often of animation specifically, in the past eight years has resulted in much of a double-edged sword for the Chinese animation loving community. To backtrack: the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) of China imposed regulations and quotas on local television stations, in 2000, by which approval was needed for the broadcast of certain cartoons on-air. This was, and still remains, a measurement in part for domestic productions, but is mostly in place for international co-productions subject to the censor.

According to China Daily, in 2004, "the SARFT issued another regulation, requesting at least 60% of cartoon programs aired in a quarter to be domestic," which was followed by the 2006 imposition whereby "SARFT decided to ban all foreign cartoons from 5:00pm to 8:00pm." Each of these regulations are meant to serve as a sort of netting mechanism for regional animations, hauling out unnecessary and unrelated programming while leaving behind only titles produced (or approved) by domestic hands. After the 2006 decree, domestic animation programming increased 38%. The ratio of foreign cartoons to domestic cartoons aired has resultantly shifted, per mandate; from 6:4 to 7:3, meaning that roughly 70% of all cartoons on-air must be domestically produced Chinese animation.

These moves on the part of the provincial authorities are most certainly having an effect; however, not so much the effect that was expected. Animations produced by Chinese studios are highly criticized as underachieving, lacking in inventiveness and most of all, patronizing to their chiefly young demography. Although the opportunity now exists for Chinese animators to grab a foothold onto their industry, the industry itself is stuck in a sort of limbo that lacks true vision. Earlier this year, China extended it's proverbial "ban" on foreign animation, in the primetime television market, one extra hour on through to 9:00pm; a move that has elicited interesting responses from just about every corner of the world market.

Feature News: China Animation

Quirky facts about Animation

Indian animated films set to be released this year include an animated version of Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, with dogs in starring roles; Roadside Romeo, starring the voice of Saif Ali Khan, about a rich spoiled dog abandoned on the streets of Mumbai, and Virgin Comic’s Secrets of the Seven Sounds based on the Ramayana.

One second of an animation movie needs 25 frames. Each frame is just slightly different from the next. A shot lasts five minutes. A 1.5-hour movie needs 2,000 shots.

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The Changing Face of India Animation

Feature News: India Animation

The current landscape of television and feature animation development and production in India, for all of the fervor surrounding its few star players and for all of the potential misgivings about the industry's reliance upon serving as a receptacle for Western outsourcing needs, is experiencing a period of immense change. The changing face of Indian animation is more volatile than some may choose to let on, needing to address issues such as those concerning global animation conglomerates, a week infrastructure and a perceived shoring up of human resources among other wories.

According to current estimates, the Indian animation market itself lacks cohesion and a confident, profitable business mindset. Satisfaction through keeping to the shadows as far as their position in the global animation marketplace is concerned, is no longer becoming an option. Jaiddep Ghosh, Director, KPMG Advisory Services, Ltd., commented in early February to Business Standard online: "India is the largest media consuming market in the world," he states, clarifying that it's market size is only estimated from 1%-3.5% of the several billions of U.S. dollars of the States' market. India's animation industry is valued currently, conservatively, from USD $324.2 - $354 million.

Indeed still regarded as a "developing" nation when it comes to maintaining an established presence in animation, India is resultantly facing the problems traditionally associated with growth: lack of highly skilled manpower where necessary, increased desire for original materials, need for a larger workspace and a want for more financing. In order to adapt successfully to these and other needs of its industry, Indian businessmen are finding that steps should be taken now, while opinions are high, before the region falls behind.

Having spent a decade merging select animation facilities and attempting to plant the seeds of animation training studios, India is as ready as ever to grow. Establishing the training grounds is an obvious way to mold a backbone to a powerful market, popular location such as the following have notably contributed: the Film and Television Institute in Pune, India; the Zee Institute of Creative Arts for digital animation and the Heart Animation Academy as well.

"The future of the animation industry is good. But we have to be very careful, as it is not completely developed. We have to make sure that the films that are made are good," Govind Nihilani, an animation director recently commented. These "good" films of which, are currently being sought by studios from the minds of a rather shallow pool of experienced animation professionals. Although there is, at present, a good supply of novice artists to perform smaller tasks, the demand for visionaries is high.

"Creativity in India is far superior than the West," Ashok Kaul, a renowned film director and pioneer in the animated films in India, commented to India Times. "We must encash… [India's] talent to put the Indian Animation and Gaming industry on a growth trajectory which has," Kaul proudly asserts, "vast potential."

According to NASSCOM's study of the Indian animation and videogame industries in the previous year, growth projections include, according to sources, the ready availability of skilled resources in "huge numbers." Currently, weak infrastructure and the previously stated, impending shortage of animators of great skill (and experience) are a threat to India's growth; a growth that has the potential to reach USD $15 billion by the end of the 2008/2009-year. Additional reported estimates: animated feature films should provide India with more than USD $2 billion over the next three years; and India could use 300,000 professionals in content development and animation by 2008, up from a meager 27,000 persons as recent as the 2001-year.

Source : http://www.animationinsider.net/

Huge growth potential for animation in India: British expert

Kolkata: Animation in India is still in the nascent stage but with huge growth potential in the domestic market the discipline has a good future in the country, British author and animation studies teacher Chris Webster has said.

"In India, animation is still in its infancy. There is a lot of scope here, but growth will take time. India needs to make serious efforts in terms of education and setting up of infrastructure," Webster told IANS Thursday.

He appreciated the work going on in India in the field of animation but felt India has a long way to go.

The author of the book "Animation: The Mechanics of Motion" and head of the animation department of the University of the West of England in Bristol, Webster was in Kolkata to speak at an animation symposium organised by Aptech Ltd.

He said animation is not about the present, but about the future. "The industry will grow, but we don't know how far it will go.

"When I started my career, there weren't specialized computers and software available but today students can make use of them", he said, but warned: "Creativity is the heart of animation and so we must not get lost in software."

When asked about the applications of animation, he said: "Animation is not just about fun, frolic and entertainment. It has wide social and educational relevance also. It can be used everywhere."

With a projected growth rate of 24 per cent, the Indian animation industry can to grow to $869 million by 2010, a NASSCOM report recently said. Foreign companies are now outsourcing animation jobs to India because of cheap and efficient manpower available here.

Although animation is new to India filmmakers in Bollywood have taken full-length animation movies seriously. Ace filmmaker Karan Johar will soon be releasing an animation film, "Koochie Koochie Hota Hai", a remake of his debut hit "Kuch Kuch Hota Hai".

Source : http://sify.com/