West Bengal will soon emerge as animation hub

West Bengal will emerge as one of the leading hubs of the animation, visual effects and gaming industry in the next three years, DQ Entertainment (DQE) chairman and CEO Tapaas Chakravarthi said here Wednesday.”West Bengal, though a late starter in this sector, has shown a steady growth rate in the last five years. I am sure it will be the next big thrust in the animation, visual effects and gaming industry,” Chakravarthi told reporters during the launch of DQE’s first production centre in Kolkata.

“This centre is the first of its kind in West Bengal with advanced IT infrastructure. Our thrust is manpower growth in this sector as there is no dearth of talent here. We have started off with 300 people at the Kolkata centre and will triple it in the next two years,” he said.

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India the next big animation hub

This year marks the centenary of the first animated film in the world. Fantasmagorie, a two-minute hand-drawn film by Emile Cohl, was screened in a Paris theatre in August 1908. Now 100 years later, at the world’s largest animation film festival at Annecy in France, it is the turn of India to take the centre-stage.

The ‘country of focus’ at the 32nd edition of the Festival International du Film d’Animation d’Annecy held in this town with a view of the French Alps, is India. The festival’s artistic director Serge Bromberg wore a kurta and pyjama to the opening ceremony of the six-day event on June 9 to announce the arrival of India on the global stage of animation. “India is going to become a big player in animation,” says Bromberg, who is still wearing a kurta, nearly a week after the inauguration.

There are visible signs of Bromberg’s optimism at the festival too. Sharing screen with full-length animated films like the France-Germany-Israel co-production Waltz with Bashir, which won the hearts at Cannes Film Festival last month with its balanced narrative of the Sabra and Chatila massacre of September 1982, is Return of Hanuman, only the second Indian animated feature film after Hanuman.

“Annecy is the Cannes of animation. It’s a big honour for India to be the country of focus here. But it’s only a first step,” says Mohammed Bendjebbour, who heads the French TV and Film Office in Mumbai. The focus last year was on Benelux countries, the next being Germany in 2009.

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Animation cos forge international tie-ups

HYDERABAD: South India is fast emerging as an animation hub, courtesy low overhead costs and robust growth of this sector in the domestic and overseas market.

Animation companies are scaling up their facilities and forging international tie-ups to meet the market needs. State governments are providing infrastructure to push growth in the sector.

The impact: animation companies are now moving up the value chain. They have transformed themselves from being back-office service providers to suppliers of content and retail products to the world market.

“Programmes like Ganesha and The Return of Hanuman are indicators of the industry moving up the value chain,” said R Krishnan, executive director, Aptech, a company that offers training through its brand Arena Multimedia.

City-based DQ Entertainment is expanding its footprint globally. The company has made about five films in collaboration with global animation companies such as Moonscoop, Harvey Entertainment, American Greetings and Method Films.

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Pune set to become next animation hub

Maharashtra's cultural capital, Pune, is seen competing with Hyderabad and Mumbai to be the country's animation hub. With the sector facing severe human resources shortage, more and more studios are increasingly venturing into animation training.

And enough space and a ready-made pool of engineers around, Pune is seen jostling for bigger pie of India's animation hub. A conducive ecosystem for animation is already evolving in Pune with the best animation studios announcing plans to launch centres in Pune.

The Reliance ADAG-acquired Anirights Infomedia, with a capacity of 600, is one of the biggest animation studio in Pune. The studio was relocated to Pune from Bangalore in August this year. Jumpgames.com, another Reliance-owned company in gaming also opened up a development centre in Pune early this year. Nvidia Graphics has set up its operations and is rapidly expanding.

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