Animation industry set for high growth

Indian animation industry is expected to record USD1163 million by 2012, as against USD460 million, reporting a CAGR of 27 per cent,according to a report jointly prepared by NASSCOM and Ernst andYoung. The report, christened Indian Animation and Gaming 2008, divided the animation market into entertainment USD120 million, education USD53 million, custom content development USD187 million and multimedia/web design USD100 million.

While it had projected an annual growth rate of 40 per cent for education segment, the gaming industry is poised to grow at a CAGR of 50 per cent.

With all the groundwork already in place, the domestic animation and gaming industry is on the threshold of growth. With improved skill set and the ability to develop and produce high quality work, the industry has moved up the value chain, Ernst andYoungs National Leader Media andEntertainment Practice Farokh Balsara said.

He further added that with the change in the intellectual property ownership, the rights of animation will be retained by the developers enabling them to exploit alternative revenue streams like merchandising and sale of digital platforms.

Though the players in the animation and gaming sectors are bullish over future opportunities, they need to address some of the vital challenges like quality manpower, high attrition rates, cost of consoles, lack of bandwidth, acclimatizing the people about original IP internet protocol, lack of content variety and dependence on outsourcing, the report pointed out.

Source : http://www.offshoringtimes.com/

Animation parks to create 2 lakh jobs in 3 yrs: Assocham

Setting up of animation parks with studios for animation movie making can generate employment opportunities for two lakh skilled workers in the next three years, industry body Assocham has said.

"The parks could alone generate employment opportunities for skilled animators to the extent of a minimum of two lakh in next three years," a study paper by Assocham said.

Currently, the Indian animation industry employs anything between 9,000 and 15,000 animators and needs another 30,000 manpower immediately.

India would need skilled professionals like creative animator, conceptualiser, visualiser, 3D modeller, character designer, digital effects artist etc, who can handle multimedia software such as 3D Studio Max, Maya and Tictactoon, it added.

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Animated Santa by Christmas 2010

The Christmas season is set to see Santa Claus arrive on cinema screens, straight out of Toonz Animation India’s Thiruvananthapuram facility. Toonz Entertainment Pte Ltd, the Singapore-based parent of Toonz Animation India, has entered into a deal with US-based animation majors Gang of 7 Animation and Hyde Park Entertainment to produce an animation feature film on Santa Claus.

P Jayakumar, CEO, Toonz Group, said that the animated feature film, The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus, will be a computer graphic imagery (CGI) animation project. “We plan to make the film entirely at Toonz Animation India’s Technopark facility at Thiruvananthapuram . The total cost of the project is estimated to be $12 billion, a majority of which will be borne by Toonz,” Jayakumar added.

The movie will be based on the classic book, The Wizard of Oz, by L Frank Baum. The story would chronicle the life of Santa as he embarks on a hero’s journey through an enchanted realm and into a confrontation with the heart of evil, ultimately revealing the origin of the world’s best-loved Christmas legend.

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Toon Boom Delivers Animate To The Digital Animation Generation

Already Adopted by Aaron Simpson, Founder of ColdHardFlash.com, Toon Boom Animate Combines the Best of our Digital Animation Toolsets, a Compellingly Friendly Workspace and a Flexible Workflow, Making it Toon Boom’s most Advanced Software Release to Date

Emmy award-winning Toon Boom Animation Inc. has released Toon Boom Animate, a new creative animation software packed with ground-breaking features and unprecedented productivity gains. With Toon Boom Animate, users have greater productivity, better quality and faster delivery of animation than ever before. Enjoy the flexibility of a fully-fledged in-depth animation solution and publish animation for all types of media, from online to HDTV.

Responding to digital animators’ specific needs, Toon Boom Animatedelivers the most advanced tools to create cut-out and digital animation. All this and more is embedded in a flexible environment: vector, bitmap, symbols, pegs, camera, morphing, inverse kinematics, advanced lip sync to name a few.

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