Recession in the industry?!! Don’t press the panic button just as yet.
Now that the noise has died down and the dust has settled, the casualty is slowly beginning to show. For two years everyone was shouting from the rooftops about the animation boom in India. Institutes proclaimed India needs animators and ill-informed parents poured out their hard-earned money into many an unworthy school. Many people left their well-paying jobs and successful businesses to enter the animation industry. All of a sudden everyone wanted to be in animation.
The hype was not all bad. Many more people began sitting up and taking notice of this thing called ‘Animation’ than before. Students and parents alike opened their eyes to this new career prospect. Existing animators began celebrating their new-found respect in the eyes of their detractors who had so far looked down upon their choice of vocation. All-in-all the Indian animation industry saw a spurt in interest, enthusiasm, educational avenues and job opportunities. Within a year, more than 70 animated feature films were announced. Actual work began on a far lesser number of movies.
But the latest news coming out of studios is not good. Many production houses and studios have folded up. Others have laid off a majority of their employees. People have woken up to the fact that making an animated film is no cake walk. There may be a lot of enthusiasm and ideas but the lack of funds, acute shortage of ‘talented’ artists and short-sightedness of studios have become major obstacles.
For sometime now, there were a lot of outsourced projects being done by our studios, besides the in-house developments. Companies needed to ’show’ their prospective clients their team strength so a lot of average and even below average talent got hired. The cream of the crop was being poached from one studio after the other. As pay scales rose, so did the rate of employee attrition. Now outsourced work has dried up. A few substandard animated releases turned out to be duds (why am I not surprised?!!) And suddenly a lot of hopes have come crashing down like a pack of cards.
Many artists now find themselves jobless. An alarming number of fresh graduates from institutes have secured neither jobs nor offers. As in other industries, animation too is now seeing a massive slow down. So is it time yet to declare this a ‘bust’ quite like the dot-com bust less than a decade ago?
I do not think so. This is just a phase. We have hit a plateau. And I think it is very good. Critical, in fact, for the well-being and future success of Indian animation. Why, you might ask. For multiple reasons:
1. Let this be a wake up call for all those who jumped into animation without a thought. For those who took the plunge not for the sake of animation but at the instance of the $$$$$… They read in the media about the billions of dollars waiting to be gathered and followed the ‘Pied Piper’ to their doom. Art can not succeed without heart.
2. This phase will help separate the wheat from the chaff. The joblessness is short-term. The ones with true creativity and skill will get hired again. The only ones who need to worry are the ones who lacked talent to begin with. The rest can use this time to enhance their skills and glean more knowledge rather than wallow in hopelessness and self-pity. This way they will be prepared when the wind changes and new assignments beckon them.
3. Our film-makers will now focus a little more on quality content than quantity. (I hope!!) Rather than rush through projects at breakneck speed without really analyzing they should be a little self-critical and work very hard to deliver good work. Original concepts and well-executed films will surely succeed and bring the train back on track. We have hit a plateau, yes. But the graph will rise once again.
4. Indians have this tendency to take things easy till a problem of gigantic proportions arises. This recession-like situation should give us a good kick on our behinds and motivate us to do what it takes to get out of it. Talk, discuss, share, try… No point just sitting around and cribbing. Web 2 followed the dotcom recession. Perhaps this is an opportune moment for Indian animation’s second coming.
After talking to many people in the Indian animation industry, I found that most are waiting with bated breath for the Diwali-release of Roadside Romeo. The fate of many an animator lies in the success or failure of this Yashraj film. Studios, production houses and investors alike have put new projects on hold until they see whether the audiences take to the first official fully-animated Bollywood movie. (And no, Icy n Spicy doesn’t count!) From the promos, Roadside Romeo looks promising. The Disney involvement in itself is a quality stamp.
I feel positive that over the next few months, things will improve. I know a lot of my blogs have focused on the problems. But I truly believe that if we pull up our socks, gather the courage to invest confidently and generously in animation, work ten times harder, push the envelope, overcome our limitations and do all this sincerely, we can take forward Indian Animation successfully into its second phase. Cheers to that!
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Anirudh | Aug 30, 2008 | Reply
yes a lot of hope and things are at stake on Roadside Romeo…but at the end of the day the fate of the film whether hit or a flop, shouldn’t be used as a final judgment for the future of Indian Animation.
If its a hit, let us not call it another “formula” and rush to announce tons of new animated movies just for the sake of profit. Animation is a new medium in India and more so for the majority of the cinema going population. There is no guarantee if this works even the rest will work. We should analyze and try to improve upon what already has worked and in all aspects whether it be the characters, the animation, the final output in terms of lighting, rendering and compositing, the way its been marketed, publicity, media coverage and so on.
And incase it doesnt do as well as it was expected let us not be in a hurry to dig the grave. I am confident even if it doesn’t appeal and connect with the audiences, the effort put in should be worth while to at least give a chance to this medium.
Unfortunately unlike the West, for producers and most of the people connected with any movie is only concerned about the profits. But this can be detrimental for a new medium of Animation. We are still trying out and experimenting as to what will appeal to the audiences. Rome was not built in a day and similarly to arrive at a place where the film makers have an understanding of the process will take time. Agreed almost all major Animated features are coming to theatres in India, but understanding what goes behind is extremely crucial as seeing what goes on the screen. Audiences are constantly evolving thanks to the many kind of cinema being shown in theatres today.
Animation and specially 3D animation is like a new born baby. Lets have patient before it takes it first walk and run and so on.
akshata | Aug 30, 2008 | Reply
Yes, Anirudh. I agree with you. We Indians have this funny habit of throwing the baby out with the bath water. If something works- we take that as the final word and don’t work further, if something fails then we reject the entire process rather than trying to figure out the problem and work towards a solution.
It will take a lot of patience and perseverance on part of many hardworking and mature individuals to make a difference in our nascent industry.
Rama Krishna | Oct 24, 2008 | Reply
Hi,
I agree with a lot of points that you have written in many of the writings/articles out here
and yeah! let’s be positive about the success of our industry that is potential enough to create a job market for and industry progress and development of the art of animation in our country.
I appreciate your efforts in building and maintaining this website especially, the line there saying ‘Understanding the Indian animation scenario.’ Your works/efforts here speak for that tag line. Cheers.
My whole summary would be, let’s be positive about the industry getting better a place for aspirants, artists, producers and consumers/market. If the movie wins, it is not only the producer who makes a lot of money but it is a whole set of artists, animators, aspirants, students that are filled with positivity and confidence.
One particular point that I repeatedly learned in all over 5+ years of my professional experience as an animator/concept artist/illustrator/comic artist/graphic designer etc., are:
1 - Spirit of teamwork to achieve a common goal.(This applies to any field or discipline in India, even for the IIM grads). Individually we have good track record, but as a team we fail and many times badly.
2 - Right mix of management and the artists or the right way of managing a creative/animation studio.
3 - Patience that it takes to produce a quality animation both in the management/producer and with the artists while during the production.
We have money, we have the infrastructure or atleast that part is affordable. We have talent around us, support and the zeal. We have everything except may be the above three, in my opinion and that’s not forever. Things will change. We learn and evolve. That may take time, and it should not mean that we dismiss the potential of being able to produce an animation work that can convince on the wide spectrum of both Indian and international audience. Keep it going guys… let’s be positive about the future works that are gonna be out there in the market.
Good luck to everyone,
Cheers,
Rama.
Rishikesh | Nov 5, 2008 | Reply
hello friends,
I am the CEO, Founder of aarka studio Pune.
I just chanced by this page on AAA. And I thought its the best and comprehensive website in itself. Kudos to the contributors keep up the A work ;).
Now about the animation bubble bust. I was just recently attending the asifa event held up at NCPA and was in a open forum by CG tantra about a film thats called ROADSIDE ROMEO. I was able to catch the film at the theatres and the was really impressed at the technology achieved in creating it by whichever studio that was involved. Now in this forum a gentleman who runs CGtantra speaks whether we will be able to make a film like PIXAR???
There was a huge roar of yesses all around and I like the enthusiasm of the people.
What although I felt missing was, awareness towards the concept of PIXAR like film. First of all we should be saying better than PIXAR. and then again we need to know what is it that makes the fimls made by PIXAR so very amazing.
WEll people its not just tech n gizmo way of life. A story essentially has to have a soul to commit and then only will the audience be able to accept it in each n every way. Remember the Grandma`s stories in the night when lights went out and we would (atleast I would) start imagining the story as in practically seeing it.
one needs to know as the exactly why this happens, n in a nut shell the answer will be that it happens because the mind has accpeted the story so well that it is willing to create its own imagery to assist the sound falling on ears.
SO I would again like to ask what is it that makes a film made by pixar so amazing.
answer is if your story is true and flow continuous enough, any form of expression is acceptable since your mind is always there to show u a film many more times amazing than what PIXAR guys wont be able to manage another thousand years.
Anirudh | Nov 11, 2008 | Reply
Totally agree with Rama and Rishikesh. They made some good points. Here is my few rupees worth of thoughts -
Without sounding too harsh or pessimistic, i think the very question of “whether we can make films like PIXAR or better than PIXAR” which is being asked in Indian studios/forums/events should be avoided from immediately.
Continued here…
http://abtheanimator.blogspot.com/2008/11/my-extended-views-recession-in-indian.html