All Entries Tagged With: "Education"
ABAI Fest 2008 - a 2 day celebration of animation
Bangalore, the IT Hub of India also has a large animation and gaming community, ‘officially’ brought together under the name of ABAI - Association of Bangalore Animation Industry. Studios and Institutes have come together to form this association and they celebrate the creative trinity of Animation+Gaming+VFX every year with the ABAI Fest. This year also studios, institutes, professionals, students and animation enthusiasts are converging at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore on the 5th and 6th of Sep. for the third edition of the ABAI Fest and AllAboutAnimation is a proud Supporter of the event 
The first day went of well with the auditorium packed to full capacity and I’m looking forward to the second day today with some very interesting presentations announced.
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.
Graphiti’s Power Sessions on Animation Careers and Industry
Following a great response to the previous two series of workshops, Graphiti School of Animation is offering its fourth set of free workshops for students, parents and anyone interested in knowing more about careers in the field of animation. They would also get an insight into the animation industry.
The Session dates are 4th July, 11th July and 18th July 2008. Each Session is been scheduled to be held at 12.00 noon at the Graphiti School of Animation.
The workshop will deal with basic issues like:
- What is animation? What are the steps involved in making an animation film?
- Is animation a formula for successful career?
- What are the Job opportunities in Animation?
- Can anyone animate or is it limited to only a particular group of people?
- Where and how should I learn Animation?
Registrations details for the workshop are given below :
Pre - register for the workshop and book your time slot, call Graphiti on 022 24440107 or 022 32448544 or sms at 09833841580. You can also visit www.graphiti.net
The address of the workshop is
Graphiti School of Animation
404, Udyog Mandir No 2
Mogul Lane, Mahim West,
Mumbai 400016
Phone No: 32448544 / 24440107
training@graphiti.net
www.graphiti.net
“Dekh Bhai Dekh” …worth a dekko!
Learning animation is not just about learning how to use the software. Art, literature, history, story-telling, film-making, music, acting… many different things go into it. You also need to watch a lot of good films to be able to create great films. That is what the students of NID, India’s premier animation school, do. But they don’t just stop at watching the inspiring films, they go one step ahead. They share them!
So here is a very nice effort by a bunch of NIDians - a blog where various contributors upload links to some amazing short films from across the world. Smit Shah and Rohit Iyer kick-started the film-recommendation network and were later joined by a lot of their peers. See the blog - DEKH BHAI DEKH - subscribe to it if you like and then come back and read this wacky interview with the duo that started it all!
AAA: How did you come upon the idea to create a blog like this? What was the ‘inspiration’ or thought behind it?
SMIT: All through my stay at NID, I came across a lot of good short films, animation and otherwise which we used to share amongst each others. But by November last year I realised there were a lot of people who had left NID, and we couldnt keep up with exchanging these films. So to share these inspirations I started a mailing list which had a lot of NIDians as well as non NIDians. Anyone who was interested could ask for an invitation to the mailing list, and a lot of people wanted the archives of those good films. The idea was simple, growing into a ‘one good animation a day in your inbox’. It was also to provide as much information about the film maker and the production houses. We try to look for more information about the film on the net and include it as well. It wasnt until mid jan that this mailing list was converted to a blog, and what an appropriate name Rohit came up with.
ROHIT: I’m sure Smit must have started it out of boredom… or to show off (he likes doing that!). He started sending everyone these mails and he added me to the list. Me… I’m like efficiency - as cool as it was to have the links in my inbox every day, I got kind of fed up of being linked to a trazillion different video sites. So I figured the best way to do this is to have a blog where we could embed the videos and group members could sign up and post new videos and an update would be sent to subscribers’ inbox through a feed. This really helps because you can look at the videos at a glance and not sift through lots of emails to find something.
So we also invited all the people in the mailing list to be part of the blog, so anyone can sign in and post stuff. There was a concern about what’s the point in having a blog like this when there are so many other such blogs/sites online already. So after some thought, we kind of figured that these are videos recommended by people we KNOW and not just random shorts. The idea behind posting on the blog is that we want to share what WE like and express our tastes and discoveries through this, as opposed to creating some sort of archive.
The name “Dekh Bhai Dekh” came about because when creating the blog, I had to give it a name and I preferred something in Hindi. Trivia: Dekh Bhai Dekh is the name of an old TV show from nineties starring Shekhar Suman, which used to air on Sony Entertainment Television!
CGTExpo 2008 - A successful start!
After spending two full days at the CGTExpo 2008, I must say the experience was unique. Hundreds of volunteers from all over the country, the CGTantra team, the Nine team, the participants and the supporters, all put in their best to make the event a truly successful one.
The planning was perfect, arrangements flawless and the least possible glitches ensured that everyone had a lot of fun and went back having gained something. Newbies, students, job-seekers, curious spectators, anxious parents of would-be animation students, were all milling around together in the two main halls and two smaller ones.
CGTExpo 2008 : 24th & 25th May, Goregaon, Mumbai
CGTantra has partnered with Nine to organize CGTExpo 08 - India’s First Career Guidance and Computer Graphics Technology Expo on Animation, Visual Effects and Gaming.
Conceived with CGTantra’s philosophy of “Learn Inspire Grow”, CGTExpo aims to provide an insight into a career in Animation, VFX and Gaming as well as a cross pollination among the Studio’s, technology professionals and the student fraternity.
Activities planned at the Expo include a Job Fair, an Education Fair, a Technical Exhibition, Master classes, Showcases, Seminars, Student Competitions, Art Galleries, Entertainment Zone etc.
Set to be the largest such event in India, it will be held over 2600 square meter of air-conditioned space at Bombay Exhibition Centre, Western Express Highway, Goregaon (E), Mumbai on 24th and 25th May, 2008.
As Online Media Partner, AllAboutAnimation.com will keep bringing you updates, interviews and extensive coverage of the event.
Workshop on Animation Industry & Careers for students and parents
Graphiti School of Animation is offering a free workshop for all students and parents and anybody who is interested in knowing more about careers and opportunities in animation on 2nd May, 2008.
The workshop will deal with basic issues like:
* What is animation? What are the steps involved in making an animation film?
* Is animation a formula for a successful career?
* What are the Job opportunities in Animation?
* Can everyone do animation or is it limited to only a particular group of people?
* Where and how should I learn Animation?
To register for the workshop and book your time slot, call Graphiti on (022) 24440107 or (022) 32448544 or sms at (+91) 9833841580 or visit their website: www.graphiti.net.
Aptech going global! What about India?
This isn’t a rant against any particular institute but a general comment on our severely handicapped animation education system. With schools that claim to point their magic wand at ordinary mortals and turn them into animation geniuses proliferating all across the country, I shudder to think of what level of artistry and skill our so called talent pool will have in times to come. The poor, unsuspecting souls who enroll for most of these courses are no more than cannon-fodder for behemoth animation ’schools’ riding on the wave of the global animation boom.
What triggered this tirade? I just read this press release announcing Aptech’s global expansion:
Aptech Global Learning Solutions announced today that it will open its first animation training academy in Brazil in May.
“The centre in Brazil will start functioning within three weeks. We have decided to open 35 new centres in countries like Kenya, Ethiopia, Russia and Vietnam this fiscal. These centres will be a combination of Arena Animation Academy and Aptech Computer Education training institutes,” Aptech executive director R. Krishnan told IANS.
“We will also be expanding nationally. New centres will be opened this year at Cuttack, Rourkela, Bhubaneswar, Durgapur, Guwahati and Dibrugarh,” he added.
