Globalisation of animation emerges in India

Bhavana Puljal - Televisionpoint.com | Lucknow
Animation industry, which was not a vital economic sector a few years back, has started emerging in India. Especially after movies like Lord Of The Rings and Spiderman, new films are being outsource to be made in Indian animation studios.

"Animation has been used very well in US movies and Forest Gump in late 1980s is a good example of that. But what started happening in the US then is happening in India now. So we are definitely a late starter," said Amit Srivastava, chairman and CEO, Dux Soft Private Limited.

Amit had set up a Renderfarm two years back which is a cluster of high performance computer used in animation, visual effects and games. This is first of its kind in India. Dux Soft will also provide domain-specific services like remote rendering, value added data centre, storage and network design and implementation services, pipeline design and optimisation services and infrastructure management services, which will all be first of its kind.

"I have got to work for few films from Hollywood, but I cannot divulge more on that but surely I want to take a plunge into animation industry as it has huge scope. I think an advertisement of a candy where crocodiles have been used is hard use of animation in present times and film Om Shanti Om has used animation in the most revolutionary manner." said Amit, who is based in US but has roots in Lucknow.

In India, advertising industry has been using it more than the film industry. But the biggest impediment in the growth of animation sector is lack of talent.

"We need people who can visualise out-of-box. Animation is not just about studying or learning but more about visualising," said the young CEO who plans to set up an institute in Lucknow where youngsters wishing to take it up as a career learn the technique.

Animation industry has more potential than information technology provided the art is made popular. Surely, market for animation technology is not very big in India when compared to countries like US, UK, Japan and Germany besides few more countries in Europe. But cities like Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad and Pune are emerging as hubs now. "There are studios coming up and also institutes where one can learn the art of animation," Amit said.

Talking more about the use of animation in Indian films or advertisements, he said, "So far it was majorly restricted to mythological serials and films". Till now it had primitive use in sequences where characters were shown flying and animation was used to wipe-off any impression of ropes holding those characters. It was used in movies like Krish, which was most talked about movie when it comes to use of technology in production."