India is gradually moving away from the shadow of being a destination for outsourcing animated content into a location capable of creating quality content for the global audience.
“In the recent past, Indian animation companies and animation studios have been moving up the value chain to create their own intellectual property rights with projects such as The Jungle Book, Feluda , Roadside Romeo and partnering with international studios to co-produce animated properties for the global audience,” says Tapaas Chakravarti, Chairman and CEO, DQ Entertainment International. Till now, animation is seen as kids’ genre in India. “This mindset needs to change. If we look at the international scene, animation films are among the highest grossers at the box office there and are considered family entertainment content. It is mainstream there.” says Ashish S.K., CEO, Reliance Animation.
Lower cost
“The cost of animation production in India is one fourth of North America and about 35 per cent lower than countries such as Korea and the Philippines. The key countries outsourcing animation production work to India include the US, the UK, France, Italy and Spain,” points a FICCI-KPMG report.
According to the report, Indian animation, VFX and post production industry achieved estimated revenues of Rs 31 billion in 2011, a robust growth of 31 per cent over 2010.
Growth in the sector has been achieved on the back of increased contract work, higher VFX content in movies, 2D/3D conversion projects, demand for local animated TV serials, licensing and merchandising of popular characters. The rising dollar in the second half of the year also supported this growth, says the report.
It seems clear from what appears that although the animation industry in the West has at least 3-4 decades of a head start, Indian counterparts too are fast playing the catch-up game.
Some of the popular locally-produced animation films were Koochie Koochie Hota Hain, Alibaba Aur 41 Chor and Delhi Safari and serials such as Chhota Bheem and Krishna Balram .
Recently, Reliance Animation released Krishna aur Kans . Sons of Ram and Delhi Safari are expected to follow. Their Shaktimaan series in animation is currently being broadcasted on NICK and Sonic Channel every Monday to Friday.