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India animated by special effects
outsourcing
By Siddharth
Srivastava
NEW DELHI - It is a tie-up that
is likely to catapult the outsourcing of animation
- which has the potential to generate more than
US$1.5 billion for India - to another level.
Barrie M Osborne, the legendary producer of
Hollywood blockbusters like The Lord of the
Rings, The Matrix and Face-Off,
will partner with N Madhusudhanan, a visual
effects veteran in India, to found a visual
effects studio here that will cater to a global
audience already high on three dimensional (3D)
and special effects.
The studio will be
modeled along the lines of the famous Weta Digital
in New Zealand, renowned for its work on The
Lord of the Rings trilogy. What is more,
Osborne is set to produce his next blockbuster in
India.
"The joint venture will be fully
functional six months from now. Our first movie
will be based on the best-selling novel The
Alchemist by Paul Coelho. It will be a $100
million, big budget film," Madhusudhanan said.
In various interviews to the media,
Osborne, on his first visit to the country, said
he was impressed with Indian films. "I believe
that India has a great potential to make
world-class films. There will be a paradigm shift
in the entertainment sector in India. Soon India
will also have significant catalysts, just like
Lord of the Rings was for a catalyst in New
Zealand." Expressing the hope that full-length 3D
animation films would be produced in India,
Osborne said with the huge talent pool in the
sub-continent it was possible for international
productions to take work from them to produce
great films.
"It will not be long before
we can start seeing most of the Hollywood work
moving to India. We have already started doing
some work for Hollywood films. Though Indian
animation firms have the skill sets for visual or
special effects, they lack the right direction. We
are planning to hold a series of training
workshops in digital visual effects to develop the
talent pool under the guidance and supervision of
Osborne," Madhusudhanan said.
India's
animation advantage
The arrival of such
Hollywood bosses as Osborne brings into focus the
confluence of movie and information technology, an
arena that India enjoys a distinct advantage. In
the recent past, 3D films have raked in business
worldwide, smashing ratings around the world.
Shrek 2, the DreamWorks-generated cartoon
sequel, as well as Pixar Animation's Finding
Nemo have already smashed all records to
become the highest Hollywood grossers. Popular
movies such as Spiderman, the Harry
Potter series and spin-offs like the latest
Keanu Reeves movie Constantine, reinforce
the genre.
Industry experts have a lot of
hope. The business being generated can be broadly
classified into two areas - special effects,
animation, editing and post-production work at
Indian studios, including work for TV soaps as
well as commercials. The second area includes
strategic as well as back-office IT-related work
sourced from Indian software giants such as
Infosys, Wipro, TCS and Cognizant to plug specific
requirements that are a result of the convergence
era. These include low-end jobs such as digitizing
visual content to tools for restricting
unauthorized online video and music downloads and
protection from the misuse of DVDs.
India's area of special interest to
international players is animation and special
effects. Given the time-consuming and
labor-intensive nature of the job, it is ideal
stuff to be routed to India. With low-cost, high
quality engineers available, India is likely to
make a killing in this field. The total animation
outsourcing market in India is currently valued
over $100 million and it is exploding by 200%
annum. The global computer graphics and animation
industry is expected to touch the $50 billion mark
by the end of this year.
The National
Association of Software Service Companies
(NASSCOM) estimates that on the whole, computer
graphics, character animation and data
digitization raked in about $200 million in 2001,
with over 27,000 people employed in this sector.
NASSCOM forecasts huge revenues from this segment
of the entertainment industry. "By 2008, the
digital content development, animation and
engineering and design industry would touch $1.5
billion, employing about 300,000 people." A study
by India's Federation of Indian Chambers of
Commerce and Industry suggests that Hollywood's
entry into India is a spillover of the immense
image that India enjoys as a software and IT
destination.
The latent talent has also
been honed by India's huge movie industry
(Bollywood, a coinage that has stuck) that churns
out over 800 films every year. Over 2.5 million
people are involved in this cauldron of creativity
with movies being produced that sink without a
trace at the box-office, and others that make an
international mark. This has resulted in cities
such as Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bangalore, which
offer a state-of-the-art mix of software skills,
production and animation expertise and studio
infrastructure. These are being continually
upgraded to meet international standards.
Till now post-production of movies from
the US has been outsourced to locations such as
Japan, Taiwan and Korea. India is the new entrant.
As a matter of fact, Asian countries, too, are
passing on their work to India, given the enormous
savings involved. Going by the money saved, it is
not hard to see why India will make it as a
business process outsourcing base for digital
content, special effects and animation. According
to estimates, the cost of outsourcing one hour of
animation work to India is estimated to be close
to $60,000, versus the $160,000 to $200,000 that
other leading animation centers in Korea, Taiwan
and the Philippines charge. In the US, it would
cost anywhere between $250,000 to $300,000 to
produce one hour of animation.
While
global entertainment and media giants such as Walt
Disney, Fox Entertainment and Time Warner are
looking to tap Indian resources, Indian firms have
not been lagging behind. Given the vast business
opportunities, animation companies have mushroomed
across India: Pentamedia Graphics in Chennai,
Jadoo Works in Bangalore, CD India in Chandigarh,
UTV Toons in Mumbai, Moving Picture Company in
Film City, Noida, Heart Entertainment Ltd and
Color Chips India in Hyderabad, and Toonz
Animation India in Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala.
Ramoji Film City in Hyderabad has been involved in
the making of Hollywood motion pictures by
providing equipment, crew, sets and
post-production facilities. In Mumbai, ace
director Subhash Ghai's Mukta Arts now boasts of
worldwide clients.
Pentamedia Graphics has
implemented 3D animation films such as
Sinbad and Alibaba and its clients
include players from Japan, Korea and France.
Kerala-based Toonz Animation India has been
dealing with UK-based Treehouse Production for a
fun, spooky animation series. Animation company
Color Chips has entered into an alliance with a
South Korean government agency to explore
possibilities for Korean film-makers to tap the
low-cost technical expertise in India.
Indeed, unlike call centers, where the
verbal skills of Indians have been questioned by
clients as well as customers, nobody can point a
finger against India's technical expertise.
Siddharth Srivastava is a New
Delhi-based journalist.
(Copyright
2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
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