INDIA When we think of the scenario in Indian animation today and try to take a closer look at it, The first thought that comes to our mind is about our rich art, culture and that inherited the roots of many principles and processes of animation that are practiced in present times. It is ultimately this rich past that laid base for these practices in present time. HISTORY The history of Indian animation is not short.The first Indian animation was made in early twentieth century. ANIMATION TIME-LINE 1915 : The first animated film in India was Agkadyanchi Mouj (Matchsticks' Fun), made by the father of Indian cinema, Dhundiraj Govind “Dadasaheb” Phalke , followed by Laxmicha Galicha and Vichitra Shilpa.He was probably inspired by Emile Cohl’s matchstick film. His first animation attempt was The Growth of Pea Plant using stop motion in 1912. But it was not released. 1934 : The first animated movie, released in theaters was The Pea Brothers directed by Gunamoy Banerjee. It was made 22 years later after the initial attempt. Also in 1934, On a Moonlight Night, the first animated film with a soundtrack was produced. Credited to composer and orchestra leader R.C. Boral. 1943 : Satyajit Ray had started an experiment on rough visual presentation of film which is now called as Story boarding. He had also developed some rough techniques of stop-motion animation by moving and capturing matchbox sticks frame by frame. Few others films, like Lafanga Langoor (1935), produced by Mohan Bhavani, Superman Myth(1939), directed by G.K. Gokhale and produced by Indian Cartoon Pictures, and Cinema Kadampam (1947), supervised by N. Thanu were released. 1955 : The Children’s Film Society of India, set up by the government, produced many animated films. 1957 : Animated film Banyan Deer was produced under the supervision of Clair Weeks and G.K. Gokhale at Cartoon Film Unit. 1958 : Cartoon Film Unit produced Radha Krishna using miniature Pahari Paintings.directed by Shanti Verma and Jehangir S. Bhownagary. It received several awards. 1970 : NID introduced Oxberry Camera for the first time. Nina Sabnani and Binita Desai made films at the National Institute of Design. 1971: Climb Media founded by Bhimsain, It was the first Indian company to specialize in computer animation. 1972 : Ram Mohan founded his own company Ram Mohan Biographics. Until then he was working as an animation head at the Prasad Productions. RMB proved to be a learning ground for many of the famous animators of present times. 1974 : The first Traditionally Animated film from India is considered to be Ek Anek Aur Ekta or popularly knows as Ek Chidiya, Anek Chidiya was produced. Its a short educational film released by Doordarshan's Film Division
1980 : The first formal initiative for Animation Education was done with Claire Weeks. Seven members were part of this one year workshop in Animation which was extend to two. They were, Sailesh Modi and Mita Bhagat from NID, Shyam and Subhash Kotwal, from the JJ school of Arts and Chitra Sarathy, Nina Sabnani and Binita Desai from Faculty of Fine Arts, MSU at Vadodara. 1985 : NID launched the formal Post Graduation Program in Animation which was the first course for animation education. Prakash Moorthy, Basav Raja, Shouma Banerjee were the part of first batch. 1989 : A series of 10 episodes Gaayab Aaya directed by Suddhawast Basu,telecast at Doordarshan by studio- IFEKT, which became the first indigenous animated series. 1990 : Animation in India grew, Toonz Animation Studio started hosting an international festival. The famous MIFF-Mumbai International Film Festival became on the of the largest short film festivals in the world. 1992 : Ram Mohan & Sako, a Japanese filmmaker and made an outstanding film called Ramayana-The Legend of Prince Rama. They have not received approval from Indian government for the distribution of the film, but the film did very well abroad. 1992 : NID introduced the undergraduate program for Animation. 1994 : Dr. Chandrashekharan establishes Pentamedia. 1995 : Essel Group launched Zee Institute Of Creative Arts (ZICA) at Hyderabad. Now the headquarters are at Mumbai. 1997 : Aptech Ltd. with its Animation and Multimedia division Arena brought franchise model to Animation Education. 2001 : TASI (The Animation Society of India) has started by the pioneers of Indian animation to connect with animators across the country. 2004 : Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra (Ranchi) started a three year Graduation Degree program in Animation at their Noida Centre. 2005 : the famous animated movie Hanuman directed by V.G. Samant was released which changed the perception of the common man towards animation concepts. 2008 : The first Indian 3D animated film Roadside Romeo was released. It was a joint venture between Yash Raj Films and the Indian division of the Walt Disney Company. It has written and directed by Jugal Hansraj. 2009 : A TV series Little Krishna of thirteen episodes,created by Big Animation & Indian Heritage Foundation, was a big hit amongst all the people and even internationally acclaimed. 2009 : Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra (Ranchi) started a two year Master of Animation Design degree program. 2010 : IDC, Industrial Design Centre, IIT(Bombay) started PH.D in Design , to encourage Research & Development in this area.
MARKET.
The Indian animation industry was estimated at $354 million in 2006 and was forecast to reach $869 million by 2010.[7] Animation in India is currently riding on two key factors - a large base of highly skilled labour, and low cost of production. While the industry is gaining prominence steadily, several important factors such as the government's role in supporting the animation industry, and producing original content locally.
The global entertainment market will generate a demand for animation production services of the order of US$ 37 billion by 2003 In the non-entertainment segment the demand for animation production services will touch US$ 14.7 billion by 2015 The global film/TV program production market will create a US $ 17.5 billion revenue opportunity for animation production houses The Indian gaming industry was estimated at nearly $48 million in 2006 and is expected to cross $424 million by 2010. ANIMATION STUDIOS 1, Toonz Animation pvt ltd 2,DQ entertainment 3, Prana studios 4, Tata elxsi 5, Animagic india 6, Rhythm and hues 7, Crest animation 8, Green gold animation 9, Prime focus 10, Big animation studio
The conditions of Indian animation industry. India is famous outsourcing place of Western countries includes the U.S., France etc.One of the CEO of an animation studio mentioned that his company is not interested in Indian animation market because the budgets are really low and the quality is low and his company is interested in high quality work. He also mentioned about Indian’s strength on outsourcing that Indian have scale, cost, language and productivity. One of the domestic reasons which Indian companies prefer animation outsourcing for foreign countries is that it can be big business more than producing animation only for domestic market. In other words, domestic animation market is not so big, and the popularity of Indian animation in India, is not so high. According to a research about the popularity of TV animation program, Most of all top 10 TV animations are from foreign countries.
The strength of Indian animation industry as outsourcing place is not only English speaking workforce, good studios and low cost of production but also the workforce can easily understand the culture and especially joke of English speaking countries. Such cultural and historical background gives an advantage to Indian animation industry as an outsourcing place. Growing up as an animation outsourcing place has good and bad effect to Indian animation industry and education. AFTER 2000 Hanuman, the first popular 2D animated movie in India was screened in 2005. It is about Hindu god, Hanuman’s growth process3. Hanuman is one of the main characters of Ramayana, Sanskrit epics of Hindus, that describes how Rama, aided by his brother and the monkey god Hanuman, rescued his wife Sita from Ravana, the demon kin of Lanka. The film is based on these episodes from Ramayana and made a great success. Also, Chhota Bheem, the TV series by Rajiv Chiraka,the CEO of Green Gold Animation launched in 2008. Chhota Bheem made a great success among popular foreign TV series like Ninja Hattori, Tom and Jerry and Ben10 etc4. The main character is little boy named Bheem who bravely solve problems around them with good companies. Now Chhota Bheem have more than 120 episodes. It can be said that Chhota Bheem is the first successful Indian TV animation series. Moreover, famous Bollywood filmmaker started to have interests for animation. In 2008, Yash Raj Films made an animation film Roadside Romeo, distributed by Disney India. Yash Raj Films is one of the famous Bollywood studios, and it was not only for children’s but also for adults. The background of the film is in Bombay, and it is like Bollywood movie.
Funding and government support for Indian animation industry the government support is almost nothing although Film divisions of India and the Children’s Film Society of India which was founded by Ministry of Information and Broadcasting have small budget. How can the government support when there are so many people on the streets? And so much poverty. They have more pressing issues. please have an animation Institute at a world-class standard, or please fund animation films, or please give us subsidies. It's too much to ask from a government that has too many problems right now to deal with. That be unreasonable for third-world country to actually invest in arts, movies, culture. It's too much.
Conclusion Indian animation industry has own history and they already has had a certain experiences and relationships with animation industries in Western countries that include the U.S. and Indian animations itself. The status of animation is becoming high and education systems are established because ‘animation’ is one of the business. It is said that labours who works in animation (especially outsourcing) industry earn comparatively high salary. On the other hand, the problem of such kind of outsourcing is that India cannot tell .
