Animation Bangalore Review – I : What is ailing Bangalore Animation Industry : Blurred Frames aka Wasted Resources

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Animation Bangalore has come a far distance from the inception and opening up of the first of its Bollywood kind animation institute. In the last 5 years, this institute has trained well over three thousand animation professionals for the industry. When asked what is the percentage of students placed by this institute which was started by a Hollywood returned creative artist and actually took shape in – Hyderabad the current cyber city; a professional could just return a meager 20%  figure.

Further analysis shows that even today, more than 40% aspirants doing various courses in animation in Bangalore have taken it as a hobby course, merely a ‘filler’ in between their +2 and career choice. About 20% of the left over were already working in the same or other industry after completely hurrying through a short term animation training course in another institute which has only resulted in their becoming a ‘computer operator’ rather than becoming a ‘creative artist’. They have returned back to their ‘animation disks’ and ‘maya consoles’ to upgrade their skills in hope of reaching much higher in the food chain.

As per the official, top 20% of the passing out are crème de la crème who have may be dropped out of the engineering colleges, left their jobs as teachers and marketing personnel and have delved deep into the industrial training nuances to fulfill their desire of someday getting to a better position in animation industry. They are blind to all distractions and have focused their aim to get their faster. Many of these are actually having relatives, or peers in other established production houses and piggyback with an ease. These are the arrogant lot who believe in themselves and have pre-calculated their career path to the finest details. Not to mention, these do not heed to placement calls and do not attend smaller interviews made available by the inexperienced placement executives. This returns the final 20% figure of students required to be placed.

Clearly, this leaves only about 20 of each 100 students trained by the industry today who are actually inclined to create a niche and were reasonably able to gather entry level skills to be taken seriously. These will continue to find their careers in the non-organised sector of Bangalore Animation Industry and across the states, to Pune, Mumbai, Chennai and even as far as Delhi.

Questions that should concern Animation Bangalore are :

  1. Should the industry spend its efforts in training 40% of those who will not join the industry?
  2. Should the curriculum be organized so that students do not have to come back and get trained after taking a break from their careers?
  3. Should there be a better awareness campaign to teach people about actually sustainable career prospects available in the Bangalore Animation industry today?
  4. Should there be more industry and academia platforms to bring the two together to increase the training qualities?
  5. Should Government sit up and notice and recognize the industry so that it can be organised?
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Paprikaas Studio acquired by Technicolor Digital Productions

Animation Bangalore 28 jan.

Technicolor is now the sole owner of Bangalore-based animation studio Paprikaas and plans to expand the outfit’s business into visual effects, compression and authoring, according to Variety.merry_madagascar_150

Tim Sarnoff, president of Technicolor Digital Productions, announced the deal.

The company will continue to work in CG animation and with partners DreamWorks Animation and Nickelodeon.

The studio has produced animation for such specials as The Penguins of Madagascar, Merry Madagascar, and the upcoming direct-to-DVD feature Scared Shrekless.

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Bangalore Animation Industry and recession thoughts

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Animation Bangalore recently observed a trend that is filtering from other ITES sectors. The concept of temps and contractual labor is steeply making inroads into the psyche of employers and the latent workforce. The recession has also effected the animation industry in Bangalore, India and the whole industry is facing a quick lookback and is congregating to find means and thoughts to survive the debacle.

Recently a local level representation has also announced its efforts in approaching the government corridors to see if it can make the authorities sit up and notice the long due recognition requirements and infuse a policy that may provide a fresh leash of life to the on the verge of collapsing industry.

The dream players that have ridden on the hypes of earlier nasscom excerpts and numerous private players in training and production factions are clueless and are already facing the heat of investing huge amounts and finding meager or negative returns. The advertisement budgets and number of professionals on rolls have come down drastically. No surprise that numerous medium and small players have already shut shop and many others are sitting on the fringes to wait and hope for the fresh year unfold.

The billion dollar industry in India, Animation is still at a nascent stage, seeing that Indian markets have not developed to the extent of sustaining the industry and the producers are not finding enough confidence in the expertise that is transfusing life to mega-earners outsourced to a handful of Indian studios capable of world standard productions in special effects and menial production tasks.

For the Bangalore Animation industry, it is rather unsatisfactory that a detailed delegated study is still lacking and departments have not initiated touring the western studios, studying and formulating the business support models and financial cache systems that might, might just be able to resuscitate the infant.

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