The Hindu Business Line : Crest inching into big-ticket animation

CREST Animation Studios Ltd is inching into the big-ticket animation space and believes that its DVD feature project, Arthur's Missing Pal, would provide it with the expertise and skill to take on such assignments.

In the case of Arthur's Missing Pal, Crest Animation's US-based subsidiary, RichCrest Animation, has partnered with Mainframe Entertainment (ME) and Lions Gate Family Entertainment (LGFE) to create the feature film.

Although Mainframe Entertainment refers to Arthur's Missing Pal as a feature film, Crest views it as DVD feature.

"For Arthur's Missing Pal, RichCrest will be handling the processes from end to end. And that would include creative work, story boarding, pre-production, production, and post production," said Mr Vinayak Purohit, CFO, Crest Animation Studios. RichCrest is 87 per cent owned by Crest.

Arthur's Missing Pal is based on the character created by Marc Brown. It is about an aardvark (a burrowing mammal of southern Africa) named Arthur who hated his nose. There are 20 books in the series. The film brings the aardvark to life in 3D computer-generated animation through this film.

For the moment, Crest will continue to focus on outsourced computer-generated imaging (CGI) work in television and DVD space. It is in the process of working on a 24-episode television series based on Bratz dolls, a fast-growing product positioned against Barbie dolls.

In the various processes of animation that encompass technology, production, and distribution, Crest Animation believes that its core competence lies in production. Having moved away from 2D animation, the company wants to focus on 3D CGI projects.

In this process, it also wants to increase its people strength by 200. This move, according to Mr Purohit, would help increase capacity. However, the prospect of stepping up talent is fraught with difficulty. "It is not easy to get animators. It takes about 6-8 months time to get trainees and training them into the 3D CG animation," Mr Purohit said.

Despite the paucity of talent, Crest is in an advantageous position when it comes to 3D CG work vis-à-vis international animation companies merely because of its cost advantage. A CGI project at Crest can be executed at a third of what it would cost in the US.

Crest's focus on 3D animation is slowly pushing it on the path of profitability. For the first quarter ended June 2005, it has reported net profit of Rs 80.8 lakh against Rs 57.7 lakh in the year-ago period. Additionally, an emerging opportunity from the gaming industry would add to Crest's revenues.

"At least 5-10 per cent of revenues will come from gaming companies," said Mr Purohit. Fulfilling the gaming industry's needs would be to provide computer graphics as content for games.

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