Fighting lifelessness

The animation and multimedia industry is looking for artists with that spark of creativity — not just technologically qualified professionals.

Raja Simhan T.E.

TECHNICAL skills may have helped the software sector to make its mark in the global arena. However, in other areas, technical skills alone won't do, as the Indian entertainment industry is now discovering.

There is a big dearth of creative animators in the market. Unlike in the software sector, where technology skills are seen as most important, the animation and multimedia industry needs primarily creative professionals, with technology skills being seen as secondary. The industry includes companies in animation, multimedia, SFX (special effects), games, CBT (computer-based tutorials) and WBT (Web-based tutorials). The industry's charge is that students opting for animation and multimedia come with technology skills, but not creativity.

Says N. Madhusudhanan, General Manager, SFX, at the Chennai-based TIL Studios, ``We have around 250 professionals in our studio (which is into animation, multimedia, 2D and 3D) and need another 250. But, we cannot expand since there is a dearth of creative artists in the market.''

The animation and multimedia industry made inroads into India on a large scale in the last four or five years, and there has been a scramble to set up animation studios across the country.

The global digital animation industry is poised to grow to a whopping $70 billion by 2005 from the current level of $30 billion. According to a study, the Indian animation industry, pegged at over $550 million, is likely to register a growth rate of 30 per cent annually in the next three years and is expected to reach $15 billion by 2008.

In the next three years, India would receive more than $2 billion — just 0.1 per cent of the global revenues — worth of animation business, says the study.

According to Nasscom, animation work contracted out of Asia in 1999-2000 was worth only $500 million but is expected to cross $5 billion in the next three years. In this, India would have a major share of the pie, as US-based animation companies are looking at India to outsource content, say reports.

Questing for creativity

The bulk of the content these Indian studios work on is 2D and 3D. While the domestic market is negligible, the focus of these studios has been the international market — production and sourcing companies based in the US and Europe.

Today, most post-production studios/units use computer-oriented technology. Graphics, animation and special effects have become almost the sole reign of computer systems.

But, technology does not create good content. It is only the creative mind in the storyboard (where the content is sketched), that creates content, while technology is only a tool to make the content rich, says Madhusudhanan. In the animation and multimedia industry, creative skills in a person should be in the proportion of 75-80 per cent, while the rest could be technology skills. However, today most of the students entering the field have almost 100 per cent technology skills, he says.

``Give me an excellent artist who need not even have any formal education, we can make him create wonders, while teaching him the necessary technology skills in just three to four months,'' he says.

Says Madhusudhanan, ``we need pre-production (of a film) people to create good content, which is not so easy. We can create only around 30-35 frames per day,'' he says. The company created around 12,000 frames for the Kamal Hasaan starrer in Tamil, Alavandan (Abhay in Hindi).

Training majors at fault?

The problem lies not with the candidates, but with most of the education providers in animation and multimedia, says Madhusudhan.

``Institutes offer courses only on technology skills, neglecting creativity. They are primarily interested in the commercial aspects of offering a course.''

According to M. Sridhar, General Manager at Edit Point, another Chennai-based studio, ``since the entertainment industry has been lucrative in the last four to five years, the number of institutes offering courses on animation/multimedia has also mushroomed, offering certificates for animators for a paltry fee.''

A fresh animator can earn up to around Rs 15,000 per month, while an experienced animator can earn over twice that amount, he says.

``The quality of manpower is pretty low because some institutes are run by unemployed animators with one or two computers. They get pirated software from the market, and offer courses.'' While the cost of producing a simple animation could be around Rs 6,000 per second, some companies (run by a couple of persons) offer to do the job for one-tenth the cost, he says.

According to R.H.K. Varma, Creative Chief at TIL Studios, students coming out of various institutes do not have a passion for animation. They (the students) just want to enter the lucrative animation industry, which appears quite glamorous.

While animation/multimedia institutes churn out a large number of students, studios such as TIL continue to recruit directly from fine art colleges for their creativity, he says.

Arena wants to explain

V. Sukumar, Associate Vice-President at Arena Multimedia, part of the Aptech Group, reacting to the charge against training institutes, says that at the time of their entry into institutes, students do not face any restrictions on creativity.

Their learning is shaped on the basis of the interest they show in learning multimedia. Arena has a good proportion of fine arts and creative students taking up multimedia courses. Not all of them exhibit the same degree of creativity. Creativity cannot be taught in a classroom, a certain degree of creativity is inborn, he says.

What Arena seeks to do is bring out the students' latent creativity with the help of technology tools. And among the lot, those with the innate quality of thinking creatively become the best of the breed, he says.

According to Sukumar, different multimedia applications have different creativity needs. For instance, a 2D artist needs to develop good drawing skills while a 3D animator needs to be a better visualiser.

A virtual reality specialist, similarly, needs a different skill set. In much the same way, graphic artists and designers need to have strong aesthetics. One of the basic elements needed in a multimedia professional is a strong sense of aesthetics. And this can be cultivated with practice and tools.

Those who are not so creative get into technology-based career options. The requirement for such skilled people is also in good numbers and Arena students fill up those slots, he says.

raja@thehindu.co.in