The gaming, animation and visual effects industry, one of the fastest growing businesses in the country, is said to be facing a severe talent crunch. Industry players are now concentrating on setting up training academies to meet the demand, which has been increasing manifold over the past two years.
More and more labour-intensive, low-end work is outsourced to India from Hollywood, the UK and the far east. On the domestic front, most Hindi, Tamil and Telugu movies are opting for visual effects, said Kavita Prasad, director, EFX – Prasad Corporation.
The ratio is 60:40 between the domestic and overseas work, she added. EFX alone contributes between 30% and 40% of the Prasad Group?s revenue, she said.
Finding the right kind of talent, which has creative aptitude as well as knowledge of software tools, is being the biggest challenge. Salary for animators and VFX professionals has gone up at least three times within a year?s time, she says.
?Poaching of talent from competition does not help much. Wages have gone up incredibly. If this persists, we will lose our cost advantage,? Kavita said. EFX is planning to set up a training school with visual effects and animation courses. This might reduce the cost of training fresh recruits.
Sanra Software Ltd, one of the very few listed animation entities is also planning to build a brand around its educational initiative, which will be an extension of its in-house training facility called Media Knowledge Centre. The training centres will work on a franchisee model, says Uma Karthikeyan, director, finance, Sanra.
