From 2006-2011, the Indian animation industry grew by 26%. Apart from the fact that many Indian animation, visual effects and gaming companies are creating content for top international studios, the domestic market, too, is warming up to VFX. And yet, it is still a nascent industry and can do much more considering the fact that India is the second largest entertainment industry in the world after Hollywood and has built some of the most sophisticated studios equipped with state-of-the-art software and hardware facilities. Besides, other factors like low cost of labour and a large pool of computer-skilled workers, the low cost of animation services has attracted the top studios. Biren Ghose, country head, Technicolor India, tells FE why India should create a robust ecosystem for the animation industry and how Karnataka government?s animation policy is a step in the right direction. Excerpts:

How will a separate policy for the animation industry like the one which the Karnataka government has announced help the industry?

The global animation industry (think Japan, the US) have been working on a multi-location, co-production model for 30-40 years. In fact, they predated outsourcing by taking their development and design from local to global. Compared to that, our animation industry is only 12-15 years old, still at a nascent stage, and needs all the impetus to grow it. The animation policy announced by the Karnataka government is a step in the right direction because it will not only create an ecosystem but it will also help us keep pace with our neighbouring countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Taiwan and, of course, China who have been building animation infrastructure at a great pace.

Yet, there are challenges in the Indian market, how will the policy be executed?

It?s up to all the stakeholders to execute the policy. It?s not about potential, it?s about performance. Making and watching movies are in our DNA. If we can harness all that potential that?s there in all our towns and cities, then even the domestic animation industry will get a fillip. One part of the plan that will be relatively easier to execute is that the government has picked 10 cities in Karnataka where a digital arts curriculum will be introduced. It?s imperative that we create a talent pipeline. But it has to be said that in a very short time there has been a fantastic evolution of standards in India and the high-end interactive projects we worked on helped.

Technicolor invested in a local animation company some years back. How is your animation foray going?

The vision was to not be a back-end company but to execute end-to-end projects and become a full-fledged studio. In that, we have done a lot of work in the global TV animation space working on Kung Fu Panda and other films. For Mattell Toys we are also doing a second Barbie film, a direct to DVD feature film. Our four major customers are gaming companies, broadcasters, film studios and toy companies.

Why is the domestic animation industry still struggling to find its feet?

Well, primarily because of two reasons. We don?t have a culture of watching animation, which is slowly changing now and there is an audience for animation. Second, animation films are expensive, at least 15 times more expensive than a feature film. We are finding it difficult to make domestic animation films economically viable.

Do you think some regulatory push is needed for the domestic animation industry?

Well, there?s reservation for local content on television in other countries. It won?t be a bad idea to give the domestic animation industry a push in the television space. Also, the animation infrastructure is not just about land and buildings, it?s also about creating high-end computing power to become an animation hub and this is where we are losing out to countries like Taiwan and Malaysia.