Studies show that India will need 25,000 more professionals by the close of 2009. The industry currently has only a little over 10,000 professionals working in the field. As a result of this demand many institutions have been set up throughout the country to provide animation education, and there are now about 100,000 students who are undergoing training in animation, VFX and gaming.
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Foreign producers, already impressed by the country’s proven success in the IT industry, are increasingly looking at India to cut costs. Indian animation studios offer services at lower costs due to the availability of skilled yet cheaper manpower. The salary that one has to pay in the US is 6 to 15 times that of India.
Indian Animation/VFX companies: Pixion, Crest Communications, UTV Toons, Famous Animation House, Jadoo Works, Maya Ent., Visual Computing Labs (Tata Elxsi Limited), Pentamedia Graphics, Prana Studios, Color Chips and FX House India.
Academy Award winning Hollywood Visual affects studio Rhythm & Hues set up a facility in Mumbai to take advantage of the highly skilled and low cost of labor. The Mumbai studio worked on sequences for films such as Daredevil, Garfield the Movie from Fox, Scooby Doo 2 - Monsters Unleashed from Warner Brothers, Welcome to the Jungle (aka The Rundown), The Cat in the Hat, and The Chronicles of Riddick from UniversalStudios.
Indian software firm Compudyne Winfosystems acquired Los Angeles based effects house Digital Art Media (DAM), a company which provided visual effects on films such as Independence Day, Dr. Dolittle, Men In Black, The Nutty Professor and Spy Kids. DAM set up an office in Banglore, India to avail of the skilled labor and considerably cheaper cost of production.
Sony Imageworks purchased controlling interest in FrameFlow based in Chennai which is now expanding its operations to avail of India’s competitive advantage in this area.
India’s competitive edge in the market include the following:
> A vast base of English speaking manpower: animation, which requires a familiarity with the English language, benefits when the work is outsourced to India. Besides, a number of initiatives are underway in the country targeted at creating skill manpower for the animation market
> Presence of animation studios: a number of Indian cities already boast hi-tech animation studios (equipped with state-of-the-art hardware and software), which are successfully completing projects from overseas companies.
> Low cost of animation services: India’s edge in terms of pricing is stated to be unmatched. Compared to other countries, Indian animation houses charge extremely low rates
> India’s large entertainment sector: Owing to a prolific entertainment segment, India has a readysupply of content developers.
by Emmanuel Pappas
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