Biren Ghose, Founder & CEO, Animation Bridge

Animation has an over-arching presence in the audio-visual segment and is projected to grow manifold in the coming years. Content development necessarily holds the key to the overall success of this industry. Biren Ghose, Founder & CEO of Animation Bridge, and an inveterate champion of the Indian animation industry in various international forums, provides an overall perspective on the potentials of animation industry, in an interview with Rajiv Raghunath of exchange4media.com. Ghose was just back after a successful visit to Sweden where he spoke on the Indian industry and at MIP TV where he had taken up three TV shows and a DVD movie for development and co-production.

Ghose has previously managed India's largest animation talent pool at UTV when it had a large-scale studio model. He turned producer and executive producer in the wake of his strong belief that content is king and now works primarily with Emmy award winning talent in Hollywood, the UK and France, producing shows which his company owns/co-owns through acquisition of audio visual rights and through developing original productions. Following is the interview:

Q. Can animation originate from India?

First of all, there is no community of producers and directors in animation in India. By and large animation production studios function under the supervision of international directors and producers who are experienced in styling and packaging and ensure the cinematography matches the creator’s vision.

India is presently working its way up the ‘learning curve’ with international projects that are implemented in India, This production experience gives the animation community locally a taste for the sensibilities, meter, rhythm, writing and processes that go into making a contemporary product. This exposure to the basics is an important facet and will serve to produce more world-class content when this talent uses this knowledge of processes to tell its own stories. The package will look and feel immediately world class!

Animation can still ‘originate’ from India. I mean Disney has told Asian stories to devastating results! Why can’t we do the same with international stories? But we need to build the teams to create those stories with substantial expertise. Toons Animation in Kerala did make a start in this direction but there is probably more to be done than has been attempted sporadically.

Animation Bridge is at present involved with six different projects that are stories from around the world being incubated (in animation terms) within creative clusters in the western world in the USA, France and the UK. I am also just in the process of acquiring an outstanding film property from Spain. The purpose here is to attach top-flight local talent as understudies to the process of development and pre-production and gradually author a plan to migrate such development and pre-production work to the Indian market.

Whereas these observations hold true for TV and movies, I would like to clarify that in the post-production arena, short commercial films arena and the web arena we are more than capable of holding our own in creating content on par with the international markets. Long form animation is a different technology requiring management skills that need sophisticated quality: productivity balance and this will gradually become practiced knowledge.

Q. Animation is pretty much in focus now. What’s the buzz about?

Much water has flowed under the animation bridge as people discussed whether animation was the next big thing waiting to happen. At the outset, I would like to have a ground level discussion on animation, which by definition means different things to different people--a tool or an effect or a medium for embellishing audio-visual content.

India’s most significant animation in terms of turnover comes from ad commercial, post production and movie special effects business. In this discussion I will try and stay with the business of storytelling through animation—that is, dedicated TV or theatrical terms--and not deal with its undoubtable value as the icing on the AV/celluloid cake!

Similarly, I am going to share my vision of an animation world beyond the outsourcing services bus—must say there are busloads of entities all looking for ‘plain vanilla job-work’ and are all on an uphill ride.

Animation is today a multi-dimensional, multiple window, media property business that is at the premium end of proving content is king. I refer to premium as a price point premium and not an ego perception thing. That is, animation costs 5-15 times more than live action in this day and age.

In this scenario the wily winners will be those who understand the value chain end-to-end and deal with either clients or partners on the basis of providing and recouping value for products, projects or services. The lack of knowledge and experience of the value chain has been the cause of much of the market frustration and losses incurred by the early Indian incumbents in the game.

Q. What are the challenges for Indian animators?

Animators would have truly arrived when they are part of the global landscape and can move in and out of international projects in the US or Europe or South East Asia. Indian animators are yet to reach a critical mass in either of those spheres mainly because the absolute number is small and the years of broadcast experience is much too recent to merit that syndrome.

Filipino talent, for example, travel across the region and there are any number of Japanese and Korean animators crossing the boundaries globally including into the US market as anime influenced styling crosses over.

Q. Are there cultural barriers in animation?

Last year, I was pleased to be the team leader on a project to develop original animation for Walt Disney. These were essentially Asian legends adapted in animation for a wide international appeal. They were designed to carry huge appeal for the Asian regional beams but are now being asked for by the European and other Disney beams. So, they do have wings and can be on air in any destination without losing their intended appeal. If the series becomes popular, it will be extended and will then be deemed to have legs as well as wings and I see this becoming a 100 episode plus programme in a short timeframe. This pioneering project has convinced me all the more that it takes more than a wing and a prayer to embark on world beating animation projects.

There are much fewer barriers in animation compared to live programming. I have been involved in some Canadian projects written and directed by top flight Canadian talent. I cannot see these holding any great appeal for the Indian or Asian audience. Generally speaking, however, live action is more restrictive in the way it works with faces that are obviously Chinese or Black American or Indian! Animation is intrinsically broader in its ability as the characters may appeal across the board. A Toy Story type 3D character is even more global and geographically indistinguishable! Repurposing animation through dubbing of high quality could make it a hit even beyond its success in its original territory.

Big brand animation characters travel across national boundaries and create brands for other medium through the symbolism and emotional connections the characters create, such as ‘Felix the Cat’ is the Chevy mascot in the US.

Characters that are not geographically typecast by design can travel without boundaries.

The counter argument is that you can like any content make an animation show that primarily appeals to the Hispanic community or American-Indian community and I am currently in development with niche producers in an evolution for each of those.

Q. What are your predictions for the local market?

To think five years ahead, even two or three, in this business of making animated content is making calculations with the same risk as a Warner or a Disney or a Fox does in several formats. I see motion pictures as a family-founded institution and whether the content gets delivered in a movie hall or a multiplex or a DVD or though a broadband network, I am sure that content makers particularly in animation will continue to generate millions of consumer touch-points.

Animation entertainment has now become an item of daily consumption across the globe. In Asia it has already become a daily feature of life in Japan and Korea. India will be a great market for animation as the medium allows for personalisation by each area according to its own imagination. With a 10-20 channel universe for kids programming and youth programming in India over the next five years, the game is hotting up.

Rs 200 crore is the advertising pie for kids programmes and that is growing at a rate about 15-20 per cent faster than the average ad spend in other genres. I believe that the new entrants will expand that pie through innovative cross-media devices and branded solutions.

Q. What is your assessment of animation content that is developed in India?

Currently, most of the TV and film animation studios in the country are engaged in production from overseas producers. Development, pre-production and post-production are still opportunities that remain overseas. Cost arbitrage and India’s obvious resource have had the obvious appeal and that trend continues to intensify.

The studios here are able to deliver the same scope of work as their western counterparts at 50-75 per cent of the production costs in the western markets. Furthermore, many of them decide to take half of this in deferred revenues or rights and that substantially assists the international producer to cash flow his project. Some countries have actually understood that the Indian companies being financially stronger than their clients in many cases offer a great source of financial capital besides human capital.

Animation involves huge investments in people and technology. At this stage, the partnering for production with the western world is helping to grow the talent base by about 100 per cent every three years. Hence, market dynamics cause the business to be a learning-game through production, instead of getting into overall content development. The expansion in the value-chain will automatically happen with maturity in skills and consumption in the Asian markets. On one hand, animation can interpret effortlessly all the ideas and images a man can dream of or demonstrate what the mind of man can conceive but, on the other, the fluency of implementation can either make or ruin this attempt.

Currently, the production assignments come from Canada, France, Italy, USA, Spain and the UK. This demonstrates that animation is not only the most versatile and explicit means of communication for quick mass appreciation but it can be the most geographically distributed format for content production.

This multi-site attribute of animation is making it a strong contender in motion picture special effects and computer games as well.

Q. Why is the local theme base not the norm for local production?

The problem lies in the question. We are not a viable base for local production in any theme. So. local themes are just a part of that larger problem. Local acquisitions by broadcasters alone cannot sustain and make the case for local animation production. For one, it must compare with imported content post-dubbing on price point and also it must stand up in packaging and presentation to the state-of-the-art which costs 5-10 times of what a channel pays today. So we need to find an export market for local themes if this is what we want to produce. And thereby hangs another tale.

Q. How is the funding for animation going to work?

Funding animation for the international market is as evolved a method as in any media. There is typically the equity route that independent producers use and in many countries like France, Canada, Korea, Belgium, etc. there are various devices for triggering grants and sops which help them to boost animation as a prestigious part of the overall audio-visual content industry.

Locally, banks like IDBI have approved animation projects and can understand its risk profile in the same way it does other media, like live action movies, etc.

There are specific funds available for kids programming where the social dimension is emphasised from institutions like UNICEF, etc. which have their own shows.

As a producer I play a key role in partnering other producers looking at funding and project management as a key role. I work inwards from my client and market hubs and see what I should do with my creative clusters and their intellectual assets which would be saleable in the near term. So, I believe that raising development money helps in taking good shows to market and then the pedigree of those around the table working on those shows makes the difference. My company has invested over a million US dollars in the past six months working on the development of the largest independently produced slate of animation properties all with world-class talent.

For the sake of illumination, an animated TV series of 26 episodes is typically budgeted in the US and Europe at about $6.5 million; a movie for theatrical release upwards of $10 million; and so on. Compared to the prices for live action, therefore, I hope this makes the point regarding price-points.

Typically when a show has serious interest (TV shows) or an anchor studio or broadcaster comes on board, it is easier to raise the monies for green-lighting the show through traditional banking sources.

Q. Is the training and development in India up to speed?

There is much talk about animation training and very little output compared to the demand. We need about 15,000 to 20,000 broadcast and feature proficient animation professionals. We have about 15-20 per cent of that number.

I have been able to convince the National Institute of Design (NID) which I think is one of the good animation colleges of the country to increase its output by five 5 times. And I believe we need about 15-20 such centers on a war footing without exaggeration. I must mention that many private initiatives have so far missed the mark in offering the industry production-ready personnel.

Further, those who are under-graduates and graduates from such institutes must be prepared to seriously commit themselves to the basics of animation as an apprentice with established animators or studios. That mindset is presently not in evidence!! They need to understand that every film institute graduate does not become a director or movie producer on day one and must go through the mill before being given the responsibility and the resources to make their own magnum opus. Qualified animators even with abundant talent and little experience are far too ‘prima donna’ to accept this reality--a syndrome of the talent shortage.

It is equally important for institutes to train the animators on the commercial aspects of animation business. Animators are sadly facile about the dynamics of what makes money which is a tell tale sign for the state of maturity in this industry. The right brain and left brain should get equal attention in animation education. This will also give birth to a breed of producers who will spurn commercially viable products and services.

Q. So, what is the value proposition that India is looking at?

You have to walk up a staircase or even plan to run up the staircase but there is no doubt it’s an uphill climb! The Indian value-add has been purely positioned on the production price arbitrage platform. Indian studios setting the paces over the past five years were playing the proverbial cowboy in search for a first mover advantage. The results show they had first loser disadvantage!

Notwithstanding, I foresee a situation where the move from services to product will take place faster in the animation industry than it is happening in the IT industry.

I think we are seeing a phase II in the industry where people are carving out the terrain in terms of alternate value propositions. The gaming and SFX (special effects) guys are still staking their claim that infrastructure is a value they will bring which blessed with lower costs of people will produce the bucks. There are 2-3 facilities that still have the 3-digit installed base of people who are working on the model that in a relative paucity scenario the entity with the highest aggregation of talent will call the shots.

There are a few like myself who are beginning to say yes, all of them have value but those values are input values in search of the model to own the biggest value of all–the show! The intellectual property! The library! The rights! The options to repurpose that in a 100 different formats! To demonstrate that content is king!