Animation industry is growing rapidly worldwide. At the KAM Summit 2021, keynote speaker, Mikros Animation president Andrea Miloro shared her global industry perspective Technicolor country head Biren Ghose on ‘What’s the next BIG RISE in global animation’ and how India can maximise the opportunity that the global animation industry provides in entertainment storytelling.
Pandemic led lockdown has brought extreme shifts in the entire ecosystem because of which studios have taken a global collaborative approach to create best content from the world’s best. Andrea Miloro expressed, “Major studios, especially in the last year, really had to have a closer look at the landscape, and how the projects are being created and made and how teams have sustained as we were able to deliver episodic, feature films that we were working on. All the major studios have taken a global approach.”
She further emphasized that how animation collaborations are long collaborations and it opens up the opportunities to collaborate on a vast scale on various projects. Miloro shared, “I see shifts in global animation in a couple of different parts. Animation more than any other form of content creation is a very long collaboration, so you partner. When you partner, you have the opportunity to partner with global companies like Mikros Animation and thus you get the opportunity to work at different locations. I don’t think projects are done in one location anymore as the reach is around the world, allowing us to bring more and more top talents.”
An idea builds the imaginative foundation of everything and on basis of it, a content is created. Miloro shared, “I think producers as well as studio executives, creative executives whatever you want to title them, they always look at the spark of an idea. They always want to start with a great story or fun or heartfelt and something that inspires you.”
What drives any industry forward is the inspiration of the individuals. As long as you are motivated, the task becomes easy and fun. Speaking on how important is it to stay inspired while working on projects for prolonged period, Miloro shared, “Animation is a really long process so you have to stay inspired for a very long time. I still remember the time I picked up Spies in Disguise; I was on a plane and I thought by the time the plane lands, this movie had to be made because it is so much fun and it’s going to be the first five movies for the kids.”
Shedding light on the kind of movies that are inspiring, Miloro shares, “I think we will always have universal tempo movies that are awe inspiring. But I also love the fact that the smaller independent films that will be seen by greater number of people and larger audiences around the world will do justice to inspiring.”
One of the interesting highlight of the session was that when Miloro expressed, “India is one of the reasons why I took this job. I have made a very large change – of being in a studio and the content creator, to getting into work for hire or as some say service based work. The team India was inspiring to me for the sheer amount of people that were in there and the talent and the projects that I saw come out of India because they’re really wonderful.”
With time and incorporation of new techniques by bringing in a variety of animated content, the Indian animation ecosystem will flourish at a large scale. She added, “I believe that’s going to keep evolving and keep getting better and better. For us specifically, we will continue to grow in features as well as into long form series for the streamers and we have already started on a couple of them which is really exciting. India is going to evolve like other countries into their own base and hub that can do it all in all different formats of animation and the craft is just elevating and it’s going to get stronger and stronger.”
