“Lets have at least a 100 studios which employ over a 1000 people”: Amit Khanna
Day 2 at NASSCOM’s Animation India 2005 began with a keynote address by Reliance Entertainment chairman Amit Khanna.
The well informed Khanna spoke about the potential that the bandwidth revolution offered to content creators and providers.
“There is a revival in investment in IT and ITes globally, the advancement in digital compression technology is making bandwidth available the world over. We are moving from C to KU band and in some parts of the world KA is already in use. This means much more transponder capacity and bandwidth. Bandwidth will no longer be a constraint” remarked Khanna.
“Currently as part of the Reliance broadband initiative we have close to 250 webworlds with bandwidth of 2mbps per node” “Gradually an online gaming community is emerging” he added.
Drawing attention to the gaming potential in the wireless space, Khanna stated, “The penetration of data enabled phones is growing in the country. The Gaming & animation industry can grow in the wireless space at 100% compounded growth over the next 5-10 years”
Commenting next on the issues that faced the animation industry Khanna said, “It is a very sorry state to be in 2005. We talk about the huge potential, but what have we done? The results are not commensurate with the potential. The potential is huge. The global animation business is $50 Billion while the Global Online and Gaming industry is $30Billion. The Indian animatics industry is just worth $300 million. We are just nibbling at the edges”
“While looking at the sky we forget to look at the ground” continued Khanna. “The biggest problem with the Indian animation industry is the lack of skilled manpower.There are only 12 to 15,000 people in entire animatics industry.Till recently we did not have enough training facility. We have been churning out people with a little bit of flair. These software operators were picked up by sweatshops. As expected, many of these folded up. In the last couple of years there have been efforts at consolidation. There is still a big chasm that exists” he added.
Important points made by Khanna
-Bollywood directly employs 1.5 million people and indirectly employs 5 million people.
Indian Television directly employs 800,000 people and indirectly employs 2 million people.
How many does the Indian animation and gaming industry employ?
-We are demographically the youngest nation in the world today. 50% of Indians are in the 14 to 25 age group.(Immense potential for gaming)
– There is very little effort related to creativity. Very poor quality writing. No theoritical knowledge of writing for games.
– We need to work on the creative aspects if we want to jump from a $300 million industry to a few billion. This is immensely possible. Human resource is the foundation of this business.Today most writers for animation and gaming are half baked.
-We need to train at least 5-10,000 at the minimum. To be called a succesful industry at least 8 out of 10 studios should deliver.
– Get more creative professionals involved in your work
– Ethnocentricity is critical to success of any entertainment
– Dubbed content can be originated in India
– Voicing, Music is not upto global standards at the moment
– Marketing is an area which we need to understand, It is very important in a globally competitive world.
– The existing 10-12 studios must engage more creative professionals.
– The government didn’t set up an IT institute for Narayan Murthy, we have to put in our own efforts.
Asking the industry to get its act together and grow,Khanna concluded his address saying “It is my earnest plea to all of you. From a cottage industry let’s at least grow to a medium sized industry. Let’s have at least a 100 studios which employ over a 1000 people”