Part of IndiaJoy’s various flagship events, Desi Toons was held in Hyderabad on 2 November which saw participation from the stakeholders from animation production, licensing industry and broadcasters.
The event started with the lighting of the lamp done by dignitaries such as Green Gold Animation CEO Rajiv Chilaka, Warner Bros. Discovery kids cluster head Uttam Pal Singh, Animation, Kids Digital, Licensing and Merchandising deputy VP Vijay Bhanushali, Rainshine Global Inc. head of business development and group CMO Pranab Punj, ETV Bal Bharat head of channel operations and acquisitions Shashi Prakash Singh, Green Gold Animation project portfolio management director Tom Walczak and Green Gold Animation senior VP Bharath Laxmipati. It was followed by the inaugural speech given by Green Gold Animation CEO Rajiv Chilaka and keynote address by Warner Bros. Discovery kids cluster head Uttam Pal Singh.
First panel discussion of conclave was a broadcast panel on Animation from Buyers Bird Eye View which was moderated by Green Gold Animation project portfolio management director Tom Walczak. The panelists for the session were Gubbare TV programming AVP Brian D’Costa, Animation, Kids Digital, Licensing and Merchandising deputy VP Vijay Bhanushali, ETV Bal Bharat head of channel operations and acquisitions Shashi Prakash Singh, Viacom18 acquisition and programming kids cluster AVP Abhishek Dutta, Rainshine Global Inc. head of business development and group CMO Pranab Punj and Viacom, Discovery, Creative Galileo and ex – Sony Yay director partnerships Vishal Doshi.
Next session in the lineup was a fireside chat with Sony Yay programming head Ronojoy Chakraborty. The fireside chat was moderated by Punnaryug Artvision Pvt. Ltd. founder and FICCI AVGC Forum chairman Ashish Kulkarni. In this session Chakraborty spoke about what works best for them as a broadcaster in terms of content, what kind of content and creative ideas they are looking for and what do they look for in the content to be an international material.
Following the fireside chat was a studio panel, The Story of Indian Animation Studios moderated by Animation Xpress chairman and co-founder Anil Wanvari. The panelists for the same included Hi-Tech Animation Studios CEO Ashish Thapar, Reliance Animation CEO Tejonidhi Bhandare, Green Gold Animation CEO Rajiv Chilaka and Wackytoon Studio CEO Niloy Kanti Biswas. The panelists spoke about the journey of their animation studios and their perspective on the current stage of the animation industry, what’s the next chapter for the industry and where do they see their studios in the coming 10 years.
Towards the end of the conclave two presentations were organised, one was conducted by M&E Autodesk India and SAARC technical solutions manager Samit Shetty, where he spoke about different types of emerging technologies and its uses and the other one was conducted by Epic Games solution architect Gaurav Mathur. Mathur shed light on how the game engines are changing the world, especially Unreal Engine. He also highlighted why and how Unreal Engine is better than others for content creation.