AnimationXpress.com Industry Academia Interface national event kick started today with a session on Knowledge Sharing and Artistic Inspiration. The session saw detailed discussions on how the process of knowledge diffusion can be facilitated and how artistic inclination can be imbibed. Here are the highpoints of the sessions.
Animation needs to be converted into a mainstream industry and not just a Sunday hobby. Participation of all three- academies, studios and students is important so as to work together to make the industry progressive.
Animation is being ignored as an art form and is being treated just as a business.
Educational organizations and students, artists and professionals are the two ends of the knowledge spectrum but what they require is a support system such as ASIFA and TASI; to collaborate, share knowledge and work together.Artists should take time out and teach to share their knowledge and experience with students. This not only helps to give a feel of industry environment to the students but also inspires them to a great extent.
We need to keep in touch with village folk art and keep it alive using software to make it into simple animated forms. It is our responsibility to keep traditional art alive and growing.
One of the challenges faced by the animation industry is on how to break the language barrier, which is a sensitive issue.
“Storytelling, drawing, etc have always unintentionally been a part of our school lives but all this was happening without a focus. If we interact with schools on this and make them encourage storytelling, it would be a good initiative.”- Rajiv Vaishnav, NASSCOM
“As a mentor you have to understand the strengths and weaknesses of all your students. Only then can you direct him or her. And at that, every student is different.”- Sekhar Mukherjee, NID
“In our workshops we have noticed that kids are keen to try their hands at everything. They come up with unique characters which have detailed stories behind them. But they don‘t know the tools and hence we should conduct workshops for them and catch the talent young.”- Uma Karvir, ASIFA
“We should not modify our education system according to our industry as our industry is not a standard yet. We should not limit the students; and let them explore animation as an art form.”- Vaibhav Kumaresh, Vaibhav Studios
“Artists feel animation is a field of technologists and technologists feel it is a field for artists. What people need to understand is that animtion is the perfect marriage of both. In animation it is art and technology and not art or technology.”- RK Chand, cgTantra
“Everything takes time to be done properly. But today we are all in a tearing hurry; we want 10,000 animators in the next two years. The process of learning cannot take place this way. When Clair Weeks came to Films Division and trained us, the process of learning was slow but intense, so whatever I learnt under him has stood by me.”- Ram Mohan, Graphiti School of Animation
“Institutes have nowadays become aggressive with seminars and although it is mostly a marketing tactic it helps in a big way. If after seeing the making of Om Shanti Om, a student goes home and feels that VFX and animation is a career option, then it has promoted a huge change.”- Anand Gurnani, AnimationXpress.com