Maya Digital Studios, the company that pioneered the art and technology of animation and visual effects in India recently launched its first ever 3D Animated TV series especially for the Indian market. The production house was betting big on its maiden production for the Indian market and the broadcast partner, Nickelodeon India left no stone unturned to ensure that the show does well. And their cumulative hard work has paid off.
Motu Patlu, the show that premiered on Nickelodeon India on October 16th 2012 has taken a flying start and kids across the country have loved the adorable characters of Furfuri Nagariya, as the ratings from TAM suggest.
Commenting on the success of the new show, Nina Elavia Jaipuria, Executive Vice President & Business Head – Kids Cluster says, “Nick has consistently entertained kids with the most unique and path breaking local animation. Motu Patlu has challenged all the norms and made a mark on the young audiences in just few weeks of its launch. We are delighted with the phenomenal response from kids and will continue to engage them with more seasons of Motu Patlu.”
Says Ketan Mehta, Chairman & Managing Director, Maya Digital Studios, “We were convinced about Motu Patlu from day one. Generations have grown up reading the comics and with our show we want to make memorable content for generations to come. Be it the storylines, or the level of humour in the show, or the fact that we had Gulzar Saab writing the song after years, we delivered our best with Motu Patlu. The kids’ reactions have corroborated our belief in the Indian content that Maya is presently focussing on.”
Adds a very excited Suhas Kadav – Head of the Animation and Director of the show, “I am very happy, that Motu Patlu has struck a chord with the Indian kids. When I set out on the making of this show, I was first a father who wanted to make something purely Indian for the Indian kids. Season 2 is going to be bigger and better. Motu Patlu will travel to different places, get into trickier situations and bring the house down with their innocent and slapstick humour.”
And riding on the back of the success of the show is the major requirement for scaling up the team for the next season of Motu Patlu. Maya is gearing up to deliver a lot more content on Motu Patlu and in order to accomplish the same, the company is on a major hiring spree. Says Dheeraj Berry – Head of Production & Creative Produceron the show, “The show has succeeded and for the production of the next season, we would be hiring more than 400 people across different capacities for Motu Patlu. Our belief in the show has come true and we will make sure that we make Motu Patlu one of the biggest Indian brands for kids.”
And the operations of Maya will no longer to be limited to Mumbai & Goa alone. Speaking about the expansionKetan Mehta says, “Maya shall have another operational boutique studio facility operational in January 2013 at Bengaluru. The company is growing at a rapid pace and thus, we are focussing on creating dedicated hubs across the country in order to streamline our studio operations. Maya’s third studio facility will be launched at Electronic City in Bengaluru, which will be a 200 seat facility. 100 seats will be operational in the month of January & the rest will be operational by April 2013.”
The facility in Bengaluru will largely be an animation hub for Maya. And with Maya, there will also be Maya In Studio Training, MIST, which already has over 200 MIST Interns at the Mumbai office.
Speaking about the opportunity for the MIST Interns available at Maya, Aruna Kumar – Head of MIST at Maya says, “Maya is growing and so is MIST. It is a strategic decision for us to expand operations with dedicated hubs across the country, the way we are creating for Animation in Bengaluru. Along with the launch in Bengaluru, we will begin MIST within our Goa studio facility as well.”
From an operations perspective, Maya has been growing from strength to strength in the recent past and has already more than doubled up its operations in the last six months. The company presently has a team of over 600 members. “With the new batch of scaling up, our artist strength will touch 1000”, says Ankita Agarwal – HR Manager, Maya Digital Studios. “Motu Patlu is a prestigious project for us at Maya and we are looking at the best in the Indian talent to be a part of this key project and Maya, which is unarguably one of the most vibrant and fastest growing Indian Animation Studios, focussing significantly on Indian content. Between our existing studios in Mumbai and Goa & the new facility at Bengaluru, we are looking at hiring more than 400 odd people across different roles.”
With recent success through pioneering industry initiatives like MIST and pure Indian content like Motu Patlu, this is definitely just the beginning of the growth story of Maya.
