Every studio that contemplates creating original local content faces a nightmare in trying to work out revenue generation options. The ongoing amount per episode offered by Indian TV channels is not even a seventh of total production costs. As advertisers and media continue to offer their numbers on the potential of animation versus live action, here is some information that once again rings a bell to the fact that localised animation is a very effective medium for communication and entertainment.
Leading childrens rights organisation, UNICEF, recently conducted a special animation workshop along with Ram Mohan in Bangladesh.
The 10 day workshop in Dhaka was attended by around 20 artists (five artists each from four of the large studios in the region) and 20 scriptwriters (mostly from advertising agencies).The objective was to coach them in preparing pre-production packages for Meena episodes.
The animated series Meena has been ongoing for the past 13 years. UNICEF has been using the character to come up with a variety of animation films on childrens rights.
Says Ram Mohan, “Since 1992 I have been preparing character designs, storyboards, voice tracks and key backgrounds for all the episodes of Meena (animated films, each 12 to 14 minutes long, produced for the regional office of UNICEF in Kathmandu) for social communication programs in Nepal, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, among other countries. It has now been decided by UNICEF that each of these countries should develop its own capacities to make Meena films dealing with issues that are of specific relevance to that country. This includes scripting, pre-production , production and post production. Hence the workshop”
How many animation studios does dhaka have?
To this Ram Mohan’s reply was,”Dhaka has 5 or 6 animation studios big and small. The biggest of the animation studios was Greenfield Toons, which has a staff of 120 artists and technicians, and has been co producing animation for a Canadian partner since the last three years. Another studio Globe Kids has about 70 artists and provide Flash animation for a German series. Nayantara is a smaller studio with a staff of 20 artists and are currently working on animated segments for Sesame Street which will soon be launched in Bangladesh.
“The artists who participated had, on an average, 2 to 3 years of work experience in animation. Both Greenfield and Globe Kids had used the services of Indian animators to conduct training in animation production when the studios were set up. However, none of them have had much experience in pre-production, and they had to be initiated into the finer points of character designs and storyboarding, with particular reference to Meena” commented the veteran animator.
He further elaborated on the experience saying,”10 days was too short a time for a full fledged program in pre-production training, and though the artists were highly motivated and worked hard, it was possible only to touch upon some fundamentals. They will commence work on 5 new episodes of Meena and I will monitor and guide them in their efforts by keeping in touch with them on the internet. It will be an interesting experiment in distance learning for the Dhaka animators!”