The hugely-hit pandemic has bought almost all the industries at halt, and animation is no exception. The live-action production has come to a stand-still for indefinite time. Shoots cancelled, released pushed, channels forced to rerun shows.
The work from home scenario has helped many animation studios to manage their projects, with the help of technology and available facilities. Though there are challenges, Reliance Animation Studio is actively working on two TV Shows, Little Singham and Golmaal Jr., which broadcast on Discovery Kids and Nickelodeon respectively.
Reliance Animation COO Tejonidhi Bhandare informed that the work from home scenario is helping the team spend more time with family as travel time is saved. “There is more accountability, ownership and rigorous monitoring of our production team,” he said.
Bhandare is proud of his team and their efforts. He gives the complete credit to the team and its pillars, Vikram Veturi, Rajesh Bhosale, Ruve Narang, Shashikant Kulkarni, Pravin Deshpande amongst others.
Talking about the quality of the projects delivered, Bhandare mentioned, “Initially there were challenges but slowly the team is picking up. These are testing times for the employees on various levels and am sure everyone is learning from this phase. The artists are used to working in groups which helps them at various levels, may it be technical or creative, and breaking that work culture and working in isolation is a new system for which the artists may need some to adopt.”
According to Bhandare, 2D production pipeline is fairly easy to handle as compared to 3D, as the file sizes are low and easy to upload/download.
Bhandare thinks that people will surely like to work from home provided they have all the required resources. “While there is some more time for our Industry to move from unorganised sector to organised sector, I am sure people will love to work in isolation and be more accountable and responsible towards their own and company objectives,” added he.
Though some processes will need better infra such as edit suites, voice-over, music but this being a learning phase everyone will start thinking on similar lines and create set-ups at home. There will be challenges in managing the work-life balance while being at home but people will adopt that quickly when they start finding merit in the new system.
“It’s a great opportunity for the Industry and everyone is working hard towards achieving the goals. Producers including us are developing content for a slightly matured audience and surely will see light of the screen someday, “ he concluded.