x;”>”If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people together to collect and don‘t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea,” began Shelley at her keynote address at the NASSCOM Animation & Gaming Summit 2009. “Years ago, when I was head of Backgrounds on ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’ and Jeffrey Katzenberg was in Disney, he did the same thing to me, he asked me what I wanted rather than telling me what he wanted me to do. Over the years and even now, that same inspiring air has been part of the atmosphere at Dreamworks, the culture is very pro-active and creative and it inspires and motivates.” She added.
“At DREAMWORKS, globally, we are working on three new releases every year and coming here to India was a no brainer for us, the art is here, the technical talent is here, the awareness of animation as a career path is here as well,” she pointed out in the same tone adding, “Going further what is needed is to develop education courses with more fundamentals of animation focus.”
“When we came to India, we had a very accelerated schedule and our very young talent and new joinees had to hit the ground running. Some of our young creative joinees from the European schools have worked as creative mentors to their Indian colleagues who are more proficient and trained for production,” said Shelley.
She spoke about DREAMWORKS long relationships with leading schools in North America, France and Germany and about how the studio is also engaging and participating with schools here in India
“In India we are getting in touch with schools and are in a constant outreach process, much like some of the studios who are already doing it here, especially Prasad from R&H India who is like a Guru. In Pune, Anand Khandekar has been very supportive in bringing together art and film schools along with computer science and engineering schools.”
Talking about the journey of team building and talent pool development, Shelley shared, “When we came to India, inspiring and motivating the team and building it was a big part of our job, and it’s been a very very rewarding experience for us. We have hand picked each and every talent in our team here in India. Character Development is one area which is very difficult to find talent here in. In Arts we find people with the background, the challenge also is in competing with other careers while recruiting engineers for the technical and research departments.”
She shared that in International animation schools, graduation juries played a very important role and that made the quality of student‘s work rise several notches, as the jury comprising of professionals from the industry takes a call on the qualification of the student.
And while the opening address by Shelley had a different format than her trademark Shelley‘s Eye Candy sessions, a Shelley Page session cannot be without films. Amongst the films she showcased was the Oscar nominated, Oktapodi by students from Gobelins in France. Couple of the makers of this film were amongst the first artists to join the India team of Dreamworks. She also showcased a film from the Film Akademie, Stuttgart called Frequency Morphogenesis.
Referring to the films she showed, Shelley said, “I want to make sure I share excellent examples of diverse creative approaches and give a well rounded collection of them. I also always try to play student work alongside professional work and the student work stands alongside in quality, creativity and finish.” she shared.
“These days there are convergence of what happens in games with the whole of what the animation industry is doing. I know of a Japanese game company who are friends with me ,who encourage their artists to make animated short films.” she pointed out, showcasing a Game Cinematic of The Beatles Rockband, created by Passion Pictures.
Another couple of great films Shelley showcased were Alexie Alexeev‘s LogJam and another lyrical and poetic film Happy Endings…and thus ended amongst the most creative keynote addresses that the NASSCOM Animation & Gaming summit has ever had in its 7 years. Auguring well and reflecting the metamorphosis that the Indian industry is heading towards. A creative Industry in the making, finally!