“I believe in the power of animation. I think it is fascinating and very very flexible”
When it comes to mass reach, there is no better media than Television. Even as the Indian animation outsourcing business is going strong and the original content market is also showing encouraging signs, the embracing of the animation medium by Broadcasters is going to be a critical element if animation has to become a part of mainstream Indian entertainment.
The good thing going about animation is that while it is a popular programming medium for kids, the creative freedom that it allows makes it very popular in the creative communication space too.
In a freewheeling interview that TV 18 Network Creative Director Zubin Driver gave to Animation Xpress.com Editor Anand Gurnani, Driver who has been in the creative field for a good 16 years shared his fondness for animation and how the promos and creatives division at TV 18 ‘The Cell’ has been upping the ante on the medium…
Being an ideas person who’s focus is on communicating to today’s Indian consumer, the bonus feature of the interview is Driver’s insights on the mindset of the Indian consumer of enterainment and communication media… insights that animation and gaming studios aspiring to create content for Indian Audiences could use…
Excerpts…
When and how did you get into the creative field?
My father used to be a copywriter in an ad agency and then he became a creative director. I did a BA in economics from Xaviers and then I jumped into advertising and joined as a copy tainee. I took a break and pursued my Master’s in literature and then returned again to advertising. I was always clear about what I wanted to be, I wanted to be a copy writer. It is almost a family tradition.
But over time I have realized that its not about copy writing alone. Its about Ideas, It’s about communication; It’s about understanding your target audience.
From a copy-trainee to a creative-director is a long journey. Please share some tips on creativity and professionalism?
I think what people must understand is that the creative function also needs discipline. Creative without discipline or direction is meaningless. That is what advertising teaches you. Because as an advertising guy you always work on briefs, there is always a strategic platform to jump from. In the TV business there’s not much thinking or strategy there are so many people busy executing things, but not many thinking of the strategy… whether it is a brand strategy… whether it is a program strategy… these things are very important for us to do… it is almost like a pre production process for us. Unless you work a basic strategy you cannot jump into the creative. Being a creative professional means you need to jump , but in a controlled way…
That means you have boundaries but yet enough places to be creative…
Exactly! But you should always be heading in some direction… solving some problem… creative guys solve problems in an interesting way. A good creative guy is actually a solution provider and his solutions are always interesting.
Animation is a very creative field and it involves a lot of faculties like art, motion, story, emotion, acting… How close have you come to animation in your advertising career or here at TV18?
I have been involved with a lot of animation. Over the years I have made animation films with many directors …. for example with Kireet Khurana with whom I made the Pepsodent TVCs while I was at LOWE. We had animated germs who were characters in themselves, they had their own identity. The story was about a germ that was committing suicide because of a new toothbrush. I must say that Kireet is a very good guy to work with.
Over here at TV 18, we are taking animation very seriously. We have Prasoon Basu who’s from NID and Ashutosh who’s from JJ. We are doing a whole lot of stuff in animation here. When I say we are taking it seriously I mean it as a category… so it could be in any form… it could be clay-mation, it could be 2D work… it could be 3D, it could be flash work…it could be any thing… it’s all genres of work. We take the whole category very seriously…
“Over here at TV 18, we are taking animation very seriously”
Could you site a few examples?
There’s Ganguly Babu, a 2D animation film we made for our Hindi Consumer Channel, Awaaz. The film won a silver at the International Promax Awards.There’s the Musaddilal films and there’s this new caveman channel ident we created in claymation. We also do a lot of films, promos and ads in flash.
Besides your creative involvement with animation, are you also following the Indian animation Business?
Yes. It is an interesting space.
Your perspectives on it?
I think the challenge is akin to the challenge that faced Hindi cinema in its early days; can we develop our own voice? See, it is not about being a back office supplier to a foreign animation house, that’s more like a BPO outfit. Today, Bollywood movies have been acknowledged globally for their beauty, song and dance. We have our own style of Cinema that is acknowledged and appreciated by the world. We still haven’t seen a distinct animation voice in India. I think that is still evolving…
There are people who are thinking of doing it with mythology. Do you think it is necessary to start with mythology if it is an Indian animated movie?
I think mythology is one genre in storytelling. Look at it this way, Animation is the best way to tell stories. Now every culture tells itself stories. For example in the west you have fairy tales, popular culture, mainstream cluyture, underground movements etc. These alll co-exist in a vibrant culture. More than mythology its all about culture, is your animation film locating itself in any context. Things finally have to be something which the audience can relate to OR you can deliberately disrupt that to create a counter-culture.
What’s your favorite animation shows or films?
Frankly I have no favorites… I become like a kid when I watch animation… and I am a cinema freak also… so the moment I start seeing anything in the audio-visual realm, I instantly get interested in it. Unless it is a very awfully plain film, I can watch anything. New projects interest me… I love watching new stuff…
Could you elaborate more on TV18’s approach of handling creative?
At TV18 we have a separate division for the creative and promos, it is called The Cell. The Cell caters to all the creative and graphics needs of all the four news and information channels that we have on air currently. We also work on TVCs for the Network’s advertisers.
For the network we create two kinds of films, one is the promos and channel Idents that are meant for promoting the respective channels in a very newsy, footage oriented way and the other kind of films we make are for promoting the same in a conceptual and lateral way. We lay a very strong emphasis on the communication part of the films. We are process driven…, every script is written very carefully. There is a script, then there is a director’s script, there is pre-production note, which is discussed and then we get into the shoot. This is again evaluated. Then sometimes we re-shoot… for us communication is most important.
“More than mythology its all about culture, is your animation film locating itself in any context?”
Out of 70 people how many are into animation and graphics?
There must be around 25 graphics guys… who work on combustion, 3D Max, Maya… we also have an excellent online set up…a smoke with very fine smoke directors. We are building our pure animation team…headed currently by Prasun & Ashutosh. We also work with animators on a partnership basis… like Prasun in his last film got in another animator from NID and they worked on lovely clay-mation ID.
So basically you don’t farm-out work…
No we don’t normally, but we might farm out work… there are no rules… but it would be if we needed a special skill set or special creative involvement. I believe i have the best talent in the country working for me.
Are you a gamer too?
No but I am very interested in gaming, I plan to become a gamer. I like new things… and games are like funny interactive movies… and you are one of the characters in the movie… so I find that very fascinating. Besides, Games are a very hot area of communication. Not many people in India think about gaming as a mode of communicating with people. But there is huge potential and it is already big in the west. There is embedded advertising, embedded branding or games that create parallel branding.
I could come up with a game on corporate role playing which could tie in with something on CNBC… These are the interesting things that would interest the new educated youth, who would anyways be interested in gaming, who like interactive gaming. In this aspect, Indians are slightly different from the Americans. Americans are very interested in violent games. The Indian youth is very interested in proving themselves. That’s what I have observed. All research also throws this up. Indian youth are very-very aggressive in terms of building their career, looking at their own self, wanting to improve. Today’s educated modern Indian is very interested in climbing the ladder.
So when it comes to gaming, the shooting kind of games may also work but there needs to be challenge. Indian consumers need to be challenged. We understand that we are now part of the global race. That is another insight, people want to be global. Consumers are aware of the best products in the world, and for the Indian consumer to accept and appreciate your product it has to be world class.
Some more insights on Indian entertainment consumers
I think one thing I see here is that people want to be challenged. They don’t want the status quo. So if you look at KANK doing so well, it is because the movie challenges the status quo on marriage… you get something to think about and debate. There’s no longer any taboo issues in India. From terrorism to pre-marital sex, everything is open to debate. If you look at the talk shows, people writing into newspapers, writing on websites… people are talking so confidently on TV, everybody wants to talk, they want to be heard, they want a voice at the individual level, and marketing people, animators, creative people, who understand this, will capitalize on that and will be the successful ones.
Today why is SMS so popular in India? Its simply because we Indians as a People love talking to people, we love communicating. The mobile has worked like magic in India. Nobody imagined that. We are very people friendly country, we love our family, we love our friends, we like to meet our personal investment banker we don’t just like to operate through a machine. There’s always a personal equation.
I also believe that information is a tool that more and more people are going to use… whether its investing, whether it is choosing somebody to marry. India was a country where people didn’t have individuality; we were so stuck in our family. It’s only in the last 8-10 years that people have begun to talk about themselves. There’s a growing sense of ‘I’ in India. We have always been family oriented and that does not change, but what is changing is that there is a new equal equation between the individual and the collective. That is something new about India and us Indians. And entertainment and communication have to reflect that new Indian.
Any plans to use the animation medium in a bigger way at The Cell?
Yes, I believe in the power of animation. I think it is fascinating and very very flexible. We have already started scaling up our operations. We have used animation on big TV18 clients like Citigroup & TCS and I
CICI Bank. We use animation for channel IDs, brand films and more. The cell is going to become an animation hub.
Additional comments?
We must keep learning, keep growing, keep benchmarking ourselves with the best of international work. The cell is now in a continuous workshop mode, we have a very exciting series lined up with NID professors, we are investing heavily in training our people and hope to keep up the momentum in the future.
