The scope of the Indian animation industry has come of age and has certainly gone up the value chain. With India having one of the largest population of kids in the world, with approximately 200 million cartoon watching kids, the appetite for kid’s content in the market is still growing and hungry for more. When Toonz Animation created Tenali Raman back in the day, we were ahead of the time and the market was not ready for such content. Today, ten times the revenue comes from the same content which the developed economies falter upon. And the domestic content creations are far more welcome in the international markets. The creative content originally made for the domestic market is now starting to be accepted in the European and Latin American markets. Positive signs in the acceptance of content are asign of vast growth.
Over the past years, few state governments introduced policies to boost the animation industry and animation production companies ventured into multiple revenue streams, this coupled with digitalisation, has brought about great range into the industry. Visual effects quickly found its way into some big budget serials and television commercials and were not restricted to films alone.The traditional outsourcing model is no longer the surviving factor for animation studios in India, over the last few years, they have started to own and create Intellectual Property. The rise in use of tablets and smartphones has opened new routes for interactive content, and maturity in the relationship between the telecom companies and content developers. Animation is also starting to be widely accepted despite the concentration of views amongst kids alone. A long standing tradition in Toonz is our yearly conducted Children’s Animation workshop, wherein we believe in growing the next generation of creative artists and dreamers. With no exception this year was a great success with the advent of ‘Kahaani Masters’ which got a roaring 14,000+ responses from kids all over India. Training and inculcating the spirit of animation in kids is a long-term solution to fight the challenges in the talent pool.
From creative content to the final product, animation studios are churning out complete and finished content. While there had been a past belief that only Indian mythology was being aired on television in the form of animation, today, there is a vast variety of content for kids and adults to view. Characters such as Disney’s Doraemon, Cartoon Network’s Kid Krrish and Pogo’s Chhota Bheem, Nick’s Motu Patlu and Pakdam Pakdai, have exceeded expectations in the Indian market. In fact, Cartoon Network’s Ben 10 and The Omnivores reach a much wider age group of kids, as well. With Chota Bheem winning the 2014 Asian Television Awards for 2D animation series, it is clear that owned and created content has been recent driving forces for the Indian market.Toonz Animation created the first super hero character, Kid Krrish. The action-filled animation character had kids of all ages love the superhero. The triumph of the character has led to the making of the fourth movie sequel. Over the years, Pakdam Pakdai has been a hit with kids due to its funny chase comedy style that has been a proven success in the past. The Pakdam Pakdai movie recently released on television due to the demand in content; it is also in the works of the fifth season for television.
Another popular driving strategy for studios in many countries is co-production as it provides flexibility while working with smaller studios and brings in new and fresh creativity from other countries. Far-East Asia, Europe and America all find popular partner studios in India for co-production. It is clear that the Indian animation industry is on the growth trajectory given the emerging caliber and comprehension of focused Asian co-production, alongside the other European, North & Latin American co-productions in animation is an encouraging sign for most of the stake holders in the interactive and animation industry.
(These are purely personal views of Toonz Animation India CEO – P Jayakumar and AnimationXpress.com does not subscribe to these views)