The gap between knowing what to do and getting it done is the absence of courage and this is a common denominator for the Animation Training Sector, Animation Aspirants and Animation Production Houses.
Education /Animation Sector
One of the biggest problems in Vocational training is the low entry gate, anybody who shows the colour of money gets an admission. The best and only way therefore to improve output is by tightening the exit gate. And, this has to be orchestrated by a slew of dial tone processes like high quality faculty, periodic T3 training for the faculty, entry level Assessments for students to gauge input, assignments, projects, periodic exams, Studio visits, Guest sessions, portfolio review, Web-Ex training sessions through master/star faculties and a focus on soft skills. The current level of attrition in faculties, absence of good faculties in Tier -2 and Tier 3 cities, lack of training are the biggest ‘fly in the ointment’. The delivery model should be calibrated to use a combination of Satellite & Para-Skilled trainers.
The education system needs to have technology at its heart of operations & employers at the heart of everything. Education companies will have to shift their focus in education from input to output. We need to pray to one God – ‘Jobs’. We need to align everything we do with the needs of the employers. I don’t think there is a business model for employers to “manufacture” their own employees.
Animation Aspirants
Most of the youth today, who sign up for a course, feel that they are sitting on the nose of a rocket, waiting to take off. Showing up for classes is not enough, one needs to practice, be passionate and have a clear focus on one’s goals! Aspirants need to move out of geographies where they grew up, migrate to unfamiliar terrain, gate crash in to unknown people and be prepared to throw themselves into the wild wicked sea without a safety jacket. ‘You have to drown many a times to swim safely to the bank’ it is this experience which will harden you and help you negotiate life and its vagaries. Unfortunately this is a rather extinct attribute.
‘Jobs unlike Pizzas will not be home delivered’… this augments that animation aspirants ought to reach out to potential employers and network. Networking is a key variable which improves Job Prospects immensely. This is a hugely neglected area in Training Institutes.
English is an operating system that improves employment outcomes by 300 per cent therefore Animation Aspirants must make a concentrated effort to learn English.
The relationship between employer and employees has changed from ‘Mai Baap to Taxi-Cab’ relationship. It is crisp and animated but often includes no emotions. My Dad retired from a company after working for 36 years. That was connoted as being loyal, today if you do that you would be branded as being an Underachiever – a ‘Bechara’. The first formative years of the job should be used only for learning even if the job restricts you to only take photocopies, accept the job gleefully. Don’t be picky when it comes to your first Job!
Animation Aspirants need to handle success and failure in the same manner. ‘Don’t let success go to your head and failure to your heart…’
Animation Production Houses
Barring Green Gold Animation, led by the mercurial & insouciant Rajiv Chilaka, hardly any one is producing feature length Animation Film. Rajiv claims that he will continue to make feature films till he succeeds, and it is this courage which separates him from the others. His new feature Animation Chhota Bheem & Himalayan Adventures is releasing on 8 January, 2016. For a Country which makes 1,700 odd movies every year and where the percentage of success is an abysmal 4 per cent, we need courage to make more feature length Animation Movies; hope we have more intrepid people like Rajiv.
Arjun, the Warrior sequel, is looking for finances and Wish another film produced by Prana Studios is expected to be completed soon.
We are far better off in the television segment with three of our animation television series featuring in top ten animation series in India. With more than 874 channels, we need more content, more IPs especially for the regional markets.
India is still holding on to its advantage of cost and innumerable outsourced projects are being catered to. Indian Animation contribution to the M & E Sector is 5 per cent, but our reality is far more than our perception.
With the monumental success of Baahubali and Shankar’s Robot-2 being announced, the wind is blowing towards high octane visual effects. Several big budget VFX projects are on the anvil and ready to hit the road. Post Production behemoth Prime Focus is leading the way with several projects in his kitty and a comprehensive program in visual effects is the trending course currently in India.
Government Support
Convert Employment Exchanges to Career Centers
We have 1,200 employment exchanges in India, three crore people register a year but only three lakh get an employment. Employment Exchange must be converted to Counseling and Assessment Centers with Faculty training and Certification program, this is not an ideological debate but a physical imperative. Karnataka and Hyderabad Governments are quite bullish on Animation, other states must follow after all 29 chief ministers are more powerful than 1 Prime Minister.
State Governments must set up Incubation Centers (GAME Towers), where state of The art ‘walk to work’ and ‘plug and play’ built up office space is provided at subsidised rates to first generation technocrat entrepreneurs, SMEs engaged in Gaming, Animation, Media and Entertainment activities. For all common amenities, housing, recreation, schooling, entertainment and Medical facilities, the Government must provide easy loan schemes along with Tax rebate and subsidies to new startups in the Animation Space. We need more outsourced work to come to India and Government Intervention will go a long way in cementing this.
The Government also has to play a significant role in building scale and solving market related problems.
Woody Allen once said that ‘the advantage of being bisexual is that you double your chance of finding a date’. India can and must create institutions of higher education that lead to both ‘Skills & Job’.
(These are purely personal views of MAAC (India), Senior Vice President, Shajan Samuel and AnimationXpress.com does not necessarily subscribe to these views)