Animation professionals from the United Kingdom and India have called for forging collaborative ventures for developing creative and technical skills in the animation industry.
The potential of Digital Technologies to bring animators from different cultures together on a virtual platform was tremendous and needs to be explored in a big way, speakers noted at a seminar on 'Digital Animation in the UK and India,' organised by the British Council in Mumbai.
Initiating the discussions, UTV India animation and factual programming chief Jyotimoy Saha said the country, which is already a service hub for many knowledge industries, is poised to take on traditional giants like South Korea and Japan and become a successful global player after emerging on the animation scene in the last one decade.
"The technologies being used in modern animation are so new that no country has a clear edge in the usage of these technologies. But India because of competitive pricing and higher quality of service, surely stands to be a winner in this business," he said.
Saha, who has set up two animation facilities for UTV said, his company has become a strong competitor in the world markets for 3-D and digital 2-D animator.
Saha emphasised the need for collaborative ventures with UK as animation was a growing industry in Mumbai and entrepreneurship could benefit by collaboration between the two countries.
Addressing the seminar, Children's BBC executive Nikki Chaplin underlined the importance of knowing the market to create programming that effectively reflected the diversity of child audience.
"We are looking towards developing skills of young animators and collaboration in the creative field to tap mutual opportunities, which was imperative," she said.
Biographics director Ram Mohan said, animation in India had acquired the status of an industry in mid 90's, when it was seen as having potential similar to those of IT industry.
Mohan, who has often been described as 'father of Indian animation', said: "We should avoid pitfall of being a back-end service provider for producers of animation shows abroad."
Instead, we should invite resources and help from countries like the UK in collaborative ventures for developing creative and technical skills," he said.
Kireet Khurana, 2NZ India creative director, spoke about the need for creating Indian animation characters to have animation culture in the country.
Khurana, who is an award winning animation film-maker, asked: "Why do we not have our own animated superstars -- our own Mickey and Donald -- and tell our own culture-specific stories."
Architect and film-maker Nachiket Patwardhan also spoke at the seminar, where animation professionals showed chips of their films.
