Mythical touch to animation industry

HYDERABAD: Indian myths and folklores have long been igniting many an imaginative mind. Many have embarked upon exciting imaginative trips along with the mythical, superhuman characters to those mythical wonderlands.

Perhaps it was Amar Chitra Katha that gave specific forms to Indian mythical characters and lands. Later Doordarshan beamed Ramayana and Mahabharat to living rooms across the country. Indians waited for each episode, loved and revered the actors, and even vindicated political parties' belief that they could bring in votes!

Fast forward to the present. India has lower costs of 2-D and 3-D animation and technical manpower. There is a demand for animation production services — including content - from all over the world.

To grab this opportunity, Indian companies are set to develop more characters and concepts. For this, Indian mythology is adding to the vibrancy, opine industry experts in unison.

The Japanese were the first to perceive the potential of Indian myths. An Indo-Japanese collaboration made the Ramayana in the early 1990s. Made for the Japanese audience, this was later dubbed into many Indian languages.

The dubbed version of the Ramayana had a huge audience. However, there weren't any similar attempts based on ancient epics or folklores after the Ramayana.

The animated version of Ramayana won wide critical acclaims. However, experts now say that there is room for more development, as the Indian contribution to animation filmmaking is still limited to certain areas.

With the advent of regional kid's channels like Disney TV, Pogo, etc, there seemingly exists a market for domestic content in India. Dr. Sudhish S Rambhotla, chairman and managing director, Color Chips, said, “Absolutely. Domestic content will no doubt churn out higher TRP's but the downside is that television channels are not willing to take this, citing high costs.”

While content from overseas costs around $500 per episode, it takes nothing less than two hundred thousand dollars to design one episode for domestic content. As a result, production costs are higher and channels wouldn't be willing to pay higher rates.”

But that's not the only option industry players are left with. Expelling disappointment, ABRP Reddy, managing director and founder, Picasso Digital Media, questions, “If Indian audience can embrace western characters, why can't global audiences accept Indian characters? Just imagine the kind of attention a character with ten heads can fetch?”

Remember “Jungle Book”? Stories said in the Indian milieu have conquered the hearts of children and adults alike before! Thanks to the Disney and its animated version of Rudyard Kipling's novel, people all over the world now know how the feral child, Mowgli - and his friends - look like!

Reddy is not just questioning. He has set the ball moving and Picasso Digital is now working on shorter concepts based on ancient epics/folklores ranging 11-22 episodes.

Developing original characters involves huge time and resources. Since mythological characters, concepts are not copyrighted anyone can develop and design the content thereby saving time to freeze on the concept and character.

Baiju Gopinathan, head of production, Toonz Animation India Pvt. Ltd, said, “there are numerous potential concepts in Indian epics. But then one should decide on the concepts diligently based on the targeted audience. Global audiences are willing to accept anything that's new; hence product acceptability solely depends on the concept and quality.”

Gopinathan further added that the experiment with the popular Indian folklore, Tenali Raman was greeted well. So much so that, Toonz's next venture, 'Adventures of Hanuman' was pre-sold to Cartoon Network, even before the completion of the product!

Toonz's 'Adventures of Tenali Raman', incidentally, was India's first animated television series.

This apart, the company's research team constituting content writers and designers is on a constant task of enriching its library with more concepts.

All this only signifies the tremendous scope for content based on Indian epics and folklores. With companies redirecting their focus, Indian animation industry will be a name to reckon with.