Toonz aims to double its revenue for FY 2006-07

NEW DELHI: Thiruvananthapuram-based animation studio Toonz

Animation India is aiming at doubling its revenue for the financial year

2006-`07.

The company recorded revenues of $11 million last fiscal. Toonz, with around

400 employees now, is planning to increase its headcount by another 200 by this

year-end.

Toonz Animation India CEO P Jayakumar said, "We are doing mostly our own

intellectual property stuff. In Toonz, the ratio between co-productions or our

own productions and contract production is 70:30. We want to reduce this to

90:10.”

Speaking on the current trends in the animation industry, he said, “Current

trend is the traditional animation, which is called 2D. This is slowly being

sidelined and computer

generated imagery (CGI) is getting into the mainstream. This is a global

trend. 2D is definitely not going to die and will come back as it is the basics.”

“In India, so far we have been doing the production job and need to go up

the value chain. This will eventually happen and Toonz has already done that.

Right now the animation

companies are doing work for TV series and some companies including Toonz

are getting into feature films as well. That is the change, which I wanted to

see in India. Going up the value chain from TV series to directive video

features and then to theatrical films.”

Though according to Nasscom's Animation report, the Indian animation market

(from the developers' perspective) is expected to witness a CAGR of 35 per cent

from 2005-2009 and increase to $950 million by 2009, it is expected to face a

crunch of skilled personnel.

“The current position is that the growth rate of the industry is growing at

approximately 30 per cent CAGR. The problem is that in order to get to that

human resource potential, we need skilled manpower. The raw talent is available

but real problem is the skilled manpower. There is a gap between demand and

supply of professionals in this industry,” Jayakumar said.

As a company, Toonz is chipping in for increasing the skill base in India. It

has started a JV academy with West Bengal government called Toonz Webel academy.

It has also started another academy in Thiruvananthapuram and is also in the

process of establishing academies in various parts of the country.

“But this is just a corporate initiative, we need more effort. There are

small centers at every nook and corner imparting animation

education. But what is needed are quality based centers, so government

should definitely intervene and take active steps in implementing animation

curriculum in fine arts colleges and animation as a course in universities,”

said Jayakumar.

© CyberMedia News