Toonz Comes To India
Although India has many animation studios, most of the investment in training Indian animators has benefited the international market whose productions are serviced more economically in India. Meanwhile, the value of creating original content in India for the Indian market and beyond has gone unrecognized by the private sector. So when Toonz Animation was set up in Kerala to train Indian animators, particularly in the pre-production processes, to cater to the International market and India as well, tapping India's rich heritage of folklore, this was welcome news indeed. The new studio Toonz Animation India has already begun operating, but will officially open in November 1999.

Ishu Patel, who now teaches at the University of Southern California.

It was mainly through the efforts of Bill Dennis, President and CEO of Toonz, and a group of Indian entrepreneurs, that Toonz was established. According to Ishu Patel, one of the National Film Board of Canada's finest animators, "I think this ....can only help to establish animation in India as an industry. Toonz will set a new production standard and provide opportunities for young animators to understand the entire process of animation. It also brings in new technology and will allow the international exchange of people and skills, attitudes and knowledge."

As Bill Dennis explains, "Our initial focus is to use the talent that we have already recruited from around India to develop our pilot shows. While many of them lack the polish and skills that are required to develop a pilot show with international appeal, none of them lack the enthusiasm, energy and vision. It's our job to provide the polish and skills. We are very interested in hiring talent from India, and we are in the process of looking for top layout and background artists to join our team." 45 students are already training under Rao to tune themselves up for an intensive workload. For the first year of operation Toonz plans to create four series pilots and numerous commercials.

Lok Gatha, an animation serial by Bhimsain. © Climb Films.

The one thing that often intrigues this writer is the way animators who have been trained abroad, unlike our earlier animators who received training in India, have a distinct element of Western influence in their work which comes out quite strong when we see their films. To retain the essential elements of one's own country, be it Japan, India or Czechoslovakia, is a difficult task, but it is possible. We can see it when we watch the work of Lotte Reiniger, Jiri Trnka or Renzo Kinoshita, or even Norman McLaren or Len Lye, Oscar Fischinger or Peter Foldes. This "being in touch with one's own soil" is one of the things we learn from our master filmmakers Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen and Ritwik Ghatak in live-action, and Ram Mohan and Bhimsain in animation. When teaching Indian animators, this is something every trainer should keep in mind -- and this is where Irina Saakiyan surprised me so much. For someone coming from far-off Russia, Irina has absorbed the basic elements of Indian animation so well. One feels stunned.

In Delhi, Mumbai and South India, a lot of young animators are working, creating not only their own films, but contributing to India's thriving animation ad industry. Where India's animation future is concerned, the picture looks bright with a host of young talents joining in.

Jayanti Sen has been working as a freelance journalist for various English and Bengali journals in India and abroad for the last seventeen years writing on subjects such as cinema, theatre, art, music, science, puppetry, advertising and animation. She is also an animation filmmaker who has had several of her films screened in International film festivals.