India has produced animation sporadically for 83 years and steadily for more than half that time, facts that are generally buried beneath the hoopla given the popular and gargantuan feature film industry.

This relative obscurity may be about to change as foreign animation houses move further into Asia to mine inexpensive labor pools, as Indian television channels proliferate and demand large chunks of programming, and as domestic studios and training centers open up to serve these and other needs.

Mumbai (Bombay), India's Hollywood, is home to most animation studios, although a few others have operated elsewhere in Hyderabad, Madras, and New Delhi. Silvertoon and Creat Communications, both in Mumbai, are engaged primarily in subcontract work for U.S., French, and British studios, using digital ink and paint and compositing system. Silvertoon's current project is a feature production of Hanuman, a Hindu mythological character. The project was commissioned by an English producer. Crest Communications, whose forte is 3-D CGI, produces pilots for Los Angeles studios. Drawing on its pool of about 100 alumni, the Zee Institute of Creative Arts (ZICA) in Myderbad, recently switched from animation training to production. Its first assignment is an animated feature, Bagmati. The demise of the three-year-old course left the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad as the sole formal animation training center.

RM-USL--India's Top Studio
Foremost among Indian animation houses in size, longevity, and quality of work is RM-USL Animation, established in April 1997, when Ram Mohan Biographics formed a partnership with United Studios Ltd., India's leading post-production studio. President of the company and animation guru, Ram Mohan said the purpose of the merger was to build a facility with enough space (about 5,000 square feet) and equipment (13 Animo work stations) to handle large volume work, mainly for export.

One of RM-USL's immediate accomplishments was the strengthening of its personnel pool, which was increased from 30 to 120 in one year. Mohan said that before 1997, staff shortages limited Ram Mohan Biographics mainly to the production of short commercials, and when the firm attempted bigger works, foreign collaboration was sought. He gave me an example: "When we took up Meena for UNICEF in 1992, we had a staff of 20-25 artists and we felt we did not have the capacity to handle production of all 13 episodes." Thus, many early episodes were designed and storyboarded by Ram Mohan Biographics, but animated at Fil-Cartoons in Manila.

RM-USL's cast of characters. Courtesy of Ram Mohan.

To ensure a continuous flow of talent, RM-USL recruits artists from the finest art schools and then provides them with in-house animation training; first through a six- to eight-week program for newcomers who join at entry level as in-betweeners, and then in an ongoing series of courses in advanced animation for upgrading clean-up artists to the animator's level.

The added space, equipment, and personnel allow RM-USL to operate at four levels, according to Mohan: "[a] high quality animation for commercials, for which we have a separate team of animators, high-end animation on subcontract for studios in Los Angeles, [c] low-end, low-budget, limited animation shows for local and Asian sponsors, and [d] in-house productions which RM-USL will try and market on its own."