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ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE - ISSUE 4.10 - JANUARY 2000
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2000 And Beyond: A Host of Possibilities and Changes Milt Vallas, Independent Producer/Consultant, Media
Vision, North Hollywood, California, USA Ram Mohan, President, RM-USL Animation, Mumbai, India "After decades of extremely slow growth, Indian animation entered a new phase in the Nineties. Participating in the production of the Japanese feature based on the Indian epic, Ramayana, and producing the Meena series for UNICEF, which deals with the problems of the girl child in South Asia, brought Indian animators into the international arena. Today, a few animation facilities in Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai and Tiruvananthapuram have taken on contractual work for studios in the US, Canada and France. In the new millennium, there certainly will be more such facilities coming up in India, to compete, both in terms of quality and cost, with studios in Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines. The coming decade will also see an upsurge in international co-production deals. Indian studios, like RM-USL, are gearing up to produce shows for the global market with North American and European partners. Hopefully the new millennium will also witness the emergence of a distinct Indian style of animation that draws from the rich treasure house of South Asian myths, legends and folklore." Michael Harbour, Computer Graphics Supervisor, Encore Visual Effects, Hollywood, California, USA "I think the biggest challenge that visual effects and animation will face in the years to come is going to be the overall artistry of it. Seven years ago the largest issue facing the industry (specifically in the realm of visual effects) was, `How can we do this?' or, `Can we do this at all?' "The tools, although commercially available, were still in their infancy and much of the technology still wasn't commercially available to the industry unless a company had the resources to develop certain tools on their own. Now commercially available packages come `off the shelf' with 3D camera trackers, fully developed dynamics tools, fur and cloth rendering plug-ins, as well as a wide array of tools that give the smaller visual effects house some of the functionality that only used to exist at the largest and most experienced houses. "Now, with tools becoming more and more sophisticated and yet easier to use, as well as the fact that much of the experience that used to be consolidated at the largest and most established houses has spread throughout the industry, the challenge has become the images that we produce, not how they are produced. While the technological curve is evening out, the artistic curve should increase ten-fold. Only now are we beginning to see effective uses of standard cinematic techniques such as depth-of-field and more natural `real world' camera movement becoming the norm, not the exception. This is because the tools have finally come to a point where we can think more about, `What will look best?' and not, `How can we do this?' This is a trend and a challenge that I think will continue for years to come."
"The main issue is globalization based on the fact that the four majors already control a large share of the programming in the international market. The world will not be run by politicians, but by big corporations and in our case the majors are already there producing a huge bulk of a very similar programming offering. "I think that the good years in animation are over for awhile. We are starting the millennium with the emergence of a kind of crisis in the form of a glut. The decrease in license fees, the scarcity of financing from the broadcasters and the greediness in terms of rights (longer term and more runs) will bring less quality to the programming. "Due to the multiplication of outlets (cable, satellite, digital channels, etc.) there will be a huge need for content, but in the end it will be the same programs showing over and over again from one channel to another due to all of these factors. New producers will have to wait for the situation to concentrate more on quality and diversity, rather than immediate quantity. "In order to survive, independent producers will try to adapt to the scarcity of financing and low license fees, finding cheaper ways of producing with the creative strength that characterizes them. The development of CGI animation and new hardware and software will help on the way to produce more volume, with less time and money. With strong pre-production and new techniques, like virtual backgrounds and virtual CG actors, a studio will manage to produce a 1/2 hour episode in a day (such as the telenovelas are being produced in Latin America)." |
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Note: Readers may contact any Animation World Magazine contributor by sending an e-mail to editor@awn.com.
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