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Indian Animation Industry

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Indian Animation Industry

I really feel like listing out the actual happenings in this sub continent. It may help a major part of animators who are afraid that they may loose their jobs because of outsourcing and some companies who belive India is a cheap option for 3D production.

India has around 10 major studios who gets outsourced work from US/Canada/UK and Japan
1. Crest Communication, Mumbai. (250-400 Staffs _Oldest and strongest)
2. DataQuest, Hydrabad. (150-250 Staffs)
3. Prana, Mumbai. (100+ Recently started)
4. Visual Computing Labs, Bangalore. (50-75 Staffs - From the house of TATA's)
5. JadooWorks, Bangalore. (150-250) (Sold to CGI Mantra_ Thats the hottest news now)
6. Toonz Animation, Trivandrum. (150-200 Mainly into 2D. Recently got a big project from Korea)
7. Paprikaas Animation, Bangalore. (30-60)
8. Padmayala ZICA, MUmbai & Hydrabad (300+)
9. CGI Mantra (100+ Studio not yet started. Taking over JadooWorks)
10. Idea Studios, Hydrabad (Starting off)

The figures above are not actuals. Its a wild guess from me on the basis of the news and web reports of these companies. Apart from these, there are several small small players who work with less number of staffs. Maximum there can be 5000 people working on Outsourced projects from other countries. Out of 100 Million population, just 5000 young people are in the 3D Animation sector. Not a big number for the US animators to be afraid. Many companies survive from the projects from WildBrain and Mike Young Productions, US. It is even said that if these two companies stop giving projects to Indian companies, 50% of the people will be jobless.

Lot many companies who are starting, find it really very hard to get the enough manpower to meet their needs. Very few take the risk of recruiting freshers and training them and preparing them for job. Others want experienced people (6-12 months). Some companies started foreseeing projects from US. And many companies still do testing works. Some fail in getting projects because of quality and fail to give salary in time. Some offer the worst atmosphere for the staff to work 24 X 7 like animals in a suffocating environment with a maximum pay of $600 a month compromising on the quality of work. When a US company offers 2-3 months to complete an episode which is 15-20 mts of animation, companies here make their staff work 24X7 and do the project in 12-14 days of time. This makes staffs of most companies jump from company to company in search of good atmosphere and stable paychecks. Surprisingly most companies have similar working atmosphere than what was offered at the time of interview. Every company boasts on what they are going to offer their staffs at the time of interview just to get them in.

What i understood from the nature of these companies is really simple.

A new company starts seeing the growth potential and not taking into consideration what challenges they have to face. They boast on each and everything to get a project for testing from US. Companies who outsource works are fooled by these wrong figures Indian Companies produce. Most companies don't pay well for their staffs. HR is given least importance. All management think that if they have office space, machines and softwares, everything is done. To be organized and to maintain a professional atmosphere is not seen in most of the Indian CG Companies.

Thats about companies. Now about staffs. Every year nearly 5000 students go to animation schools which offer small to big packages and come out and most of them sit at home and think about doing a new course. Why these people are unable to find jobs?? Because most courses are just meant to make money for the investor and not a career for the students. Courses are designed in a way that student feels he know many things whereas he don't know what the industry wants. And most companies are not ready to take freshers, train them for production. Because they don't have time and space to do this. They are only bothered about the Dollars they loose if they don't start production today. Very few are formally trained and most are trained in a wrong fashion. Eligible ones are underutilized or exploited at work environment and people who know nothing about art and creativity sit in the top management positions in most Indian companies who makes life a hell for most staffs.

For companies in US who think of getting their output in a cheap way through any means, most Indian companies are ideal solution. Let them give the projects to Indian companies when they are ready to compromise on quality. They most creative person here in India will be a baby when he comes to US. So don't think that Indians are taking away work from US. And due to the diverse nature of people all across India, there are lot of internal politics in all these CG houses which makes life a hell for a animator.

Solution I think will work out perfect for US Companies.

Come Down to India, Start your own production house. Bring down the top level people from US who will manage the complete workflow. Recruit local animators, train them well and start production. Pay them reasonably. Most animators will be happy to join companies which are run by a US management than an Indian management. Provide In-house training . Start off training centers. Never ever give your works completely on to the hands of Indian companies.

This will benefit the animators of India and companies of US in the long run.
:rolleyes:

I just wanted to add to this thread and let you know that DQ actually employs more than 1400 people in India and more than 200 in Manilla. The company has been in business for 15 years.

Dan

Sorry. I JUST saw this, Dan. I hope you get the opportunity to read this post.

I worked for Dataquest. Not as an overseas suprvisor as many think, but Tapaas Chakravaarti (probably spelled that wrong, but...), the CEO of the company hired me to work FOR DQ. Do not believe all the numbers you hear... Tapaas had told me numerous times while I was there to tell prospective clients, "we have 300 highly traine animators", when in reality, we had 30-40 at most, and "HIGHLY TRAINED" is a VERY loose term.

Don't get me wrong... I liked Tapaas very much, but as far as honesty in the numbers goes, he is way off base... That is why I left; because I was being forced to stake MY reputation on his claims to clients. He tries his best to make that company always seem like it is much better than it actually is, and he has succeeded in fooling a great many people. I see write-ups about the studio all the time in animation magazine and such, and I see straight through the crap. He writes to me on occassion too, and embelishes, but I take it all with a grain of salt. (Not to mention the fact that he would make me walk in front of prospective clients a few times, just so we were sure they saw that he had a white guy working there)

At any rate, yes, their numbers are much higher than the numbers that have been presented here, but I think he may have fooled you as well into thinking way too big. Now he is not the only studio in India to do this either, so this is not focused solely at DQ. It is common practice there, but I saw it first-hand at DQ and can report it accurately.

Cheers

"Don't want to end up a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard" - Paul Simon

Incorrect Information about DQ Entertainment

I just wanted to add to this thread and let you know that DQ actually employs more than 1400 people in India and more than 200 in Manilla. The company has been in business for 15 years.

Dan

Dan Sarto is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network.

fake figures are for US companies

Dan,

Please dont get any kind of information from any company management. All are fake. If they say that they have 300 people in their facility, US companies will hesitate to give them big projects. So its a trend in India to multiply the current strength of staff by 3 and announce in media to get maximum work. Instead of 1200 people working 8 hours each the current 300 workforce works 24x7. Hope you get the point well. I was inside this industry for some good amount of time. Some good friends of mine is inside DQ. They dont even get time to talk to me over phone for a minute or two... Work is so heavy there. Try to come down here and see the truth for yourself...

May be I am wrong and you are right... but chances are less...

:cool:

Indian Animation

Hi
To be honest i dont see the Indian Animation Industry going anywhere...... I feel the main reasons are Money.... working Conditions... and Talent.....
The animation industry always benifits (to some extend) from the kind of Education that they recieve from Training Centers....... IN India training centers is just another business..... Training centers which specialise in Programing and other fields noticed the trend changing and the hype about animation and hence switched to teaching Animation and VFX... They hire people with 6mths to 18 mths experience .... and who are paid less and dont have prior exp in teaching......

The industry on the other hand is equally bad...... The way the animator's are treated is really bad....... they are made to work 24X7 and that to 4 - 5 days at a stretch...... they Eat (for which they are not paid) , sleep everything at the studio itself.

Beyondreamz had mentioned

Lot many companies who are starting, find it really very hard to get the enough manpower to meet their needs. Very few take the risk of recruiting freshers and training them and preparing them for job. Others want experienced people (6-12 months).

Well i would just like to correct you a bit that in most of the companies 1 or 2 animators are hired who have experience the other are all freshers who are hired on purpose and made to work as slaves and they are paid from nothing to $50 a month... some companies even pay upto $100 a month........

The studios are only bothered about the money they make..... they have no creativity and no sense in this industry.... they put up a studio and hire people and pay them and treat them badly and expect them to make magic and do wonders..... They expect the studio of 4 to 5 animators to complete a VFX clad TV serial episode of 1 hour each in 4-5 days..... this leads to frustration among the employees who either quit the company or quit the field itself. some of these animators with 4 to 5 months of exp are employed by those above mentioned training centers to teach.....

If the studios who claim to have done outsourced work can come out with descent quality by paying an embarassing salary and bad working conditions im sure that if they improve they could really do wonders for this industry.

Not U.S. Companies

Hello.

These companies are based in India and folks keep calling them U.S. companies.

If a company is in a country then their base is that country and not another.

Just remember, India, China will be next flavor of the month. If folks ever knew how much of the world's economy is based on products and manufacturing from China- it is really scary.

We were just on trip throught the mountains of Georgia and 80% of all the artisan products seemed to be from China...it was overwhelming!!!

Watch out! Disney will be in China someday - producing SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS 8.

Wrong place

Understanding of the animation art in India is very poor. Employer assume it as a pencil and paper work which can be done fast, fast. Sometime, some of the animation quote are so shameful, it dilutes the entire market all so much. They fail to realise that 'cheap doesn't means always good', and generally ends up presuring employees too much. The impression about the Indian animation market is not good. I know many talented people who got messed up with this type of turmoil, and altogether change fields sometime. But given proper budget and working environment, they could do wonders. All that can be said is that, such people are born at the wrong place.

Indian Animation

India's status animation wise is akin to car manufacture, if you have to apply this industrial analogy to an art form ( personally I don't like this analogy but since Indian companies seem to view animation as being subject to the same business model as a manufacturing industry, I will).

For years India produced cars which were essentially a British make, but for the Indian market.

It took at least 20-30 years before they designed their own car, but no one liked it, buying instead a foreign design - this suggests that people buy a car based on its quality, not where it comes from generally.

Indians still view home grown animation with disdain, believing that if its good, it has to be from overseas, and until this attitude is shaken off, animation produced in India will remain stuck in a rut of imitating overseas animation, instead of taking it further.

I think this is symptomatic of a post imperialist mindset, where everything Indian was considered inferior while anything good was appropriated and re-branded as being foreign - like cotton goods were under British Rule - a lot of what is essentially Indian in origin has been absorbed into other Imperialist cultures and sold back as being non-Indian.

Thus you get websites for Indian animation cos which feature pictures of Westerners, as if showing pictures of Indians will put off potential customers.

Personally I hope outsourcing gets killed off - its no good to anyone except the foreign co's who dip into it - the people who actually do the work get shafted in the long term as the employers move on to the next cheap labour source.

Here in the UK it's happened before - (The UK is seen as Third World in animation terms, it seems) - Big companies move in, set up shop to make a feature, employ all the best talent and then ship out if the film flops. The supposed fall out of having contact with big studio working practices and overseas animation talent is negligible since there's no comparable work to flex their newly created creative muscle on.

Shit Happens Only In India

Q. Why there are no original ideas from India.??
A. No one has the brains or balls to start up a project and run it from scratch to finish. "If I think of quality, may be i will loose money.. So let me think of money first and quality can be compromised..". I have heard this talk for the past 4 years in this industry.

Q. Why do indians like foreign animations - Disney, Pixar, Dreamworks stuff?
A. Where is quality in Indian works??Works from US touch our heart whereas Indian works make us feel that "this country will never progress"...

Q. Who are the CG/Animation producers in India.
A. Normal graduates who love to get a top level job who were formally educated by the stupid hopeless indian education system who cant even differenciate between green and red

Q. Who all started the companies in India.??
A. Failed IT businessmen.. Previously they were into training institutes where C++ and Java was given for $100 and 2 months. When IT boomed in India, they invested and lost cash.. When CG started booming again they invested and now going to loose cash...

Q. Who are the CEO/COO?
A. Previously Soap salesman who dreamed of giving interviews to media and talking in meetings. When there was a boom, they got inside..

Q. Who are animators?
A. People who got trained(cheated) from institutes and who want to make some money for his daily bread and butter. Who expected company will give him life and finally found out that company took his life...

Same Wine More Strong

Chk out

http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?p=1531689#post1531689

tats the option 2 of banned original thread

:confused:

wat to say... this has been banned in cgtalk....lol

Nothin positive????

:confused:

I m really scared by reading all the info. I m a guy who is just gonna join an animation course in an Animation Studio. reading the posts i m really scared to get into this field. is it so bad in india??? don't people even earn so much to atleast have 3 times meal in the indian animation industry. i did not see even one positive thing in the posts. i m sure people would become scared after reading the posts. people would never like to come in this field.
i am looking for some very good opinion, which can help me make up my mind. i m very interested in getting into this field. i have always been interested to be an animator

If your enthusiam and heart are in animation, why not give it go. Would you rather be an unhappy accountant. Nothing in life is guarranteed, and it's definitely not a dress rehearsal.

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