Almost everything in this world has a limit, an extent or a quantity which cannot be surpassed. But surely imagination is boundless. That’s why we love to dream, enjoy “Avataar”, drop our jaws at “2012” and find it very comforting to imagine we are standing on the deck of the “Titanic” in the Honey-warm sunlight, caressed by the blowing breeze.
Animation – the reflection of our imagination, thus, is limitless in scope. The future of animation industry in India is boundless as well. Thouh its main centre is in Mumbai, it has started spreading its branches to cities like Hyderabad and Bangalore. This industry (consisting of Studios of various sizes – small & large) is both fascinating and profitable. Clients will always approach them for developing catchy advertisements. Parts of animation films will continue to be outsourced to them. And if the talent in the studio is strong enough, they can get hold of a financ
er and go ahead to make an Animation Film as well.
Chicken Run (2000) is a well known example of Claymation and Stopmotion techniques
Immense Talent is available in the market. If one wants to open a studio, one just needs to know how to identify it and how a studio operates (the investment, the design process and market dynamics). If one is good at it, the ROI (Return on Investment) can be excellent.
Now let’s visit a studio and see how things actually work. Here at TeknoStudios, we have Desloth as the design lead, Sailesh as the sales manager, Finn as the Finance head, Tarang as the Sound & Music Lead, Bhavna as the Concept Lead & Director and a lot of animators, some administrative staff etc.
Work can be small little Ads & Motion graphics ranging from 5 to 30 seconds, short films of 15 minutes or more, or full fledged animation films. We will take the example of a 2 Hour animation film to identify the working of the different teams at TeknoStudios.
First of all, we need money. Assuming Sailesh has caught a big fish, and Mr. Fish is going to finance the film, we can be sure that `4,50,00,000 is there at our disposal. Now Mr. Fish would like to make a heartrending film on Child Labour. Sailesh has given a hint to Desloth that if the concept team headed by Bhavna (the Director) comes up with a nice story (based on plots), Mr. Fish may increase his financing by 12%.
At this time, it is good to know that within all these teams/departments, there are quite a few who belong to multiple teams and share multiple tasks. For example, Pratibha is in the Design, Concept & Finance team. Distribution & Variation of skill may be quite surprising in the creative industry. People are quite happy working here. Everyone can contribute their ideas. Ramu, the sweeper was given a handsome bonus when he came up with a touching incident at his locality which blended nicely with the ad on World Peace.
KungFu Panda (2008) is a computer animated film that grossed $20.3 million on it’s opening day and $60 million in it’s first weekend.
A project plan is made; requirements, risks and other related issues are discussed. After 2 days, Bhavna’s team comes up with a solid story of a little boy and a little girl, both child labourers. Desloth’s team has a discussion with Bhavna’s team about minute details of the story. The story is then converted into a script. This is a painstaking process. And for this, Farookh (the writer) is hired.
A rough idea is also given to what the sound and music will be like. All ideas are put down on paper and Desloth decides it’s time to start the storyboarding (storyboarding is actually sketching the imagined scenes in a sequence, as in a comic book, which would later be animated module by module.)
Things like composition of the frames (scenes), apparent camera position, focus, props (in case of clay-mation, stop-motion), headspace, lighting are finalized.
The characters (e.g. The Little Girl, The little Boy, The Shop Owner, five Regular Customers at the Tea Shop, etc.) are designed according to their personality traits. Character design requires considerable effort. This is all about detailing and finalizing how each character will look, for example facecut, hair style, body structure, body language, etc. A background story is prepared for the prime characters. This is important because the person’s past will affect the way he / she looks and interacts with the surroundings (living & non-living).
Sound is finalized, some are composed, and others come from the Stock Sound Archive. For this, TeknoStudios hire some Sound Designers and Music Composers. Music is not finalized at this stage (though it could be done if planning permits). The visual treatment is now decided upon by the animators. The sound depends on this. Treatment is all about deciding how the look will be - serious, funny or quirky, dark or light hearted, what the medium will be – e.g. paper and paint (also type of paint), Flash (Adobe), 3D, Stop Motion (material used for stop motion), Clay-Mation. If it’s hand drawn, how the lines will be, will they boil / wriggle or should they be still, etc.
The various stages of character design, from sketch to final render.
Now is the time to start animation. The lead animators make the key frames from the storyboard (in between frames are done by junior animators). All these frames are in drawings by hand (on paper or touch pads with electronic pen) . These are painstakingly converted into fully coloured frames (often using computers). After this is done, errors like inconsistent movement and imperfect synchronization of events are corrected by redoing some of the frames.
The relation of visual with sound in animation is the other way round. In a movie with live actors, dubbing is done after the shooting, based on lip movements. But in animation, sound is recorded first, and characters are animated (lip-synced) according to the recording.
A trailer is prepared for Mr. Fish and Sailesh pays a visit. Mr. Fish is very pleased. He however points out some cue points which may help in making the story stronger. Sailesh smiles and notes them down. One of these points is quite good.
Now, since animation, sound, music all is complete, it’s time to start editing. Things like how short or how long each shot will be are finalized. Visual rhythm, timing, sound sync, ambient sound, music, pacing, tension build up with sound and visual, seamless un–awkward cuts are all done while editing.
The Editor, Sound Editor, Sound Mixer, Music Composer / Director are actively involved. When editing is complete, the work is almost complete. Only things remaining are creating Title, Credits, Poster, CD Cover, etc.
During this span of time (10 months), the administration staff & management team have constantly communicated with the team of Animators & Creative Designers to sort out all monetary and paperwork related issues.
The successful completion of the film would not have been possible without the consistent efforts of Animators (not usually taking creative decisions) who made those “in between” frames.
The industry is thankful to MAAC and ARENA for churning out these Animators. People coming from these institutes gain considerable experience while working and form a valuable workforce.
Also the producer, director (who sometimes is the lead animator), scriptwriter, storyboard artist, character designer, sound designer, music composer, editors can be one single person or different people sharing multiple tasks based on studio size or project size.
In India, the quality of work is improving day by day, both skill & concept wise, but it may take at least two to three years to reach the standard of leading studios like Pixar or Disney. At present (and also in the near future – till the time India is more cost effective than other countries), the major chunk of this industry will consist of animators (toiling like skilled labourers) working on outsourced projects.
Those interested in digging deeper, try “Animator's Survival Kit” by Richard Williams.
Abhra is extremely creative - be it drawing, painting or creating animation movies, and this article backs him up. After doing engineering from St. Thomas Engineering College, he has been working with Capgemini since 2006. A foodie and computer game freak, he is passionate about photography. He is also an actor by heart and manages sound in events wherever he gets a chance.
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