In the past few months the Indian animation industry has gained in momentum on all fronts. One of the many avenues hotting up for animation content creators is Home Video.
Mumbai based animation studio Eyecircus is planning to release its 32 minute 2D animated film (home video),’Life with Jesus’ in India by Christmas. The India release comes 18 months after the film was released in the US and Canada (through US based Inspired Inc.) where it garnered good volumes.
Speaking to Animation ‘xpress, Eyecircus CEO Chirag Barot stated that, “Life with Jesus has done very good volumes across all SKUs in the US in the past 18 months and we have been encouraged enough to now release the product in India as well as Europe.”
Dubbed in the UK, and music produced in the US, the animation production for Life with Jesus was done at Eyecircus’ Ahmedabad facility where 32 artists worked for around 21 months of production time (with breaks in between for other small pilot projects and other animation work) spread across 3 years. The final post production was done at Mumbai’s Famous Studios. “Life with Jesus cost us around Rs 1.5 crore in the making” shared Chirag.
“Amongst other production highlights of the film is that it has been made in 12 Fps unlike the normal 8 fps limited animation” he added.
The Indian home video release is being handled by VR Entertainers who also own the licensing rights for broadcast, Theatrical and other formats.
Of late quite a few animated religious titles have been announced by Indian studios including Hanuman, Krishna, Ganesh and now Jesus.
Commenting on his strategy for choosing Jesus as a subject Chirag stated, “As a new studio getting projects was very tough for us, so we decided to create something In House. Keeping in mind the international market where we wanted to step in as a player we choose a subject that would be appreciated as well as be lucrative marketing wise across the globe, hence Jesus”
Eyecircus has recently completed some pilots for international studios and is now planning to begin work on its next project – Buddha in 3D.