It‘s the high seas and the ship of Indian Animation is sailing smooth towards its destination of massive growth.
The horizon is bright and skies open, we are in for good times ahead!
But wait.
There is a worry that nags.
Will the rampant poaching, churn and spiralling salaries rock the ride?
There are two perspectives to this.
A perspective is that, every nascent industry, when growing, experiences shortage in terms of a trained talent pool and there is churn and inflation too. The logical progression of this chaos will lead to consolidation and we are looking at probably a 2-3 year time-frame in which there will be effective solutions.
The other belief is that something has to be done now. We cannot take the risk of our growth being stunted.
Whether now, or in a couple of years, what approach can we take to solve these issues?
The answer lies in close collaboration between the Industry and Academia. Taking into consideration the expansion rate of the studios; the Featuremania that Bollywood and animation companies are currently besotted with; and adding to that the additional talent demand that will be generated with more International studios coming into India (more than10-12); the Industry will need between 30-40,000 (Optimistic Estimate) talented and trained professionals in the next couple of years.
There are a few good education brands (some of which have arisen out of studios) who have been doing exemplary work of late, but the crux of the matter is that a majority of the education providers are lacking in their offerings. Currently there are close to a staggering 1,00,000 students who have enrolled for animation courses at the 1000+ franchises and centers of the 100+ Animation Education brands spread across our country.
At first glance, going through these numbers, one wonders if there is any demand supply gap at all and if there is one, which side is it skewed towards?
The root cause of the problem is in what is being taught in a majority of these courses. Students are not being taught animation, they are being taught how to use software and that too the faculty that teaches is probably last year‘s student who just passed out.
Non experienced faculty, lack of focus on fundamentals, lack of specialised courses; lack of involvement from Industry, no proper selection and admission criteria for selection of students, means that a majority of those 1,00,000 kids doing animation courses are just waiting for proper guidance. And the sad part is that at least 70 to 75 per cent of them have taken up courses just because they hear it is lucrative, there has not been any elaborate mapping of skills and aptitude. It is a different story that there are so many diverse and special job profiles in this field making scope for various kinds of talent.
At the same time many of those students who really have the inherent skills and mindset that are a fit for animation, don‘t even know about or consider it as a career option. Inclination to Art is supressed in children as academics takes precedence in the Indian home. Additionally there are several hundred thousand programmers and engineers in the country who don‘t know that they would be worshipped for their coding talent if they took up the animation and gaming field.
We also lack in outreach, which prevails only with certain brands. The outreach that is needed, has to come from the industry as a consolidated and concerted initiative.
Thanks to the aggresive marketing and expansion that most education enterprises in the country have done, there exist ready pipeline and channels where youngsters can be told about the animation opportunity, and the access points where they can come and learn.
Now, only the industry has to come forth, collaborate with the education providers and ensure that real animation education flows through these pipelines. And there is a win win situation for all, the animation businesses, the education providers and the students.
Following is a Ten Point Call for Action.
i). Central Register
Production professionals willing to take off two days a month from production, in order to teach, should be able to register on a central registry which can be acessed by all Institutes. The expertise of these professionals would then be available to all Institutes and would have to be pre booked. This would ensure equal access to expert mentoring to students from across the country in big towns and small.
ii). Special Institute to train faculty
A top down pyramid approach where the industry collectively puts up an institute that teaches how to teach animation. Teachers from different Artistic and Technical subjects could be offered the opportunity and groomed to become animation teaching experts. Availabilty of good faculty would ensure that the faculty crunch is met and would raise the quality of training offered at the institutes.
iii). Standardised Curriculum
There has to be a standardised curriculum which has to be created by the industry and approved across the board. Institutes can then offer two kinds of courses, their own unique ones and the ones that are Industry certified.
iv). International Expertise & Mentoring via Video Conferencing, Internet & On Demand Technology
Video conferencing and the Internet have made it a possibility to have international experts deliver courses from one transmission point to multi locational recipients simultaneously. These courses can also be stored on servers and accessed on demand. Probably a couple of innovative institutes are using these but putting this into practice across the board will really add a lot of value to what is being taught and learnt and help in accelerating the knowledge and experience transfer process.
v). Short Film Making & Graduation projects
The sad fact is that most students who call themselves animators have never ever made any short films. It is little difficult to digest the fact that the 71 animated features announced are going to collectively engage 8000 artists, of which a vast majority have never even made a short film in animation school.
vi). Knowledge Base
Being a highly knowledge and skill oriented field, the knowledge base of the industry has to be collaboratively grown and made accessible through On Ground, Online as well as specially written literature and text books. There have been efforts on this front by a few associations and companies but they have to go up by 10x.
vii). Degree Courses
A majority of Indian parents will not consider animation as a serious career until there are proper animation degree courses available. The Education Ministry has to be lobbied with and mainstream universities have to start offering Animation degrees.
viii). Concerted 360* Outreach program
The industry has to collaborate alongwith the education side and utilise 360* media resources for communicating the correct and balanced facts about the growth opportunities in the Animation and VFX space to parents and students. This has to be a consistent planned practice.
ix). Aptitude Tests & Skills Mapping
There have to be specialised courses for several of the processes and each must focus on domain knowledge alongwith practical training. Applicants‘ aptitude and skills need to be mapped and after a general orientation, they have to be directed to their groove.
x). Modular skills upgradation courses
Many 2d animators who want to learn certain aspects of 3D or a technical 3D animator who want to learn about concept art need Refresher and Upgradation courses. While there is a real demand for such courses, but there are not many available in the market.
Let‘s start sharing our ideas on how to ensure that the growth story of our industry only multiplies with time!