Animating their lives

TUCKED AWAY in a corner street of Gandhinagar, Adyar is a small place - incongruous and completely unassuming considering the kind of work that goes on inside. Creative and difficult but so satisfying when children ultimately watch and enjoy themselves.

Millitoon Animation Private Ltd. works in collaboration with a French company that looks towards countries such as India to get the primary work done, thanks to the comparatively low cost of labour. At the helm of affairs is Ravi Prakash, who has been running this show quietly and effectively, providing Chennai an opportunity to be on the world map of two-dimensional animation. More, this outfit is providing innumerable students and graduates coming out of various art schools and institutions, a satisfying and lucrative career.

Talking to Ravi Prakash in his seemingly modest but big office one finds that he is passionate about this work and takes great pains to emphasise how India has scored despite the stiff competition from other south Asian countries, despite their manpower and perhaps better facilities.

"Walt Disney started animation as an art many years ago. Traditionally the Americans went to South Korea for their work. Initially it was all done in the United States but as costs started going up, countries where the primary work could be done without spending too much was looked at."

In the meantime, the European animation industry started - that is the cartoon film industry. And its style is completely different. Americans are more into slapstick, Tom and Jerry, and things like that, whereas Europeans lean more on the classics, fairy tales, children's books and more into the history and culture of a place. They don't like it to be too "cartoony" Ravi says."

Soon the Europeans too started experimenting with South Korea. However, they were not happy with the results and started developing an equation with East Europe, which suited them culturally and financially. With the increased number of programmes and the demand for more works, they started looking outside and "fortunately for us they looked at India" he says.

"We have a tie-up with a very major French Studio called "Millimarsh", which in French means millions of images - Mil is thousand. And this studio is one of the largest producers of animation films in Europe. They were concentrating mostly on French language till about four years ago. Now they are very successful in the English also and for us it's very good that at the time that they were looking at English language they also looked at opening studio in India and we are able to contribute immensely".

Millitoon was set up in 1998 and by about June that year, artists were taken in. "Unfortunately in India we do not have a regular, through professional animation school. There are some in Hyderabad but nothing that is of any international standard."

Animation as a business in India did not exist till about two to three years ago. There was some thing small being done, but nothing of very great significance. Maybe a Films Division documentary, some ad films, or the like. This, despite a rich history of mythology and folklore that would lend itself so well to animation and also be a means of bringing them alive to the children of the country, as part of their culture and heritage. But the prohibitive costs of making animation films and that too of a certain quality and the lack of technical support did not encourage this industry.

"You had comic book artists but never animators. There have been some small pockets in Mumbai but nothing on a global scale, not even on a national scale. TheNIIT has a small course where they just teach you what animation is. Its like a guided tour - but with this kind of knowledge you cannot get a job."

The French studio, international in stature, owns studios across Europe - in Moscow, Bucharest, and Poland. There are five in all and they employ, including the one in India, more than 1200 artists, many of them very experienced. And from the various studios, experts come in and train the people here in India.

"In fact Millitoon has the capacity to train people in a full- fledged manner. Graduates of fine arts, visual arts are employed taking into account their drawing skills and their visual vocabulary. above all, an innate sense of cinema and moving images is needed because one needs to have a feel for the movement of the camera - being cinematically inclined helps in reducing errors.

How does it work? Have the specifications been laid down and are there parameters that the studio works within? "We don't create stories, only characters that too under specifications. We produce 45 minutes of TV serial animation a month which means if each episode is about 11 minutes, we can do about four episodes a month. And this for an international audience..." Yes, forty-five minutes is a good size internationally. And we have come to this in two years, which is extremely good by any standards in the world."

And the guidelines are already given? "The guidelines are there and somebody is producing it along with some advertiser backing it. We do the production and when it comes to us, the commercial angle is already tied-up. But the broadcast dates have to be honoured. This commitment is the single most important thing in this business. To achieve international quality and business practices, adhering to quality standards took us a little time - after all, it is a totally subjective business. It all depends on what the director is looking for".

In this creation of cartoon characters every re-take is costly. Every time that happens it has to be determined whether it was a mistake done by the production team here or whether the brief was not specific. But it is to the credit of this studio that despite the complicated nature of sensing what the director sitting in Paris wants, there has been hardly any occasion when it has had to be redone. "We get almost 90 per cent at the first time itself "says Ravi proudly." We have story sessions with the animators; we discuss, read the script and then go to the drawing board."

What is really amazing is that everything - every character - is hand drawn. There are about 200 artists sitting quietly completely belying the enormity of the outfit doing 45 minutes of animated work. It enters the digital domain only when the creations have to be coloured and filmed. So back-breaking is the job that for a three -second scene there will be something like 400 to 500 drawings. And each drawing has to be exactly the same or the volume changes on the screen. Exacting and demanding.

With this infrastructure and the expertise, would it be a possibility that there may be something within the Indian context that could come out in the form of animation?

"To do something for the Indian audience is a very commercial decision. The cost of a one-minute animation before it reaches broadcast quality is prohibitive. It could be anything between $6000 to 7000$ a minute.' And traditionally of course, animation has not really done well in this country, simply because budgets have never been available. So you're talking about Rs. 2.50 to Rs. 3 lakhs a minute - and this is from concept to the final with music, voice, editing, post production, everything done. Now if you're talking of an episode of 20 minutes, you're talking about Rs. 60 lakhs. Who has that kind of budget?" And there is no hiding, no wishing for the costs to come down. India is one of the countries considered cheap in getting this kind of work done -in France for instance, it works out to $10,000 to 12,000, as costs are much higher there.

But if the idea is put forward, can it be done over here? "Of course. It will be far easier for us to do an Indian story. But the risk of doing something and not finding a producer is too high. So we first of all, need to get a name in the international market that we are a good, quality producing studio. Which has happened as our quality has been appreciated and one of the projects that we worked on Pablo, The Little Red Fox, won the BAFTA Award, British Academy for Film and Television."

"The work was done here and it means that not only is the quality good but it has been recognised worldwide as well. Now we are getting more work, thanks to the BAFTA award."

Can you tell me some of the popular characters that have been done here?

"Pablo, The Little Red Fox, was one of the big hits on British Television. And then there is Archibald, the Koala Bear that was also big success. Then 64 Zoo Lane was also successful. all these ran on BBC and in channels in France and in Germany," says Ravi.

The whole process is rather intricate and time consuming and is a revelation for those who do not know how the animated story finally comes on screen.

A hundred scenes take about 15 days to make and if these come back as a retake, then it goes back to the drawing board. Fortunately for Millitoon they work on about 90 per cent acceptance.

With so many software programmes today is it not easier to do it digitally? The human feel in this 2D TV serial animation is very important. The software available is very expensive. It is used for Toy Story, and Jurassic Park where the budgets are high. Human labour is still the cheapest. So there is no call to replace it. And the demand is phenomenal. China is a big player simply because labour is cheap. Computer software has its own limitations. The human mind has got enormous potential," says Ravi.

Some interesting projects in the pipeline - one called Vampires, Pirates and aliens the post-production of which has just been completed. Dallas and Thousand Tasks is yet another one and tests are going on for a French feature animation film.

This is for the first time such a thing will be done here in 2D. It's a serious subject called Corpo Maltese. It's a cult figure, something like Dick Tracy.

How did this line attract him?" My background has got nothing to do with animation. I can't even draw to save my life. Just like anybody else I also like to watch cartoons. But this came as a project. My French partner was looking for a Joint Venture with a studio in India or a studio in Vietnam. Sounded interesting so I went to Paris, met them and we were on after that." The best part of running this is that it is a 100 per cent export unit and we have absolutely no imports. Besides the artists coming out from various schools in Kumbakonam, Trivandrum get a good livelihood."

CHITRA MAHESH

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