Catch Up Time : 26th October 2009

Hello Readers,

Sorry for the very erratic flow of posts since last 4 weeks. Its been a very challenging time since last one month. Challenging physically and mentally, but I would say more mentally. Allow me to explain.

P.S. - What I am about to share may not be interesting to many of you and that's fine. But I believe there is a lesson to be learn from here and hence the very idea of this post.

Also I am not sure whats my real motive is to write this post. May be its a way to share my experiences and in the process feel lighter within myself, may be its a way to let others know what all can happen out of the blue and be prepared for it. Or it may also end up being amusing or stupid or fun to read what ever follows from here on. Or it may be to find out what you would have done had you been in my place. So any feedback is most welcome.


2nd Oct'09, me and my family moved to another house. Fortunately we found another one in the same area where we were staying before, so there was a comfort of knowing the surroundings against exploring everything from scratch.

Now ironically, the main shifting was a breeze, we had hired professional movers and packers to pack and move the goods and thankfully they stood by their claims of being professional and efficient. But what followed(and still following) has been nothing less than nightmare.

I want to add that the amount of phone calls I had to make in the last month, was equal to the amount of calls I normally make in around 9-12 months. Now you may ask why ! Well read before and you will know why !!

Strike ONE (STRIKE as in Baseball, 3 STRIKES and you are down and out)
To begin with, a day before I was about to move, I called my Phone/Internet Service Provider to take a request for shifting my connection so that my old number remains the same and also I 'thought' it would be a faster process against applying a new connection. Alas how wrong I was.

It took 16 harrowing days and 100 calls to get the connection finally set up at my new place.

I would like to mention that on day 15, I was so fed up/frustrated/angry/irritated of this delay which was affecting my other work, I got myself a portable modem which cost me around 3 months of my rental which I pay normally to my Service Provider. The moment I got the modem, it seems as if there was an instant vent up of all my not-so-desirable inner turmoil and I felt so much more relaxed. If only I knew it was just a matter of one more day. Or who knows it was an intentional play of cards by the almighty.

Now the side effects of all this was that I used to be very irritated all day long. The irritation was not entirely because of the delay but because of a lack of concrete response from my Service Provider as to what exactly is the problem and precisely by when can I expect my connection. Everyday whenever I used to call them, they used to say it will be done today, but that today came after 16 days.

Strike TWO
Next came the pain of getting my Air-Conditioner(AC) set up. Now there were two steps in getting it set up. First was to make a provision in my window for the AC to fit in and second was to get the delivery of the AC and getting it fixed by the technicians.

Luckily the AC's were delivered reasonably on time. It was getting it fixed which turned out to be a long long wait. I called the concerned people to come to my house to take the measurements of my AC and do the needful in the Window. The person said he will be at my place in 15 mins.

Can you imagine that, that 5 mins came after 5 days and 25 calls. Even till date I am unable to find the exact answer as to why it took so much time. All I heard was excuses like "was busy", "rains", "weekend came", "I went on leave" and so on. I mean is work ethic totally dead. And why all this was happening only with me ?

There is more, the person came finally, they took the measurements, they said they will have to make an Aluminum Frame to hold the AC to make sure there are no gaps. I asked how many days, they said 2. I thought I have waited so many days, 2 more days wont hurt. I said ok and requested them to speed up if possible. Now my guess is that the definition of "speed up" for that person was to "take extra time". The frame came after 4 days !

Fortunately the final installation was done the same day as the frame arrived. Whew, had to wait close to 10 days for a good night sleep in a cool environment.

Strike THREE
Last week while animating on my desktop, suddenly everything went still in my comp, nothing was moving, I tried to restart using Ctrl+Alt+Del, nothing. Tried to reboot directly from CPU, again nothing !!! Finally I had to remove the plug from the main power source to switch it off.

I kept my fingers crossed and started it again. What I dreaded happened. Monitor started blinking with no display whatsoever. Also the lights on the CPU were not blinking which meant nothing was happening in the CPU. I thought may be its one of those times, when suddenly it goes off and suddenly everything comes back to normal. I tried again 3-4 times, no luck. I decided to give it a break and only after few hours, I tried again, but no improvement. Finally I decided to call my Computer Technician from a Computer Vendor(from where I have an Annual Maintenance Contract) and have a look. He came, tried every possible trick he knew, still no luck. Finally he said he will have to remove the motherboard and take it to his testing center to find the exact cause. He said, if the motherboard is fine, it may be a Power Supply problem in which case, next day itself he will get a new Power Supply. But if its the motherboard issue it can take more time. I asked him how many days. He said he cant say until he checks it thoroughly and promised to give me a call next day itself. Now this was Tuesday. Till Friday I didn't hear anything from him. I called them around 10 in the morning and some stupid operator said that she is aware of my problem and will give me a call back. Till 8 in the evening no call came. I tried calling back but no response, which means they have wrapped it for the day.

I called them the next day and blasted the hell out of them. They promised to call back. Finally after a few hours, the owner(of the company who had my Annual Maintenance Contract) themselves called, apologizing like a criminal pleading for mercy and said they will give me a replacement the same day. Saturday passed, Sunday passed and no replacement came.

Then today I thought enough is enough its time to take some real action. I called them and threaten to cancel all my Contracts I had given them thru various sources. In addition to this I told them to give me my motherboard back as they were too useless to repair it and that I shall get it fixed by somewhere else. They said to kindly wait for one last time and that they will call me in 15 mins to tell me the exact date when I will get my motherboard. They called in 10 minutes and said that on Wednesday they will surely come and fix my motherboard. Now I really don't know whether they will stand by their word or again one of their empty promises, but I am really hoping that they do, as its been close to 8 days, all my animating and other work has been on hold and I am feeling like a new born baby, totally helpless to do anything.

Now is this really a co-incidence that I was been served by pathetic customer service on and on with no end in sight ?? Or is it that God wanted to test my patience and my character ??

But one good thing happened, because of my desktop crashed I was forced to tackle my laptop problem which I have been ignoring for a long long time. My laptop had problem of bad sectors in the hard disk and shutting off automatically and abruptly at no particular interval of time. I got a new hard disk and also fixed the problem of shutting down abruptly. Apparently there was some issue of Thermal Sensors on the CPU. Whatever that means !

FOUR (its not really a STRIKE)
On hindsight may be this is the problem which is making me over-react to the above strikes. Since we moved in, I have applied to a few places(in my city) to offer my services as a 3D Character Animator. Its been almost a month and no replies yet. I understand these things takes time, but is it too much to ask even for some notification, whether yes or no. If its Yes I can jump with joy and even if its No, I will at-least know whats working and whats not and get on to tackling those issues. Some one has said "no news is great news" but here in this case its definitely not doing me any good. I sometimes really wonder, some things/actions/events just cannot be explained in human simply understandable terms.


Now you may be wondering what is the lesson behind all this. For me it is :

1. Things wont be hunky dory all your life. Regardless of how good life is going for you, there will be times when nothing, nothing at all seems to work. Thinking otherwise is being extremely naive !

2. You can never have enough patience because how much ever you feel you are cool and composed, there will be events that will just freak you out and drain all your patience.

3. Every event good or bad is an experience.

4. There IS a reason why anything is happening in your life.

5. To practice letting go. To not revel in good things/event for long and to not drool over not so good things/events for long.

6. To not judge any event, just savor it in the present moment and take it as it comes. The definition of good or bad is nothing but your viewpoint at work.

7. Never never never give up. I will be very forthcoming, this time in my life has tested me the most. But I am determined to not let it get the better of me. I will keep going regardless of what happens. If I have to walk against very strong winds, so be it.

8. Find your own avenues in these trying times, which can make you relax a bit and get distracted from all the negatives. For me its being with myself. When I am alone and quiet I feel my batteries recharging. Introspecting is a very powerful tool. Try it.

9. Appreciate the presence of your near and dear ones in your life. Without doubt I have been in the worst of my moods and behavior in the last one month than I have ever been in my whole life. But I am thankful to my parents for their undying love and support all the while despite my erratic mood swings and temper. I am convinced God made parents because he couldn't be everywhere at the same time.

10. When you are at the very low of your life, see the good part, the only way you can go from here on is UP ! I absolutely feel the same currently.

Before I get deeply engrossed in emotional talk, its seems prudent to wrap this post up. I really don't know what made me write and share all this with the world at large. But I am feeling a lot better, bringing all this up and sharing with you.

If you have anything to share in the context of this post - be it your experiences of testing times, be it advise/suggestions for me, be it about how you would have handled it if you where in my position, please feel very free to do the same.

Thank You !


@|b

"Rules"

Came across this fantastic post on this blog - Temple Of The Seven Gold Camels, about "Rules" in any creative endeavor and specially as artists in the field of film-making/animation.

It discusses what rules are, what people think of rules, how rules DOESN'T limit your creativity but rather enhances it, when and why it should be broken and so on.

Absolutely must read for any artists in general and specially for those who feel "rules" restrict them from achieving their full creative potential.


@|b

Do You Really Really Want It ?

I came across this article on AWN which offers advise to help you focus on your goals, decisions and choices ! The author is Pamela Kleibrink Thompson who is a regular columnist on these topics and knows what she is talking about.

Must read for anyone looking to make their life more meaningful.

My extended views - Recession in the Indian Animation industry?!! Don’t press the panic button just as yet.

Below are my extended views on the post i came across on this blog.

So if you haven't yet read the original post(including the comments) , i seriously suggest you do that before to understand what i am talking about and in what context.

So now, once you know whats the topic is all about, read further to know what i feel about the whole issue.

Totally agree with Rama and Rishikesh. They made some good points. Here is my few minutes worth of thoughts -

Without sounding too harsh or pessimistic, i think the very question of "whether we can make films like PIXAR or better than PIXAR" which is being asked in Indian studios/forums/events should be avoided from with immediate effect.

Such a question is deserving to studios say like BlueSky, Dreamworks and so on and not to us....at least not yet !

Enthusiasm, passion, optimism is all fine, but lets be realistic. I am hearing such questions since about last 3-4 years of my time spent in the industry. Have things changed dramatically ? Have we covered a lot of ground and being closer to PIXAR ?

If we have moved ahead by 10 steps, PIXAR has moved ahead 1000 steps or even more. My point is this comparison is so very ir-relevant in our context. A fresher who is doing some course in Animation, comes to events where this question is repeatedly asked, hears the "YESSES" from everyone and thinks - "wow, so many YESSSES from so many people...we must be good, this is the field i want my career for...i should soon start sending my stuff to studios for work, this is my chance to be a part of this" !

Clearly the awareness of how an animation feature is made, how much goes into it is clearly clearly missing. PIXAR is not some studio who churns out breakthrough movies consistently...its PIXAR after all ! Try to understand the gravity of their work !

Yes story is essential but more than that its an amalgamation of story, teamwork, attitude, management, planning, passion...just to name a few factors.

The problem is that where Indians shine, India fails. As individuals we work our best, but collaboratively we work worst. I dont even want to go behind whats the reason for this...its a different and much deeper issue alltogether.

So please for your own sake, stop these comparisons, let us aspire to first improve our work with each passing year. Remember PIXAR is also constantly re-inventing itself, so if we have to match PIXAR, we will have to work much more than PIXAR does each moment. And its not just one movie from PIXAR which did well, they been doing it consistently for so many years !

So the question of "whether we can match PIXAR or even overtake them " ...the answer clearly is NO, sometime in future ? MAYBE. You can interpret my answer in anyway you wish...you may think i am a pessimist, you may think why i am so against our work and so on. Its good to aspire, good to have a goal, but we need to be realistic and honest to ourselves also. Its time to be as objective as a doctor is when he treating someone. Patient will only be cured if all the facts are presented the way it is and not the way the patient wants it to be.

If you ask me -

1. Whether we can create animated movies which are really entertaining and really good in terms of animation and overall story and subject wise ?

2. Whether we have the talent ?

3. Whether we have a market for indian animated films much like live-action movies?

4. Whether we can really improve our animated prowess with passing time ?

5. Whether we can create something which we can be proud of ?

The answer to all of the above is - YES !!!

All we need is a different approach. We really need a new spirit, in the same fashion as what US is feeling now, with Barack Obama who will be at the helm of the affairs from 20 January 2009 !

Why No Involvement....What Are We So Occupied With...

I have been thinking of this since quite sometime and the more i think the more i fail to understand. Ok, now before you give up to understand what i am talking about and leave my blog i will get to the point -


Why there is so less activity/involvement of artists based in India, in the online forums, blogs, etc ? Now since my field of interest is Animation, I may be speaking more about Animators, but i am sure even other areas like Modeling, Rigging, Lighting and so on, the forums are not filled with 1000 of artists and their posts all sharing their passion and knowledge of their art.

Now everybody is talking about India when the topic of "hot spots" for animation is discussed, but where is the collective effort. I don't see any collaborative effort happening anywhere among the artists anywhere. As an artist sharing knowledge, discussing art and emerging technologies, getting feedback on their work and giving on others, bouncing ideas, conversing about the animation in general is of paramount importance and it makes sure the artist is growing everyday. The day any artist doesn't learn anything every single day or if they feel they know everything he/she is virtually dead. And if anyone working in the industry feels that why bother when i have a full time job, i am able to pay my bills, thats all it matters. Well to this i feel sorry for that person. He cant be further from truth and decency be damned, he/she will and should regret for this pathetic attitude. Some one said -


Where INDIA fails INDIANS shine.

As an individual Indians are fantastic. We are good at work to an extent, can get a job and survive at that too but where team work comes, no one is interested. Why should i share the knowledge with others....only to let him succeed higher than me !!! Whether you agree or not, this type of attitude is not uncommon. I am no way generalizing, but it definitely exists. You agreeing or not agreeing or simply shrugging off cannot change the fact.

Now its not my intention to blame the artists. My point is thanks to technology and the online world, the amount of possibilities which have opened is tremendous. So much is being discussed in the online world and that too for free, its fantastic. Blogs are a terrific way to reach out to so many people thru out the world. Animation is such a vast field to learn out both technically and creatively, it only makes that much more sense that we share our experiences with others, grow and learn from it.

So far i have worked in 3 studios, animation being a small industry, many of my friends i had, also moved to studios as i did and out of these 3 studios, 2 of them are the among the biggest in India(head count wise). But not a single person i know is active on any of the forums or has a blog !!! Yes it may sound "whats the big deal" to many, but its shocking ! I was lucky enough to have worked with fantastic people but its sad to know that they have stayed away from the online world till now. They can contribute and share so much and in return also learn so much. I have asked many people about this and all they say is "where is the time" ! I mean come on, how can you not have time to gain more knowledge about something which at the end of the day is getting you a salary and paying your bills. If this is not complacency then we need to re-define the word to a new meaning.

You ask 10 people working in the animation industry and i can vouch for you that hardly 1-2 or not even that also, will be happy with the state of affairs going around them. Everyone cribs, but no one wants to do anything about it. People have seem to have forgotten that Animation is all about having fun. Ok i may have oversimplified it, people do need money for paying their bills, but if we don't worry about the money factor each time we set a key on a frame and just think about having fun and giving your best, i can guarantee you money will come. You put your best, honest and sincere efforts in your work and there is no way that you wont be rewarded for it. And the excuse of not having time is just an excuse and that too very very cliche. We speak everyday about avoiding cliche in our work, atleast try to get a new excuse for starters. People have time to spend on Orkut and Facebook and what not, but they don't have time to read about something which is affecting or can affect them in their future and which can be so helpful for their own good in the long term.

I think the problem lies in the way our perception is towards the vocation called Animation. Here everyone perceives it like a 9-5 job. You go to work, sit on your desk in isolation, do your scenes, go for coffee breaks and crib about deadlines and less salary, come back again stay isolated and so on and then in the evening shut down your system and head back home. Next day the same thing is repeated. If this is how you want to spend your life, why not join a bank or something like that. This is no way the workday of an animator and how it should be. Whenever people ask me what i do and when i say "Animation", their eyes just lit up. They feel so excited about my line of work. Just imagine their dismay if i tell them whats the day at work for an animator. This is definitely not animation. By living such a life, we are doing so much injustice to this beautiful vocation and missing out on the real fun part of being an Animator or being a part of the Animation fraternity.

Animation is all about team work. Discussing the scenes, discussing how best a particular emotion can be portrayed, asking your peers to look at your work-in-progress and see whats working and whats not and in return doing the same for them. By doing all this we are opening ourselves to so many different ideas and at the end each one of us learns something new and which gets reflected in the final output. I don't think we even care what the person sitting next to us is even doing. Sitting on your warm chair all day and doing your work is not Animation my friend. Animation is to see, absorb, feel, experience whatever is going around you and then try to use that to the best of your ability. If every scene of yours feels the same why will anyone come and see your work. If you have nothing new to offer, why animate. If you have to animate a person who is walking and is very happy, how would you do it sincerely..just by focusing on your screen all day long ??? I don't think so... get up from your chair, observe your friends, observe if some one is happy, see how they walk, observe the nuances when a person is happy. We do have imagination, but its limited to our own experiences. To expand that we need to stretch it more, see more, observe more. Imagination wont grow on its own. It needs to be nourished, it needs to be tested. Like a bird cant fly in a cage similarly by limiting ourselves to our chair and our screen we are loosing our ability to let our creativity fly.

Agree we all are busy with deadlines, loans, worries, families, kids, wives, girl friends and so on...but so what. Cant you spend time to attain and learn new things about your chosen field of work. I am not saying forget everything and be online 24 hours, but at least once a day or once a week or even once a month, you can share your experiences, help others who are new to this field, i am sure even you will learn many new things along the way. Being animators is not like doing business, where each step needs to be guarded so as not to let our rivals know of our plans. We need to be free mentally to put the best in our work. We need to let go of our apprehensions, our inhibitions, our ability to take every criticism personally(inflated egos is a big problem nowadays) and maintain a healthy atmosphere which will be conducive to creativity.


Strength can be shown in two ways - either by pushing others down or by pulling others up.


How about using the latter?


Think about it !

My EXTENDED Views on "Getting Indian Animation Right. Why is it such an uphill task?"

My previous post about the issues affecting the Indian Animation Industry had some nice and insightful comments and after reading them i thought there were certain issues which i may have overlooked and certain issues which needed more emphasis on. So here is the extension of that post.

Again a disclaimer seems inevitable.

DISCLAIMER - Whatever I am mentioning here is absolutely my view of the issue/subject as I see it. I am not getting paid by anyone to write this and I am not affiliated to any institution/organization. I am not claiming whatever I write is correct as my interpretations of the subject can be as different as many of you reading this. We all see things in our own perception and that perception may be right or wrong depending on who is reading it. Having said that you are more than welcome to comment on my post and let me know whether you agree or disagree and why. Or you can in general present your views on the subject. Views/comments/opinions are very subjective and relative and there is really no right or wrong.


Last time i mentioned about the current animation boom in India and how almost all the institutes are making false promises of a fantastic career in animation and that too by just doing a course of 6-12 months. If indeed it was so easy i am sure all the other professional sectors would have closed down and everyone wanted to be in the Animation sector. Now in other vocations say management related or software related, its indeed true to an extent that if you do hard work in the starting years that is when you are doing your MBA (2 years) B.Tech (4 years) you are reasonably well on the right track once you finish your education. Then its only the matter of refining yourself as you work along because the foundation has been set with the education you have been provided. BUT in creative art forms, this is not the case. Here you can know/learn the tools, but by no means does it imply that once you know the tools what you create will be good. Learning or knowing is not enough you need to understand how and when to use the tools. And this is just the starting. You need to learn the tools, know how and when to use it and in the end the final output you create has to connect with the audiences at all levels. It has to be believable and it has to reach out emotional and sincerely. And this is no easy task by any means.

So if you are one of those who thinks "just because its in demand and it looks easy and since i am not sure what i will be doing in life, lets do animation", then you are better off not even thinking of Animation. Not that you are not good, but you lack the drive and passion which is required to sustain in this profession. You may enter the industry and may even earn a decent salary, thanks to our brilliant HR(more on that later), but to enter is just the easy part. Working everyday long hours, doing justice to your work requires immense dedication and hard work. Its not a field for losers, but requires a lot of study on a daily basis for as long you want to be in this profession. Animation is a serious business and a very serious vocation. Without doubt its a lot of fun and frolic and behind all these lies many many sleepless nights. You may be a loser before joining this career and be a changed person after that, but thats a different subject for discussion altogether.

Imagine, you are not well or some one near and dear to you is not well. Now obviously you will be depressed and not in your normal mood because of the circumstances around you. Forget being cheerful, it will be even difficult to behave normal. Now in all this if a friend calls you and invites you to a party/movie to celebrate some good thing which happened to him, will you feel like going and will you go in the end ? I am sure the answer to both the questions without even thinking twice is NO. You cant go because you are not in that emotional state to go. But when you are working as an Animator, there might be days(many infact) when you have to work on a very happy/sad scene whereas personally you may be feeling totally opposite. Trust me it can very challenging emotionally and creatively and professional to do justice to the work you are doing. And this is just one instance which is sort of usual for animators in their everyday lives. So like i said before behind the fun and play lies total immersion in your work. So think 100 times before choosing Animation provided you want to be in it for a long time.

So now if you see any more ads of those useless training institutes conveying in beautiful colors "Come learn from us and become and animator in 6-12 months", you will know its nothing but false promises and is similar to a politician's speech when he says you give us vote and we shall promise we will give you food, water, electricity and so on. And i need not explain whether they actually fulfill their promises or not. Of course like in the field of politics there are exceptions of few good people really inclined for the betterment of the society but majority are just burdens on their country. Similarly there lies many good training institutes who really know about animation and care about their students future, but even here the majority are nothing but burdens in the name of education.

Now the other issue which i am hearing a lot these days is the attitude of the artists specially newcomers who are just entering or entered the industry. They have been in the industry for less than one year and they act as if they were among the "nine old men" from Disney. Well no matter how good you are, if you have a bad attitude, not easy going, no one will want you to be around. People tend to forget that a lot has been achieved before they were even born. There is just no excuse for having a bad attitude, i don't mind going far and saying that people who have this false air around themselves, as if they are GOD are suffering from a disease much like say CANCER, long term it can get very very dangerous and might even be fatal.

I think to an extent even the recruitment process and the Human Resource department are to be blamed for this bad attitude behavior which is getting rampant day by day. Just to increase their targets, during recruitments, they literally beg in front of a prospective employee, offer them unimaginable amount of salaries, without even analyzing whether he/she actually deserves the kind of importance they are giving to them. And what happens in then end, freshers with no experience get a taste of false prestige in disguise of good salaries. Money is like drugs, in no time it can go to your head if not handled properly. And the result is the "i am the best" kind of attitude. If the person is lucky he/she may realize about this disease but by then it would have been already too late. Unfortunately even some seniors and veterans in this field have this attitude problem. I cant think of a more appropriate quote for this context than -



There are two ways of exerting one's strength;
one is pushing down, the other is pulling up.
-- Booker T. Washington


Majority of the times, we have a tendency to show strength by pushing people down instead of pulling them up. If we are among the few who are blessed with talent, thinking that if we share knowledge our importance will go down, we try to push other people down. Who suffers is the end is the art form and the organization where they work. They purposely maintain the gap so that the management becomes dependent on them and they can bend the rules whenever they want and demand a hike in salary whenever they feel like. All these grey areas which i am sure is applicable to any other any profession as well, but unlike other professions, it affects the animation industry on a more deeper level and that too on a daily basis.


Like some said "charity begins at home". So if you are reading this, all i can request is that let us all have a nice pleasing attitude of helping people, sharing knowledge, being genuinely nice to everyone, dont back stab anyone, don't indulge in office politics, though thats a different topic of discussion all together, but if you cant help getting affected by it, at least don't create or contribute to it. There is enough space for everyone and if we all live and work cordially, coming to work will be so much fun like never before.

My Views on "Getting Indian Animation Right. Why is it such an uphill task?"

When one of my good friends Akshata Udiaver Bhowmick who is quite active in the Indian Animation industry by her various associations, she is part of the Managing Committee of The Animation Society Of India(TASI) told me about her newly launched site and blog, honestly I felt it will be just like one among so many useless sites/blogs who "claim" to cater and contribute to the Indian Animation Industry in a really positive and useful way.

But I was surprised. Not only does it claim the same as above but also does it in an effective way for a change. The choice of articles, the issues she is dealing with are extremely relevant with what is happening in the Indian Animation Industry as of now.

Her blog post on May 18 - "Getting Indian Animation Right. Why is it such an uphill task?" is a revelation of sorts for the entire Indian Animation Industry as it clearly outlines the problems/issues we are facing since last many years, facing it now and will continue to face it for times to come until we deal with it NOW.

Now what is intriguing to me is that the issues Akshata mentions, I have no doubt that we all (most of us) are aware of it and have accepted it without even having 2nd thoughts as to what can be done (of course exceptions in the size of a grain of salt are always there). Now I can’t help but comparing this entire issue(of skirting the problems instead of dealing it face to face) with the story of Harry Potter, where even the name of "Lord Voldemort" people are scared to speak and instead use the term "you-know-who". And it’s just the very unlikely candidate in the name of "Harry Potter" who rises to the occasion and decides to fight the evil. Sometimes(most) the person we think is extremely inefficient not fit for anything is the one who leads from the front and that too with extreme confidence and comes out triumphantly. But alas to the ever growing problems of India like water, power, shelter, electricity...one more thing should be added - "prejudice”!

Now I am no way saying Akshata is Harry Potter, but you got the point right!! (Sorry Akshata for the comparison :-) )

Now the reason I am saying all this is to make you aware of what I am going to present you in the following lines. Consider all of the above as a preface to the main chapters of a book. I am going to put forward my reply/views about Akshata's very thought-instigating post ""Getting Indian Animation Right. Why is it such an uphill task?". So I suggest you read her post here to understand what I am talking about.

A small disclaimer becomes inevitable.

DISCLAIMER - Whatever I am mentioning here is absolutely my view of the issue/subject as I see it. I am not getting paid by anyone to write this and I am not affiliated to any institution/organization. I am not claiming whatever I write is correct as my interpretations of the subject can be as different as many of you reading this. We all see things in our own perception and that perception may be right or wrong depending on who is reading it. Having said that you are more than welcome to comment on my post and let me know whether you agree or disagree and why. Or you can in general present your views on the subject. Views/comments/opinions are very subjective and relative and there is really no right or wrong.

P.S. - IT WILL BE A LONG POST.

Animation, apparently the new buzz word going around in India. Every so often thru various mediums we are told that the Indian Animation industry is scaling new heights, new studios, some with large corporate backing is opening a new production facility, the existing ones are scaling up and venturing into new cities for setting up production facilities, this studio signed a deal with that Hollywood studio, new co-production deals will be signed soon and so on. For someone outside the industry there is absolutely no reason not to believe that Animation is indeed the new economic revolution, similar to what BPO brought a couple of years. Since time memorial we are known to believe what goes around us, what we see and hear, not the way it truly exists but the way it has been projected to us. If hype was a commodity India would be the No.1 consumer of it in no time. Take for example the state of our Indian cricketers, who one day are nothing less than god and next day they are treated as if they are the biggest outlaw of the country. But we don't realize that they didn't ask to be treated like god. It is we who pushed them to an illusion of elevation of gravity defying magnitude. And when they are unable to live up to the expectation even in one match, we pulled them down with so much force( that would redefine the word "gravity") and make them eat dirt. This is the extent of the consequences of hype in our wonderful country. It seems to me that day by day people are losing their ability to think, to analyze, to decide what is good and what is bad, and to separate the right from the wrong, to apply their own indiscretion. We are getting so used to letting the media decide what is good for us that even the thought of what will happen to us when media fails to do so, scares me. This is exactly what is happening with Animation right now. We are being fed with hunky dory news regarding Animation from all directions all the time that it’s putting every other sector to shame. The way it is growing, one small mistake and everything will crumble like a pack of cards. As some said "With great power comes great responsibility.” Unfortunately everyone wants power but nobody wants to take the responsibility and therein lays the dangerous aspect of it all. Now I am sure you must be wondering why I am so pessimistic about Indian Animation industry. Well to answer that I am not a pessimistic but an optimist and a realistic. If you are an optimist but not realistic its only matter a time before you lose, but if you are a pessimistic but realistic also, chances are you may find a solution to a particular problem. We need to see things the way they actually are and not the way it’s being shown to us.

Don't get me wrong, I am very much optimistic that we do have the required talent to catapult us to the likes of major Animation studios like Disney, Pixar, DreamWorks, Blue Sky and so on, but I am realistic that it won’t happen in a month, not in a year may be not even in the next 5 yrs. All the knowledge of Animation in these big studios has been passed on from Disney's 9 old men. These 9 men have discovered, re-discovered, invented, and re-invented the art and technique of animation as we see it today. And they have achieved that with not years but many decades of hard work and study. And here we see news clipping about a new studio claiming to be as good as Pixar in a year’s time. Are you kidding me ? For god’s sake remove the blindfold from your dreams and wake up to reality. Animation is not a child's play. It is one of the most challenging vocation and it takes years of hard work to make it look good. There are no rules, no formulas in Animation. Animation is an art, it’s not a commodity which can be mass manufactured in some factory. Unfortunately very few people understand this. The people who are investing in new ventures, who are at the helm of affairs are thinking that producing animation is like digging a hole. I will give you 10 people, I need 50 feet deep hole in 2 days ! Alas, it doesn't work this way. Animation has two sides, one is the business side and one is the creative side. And both need to co-exist cordially in terms of the various department a studio has. If both can’t find a way to live together, they will eventually have to die alone. We need the right people to take the right business decisions but we also need the right people to handle the creative aspect of it. Anyone who may be a master in the business aspect, can not necessarily be a master of the creative aspect. You need creative people to take care of it. People are not going to care as to how much money you have put in the project, they are paying for the movie ticket to get entertained, to laugh, to cry, to share the characters joy and sorrows and experience the same with them. If you can’t connect with them emotionally, even if you make the most expensive film, with the best of people handing the business and management side, ultimately you have failed to achieve what you had intended to achieve.

Then comes the biggest punching bag when the issue of "lack of quality animation" is raised, TALENT. Now this is one area which is quite true to an extent. Everybody is shouting that there is no quality talent available. No one wants to find out what is the reason. Firstly we need talent to find talent. Confused ? Yes I am talking about the people who recruit - HR. If you don’t know what you are looking for, how will you get what you actually need. If we are not able to find, by no means does it imply that it doesn’t exist. One of India's biggest IT Company’s CFO was switching roles and was going to become the president of the HR department. When one journalist during an interview asked him why he was switching from such a prestigious and lucrative post of a CFO to a more mundane HR,his reply was that HR is one of the most crucial and challenging job for any organization in today’s time. And this interviewed happened not more than 2-3 years back. For any organization the most dreaded word is “Attrition” and this is where the part of HR comes in. Recruiting, Training, Retaining and Looking after the employees is the most important job of any HR executive. But unfortunately apart from Recruiting and Training(to a very small extent) very few HR are actually concerned about Retaining and Looking after the employees. To connect this problem, let me give you an example from everyday life. You went to shop to buy a TV. The salesman there will try every trick in his sleeve to make sure he sells you the TV, doesn’t matter if has to give inaccurate info, as long as the customer buys the product, he will get the commission and his work is done. Now if the customer faces any problem with the product, the same salesman will act as if he is suffering from amnesia. And then for the customer begins the journey of hell. Making numerous calls, running from here to there to get his product repaired when finally he gets fed up and decides to buy a new product. Now in HR’s term, buying a new product means attrition. They recognize that attrition has happened, but don’t want to find out what led to attrition. What happens next, the employee(s) leaves, the project delivery gets affected and what is the excuse, TALENT ! Recruiting people for Animation requires a certain different kind of skill set as far as the HR is concerned. It’s not the same as say if you hiring for a BPO or any other position. The HR needs to first understand what are the skill sets/accreditation/certification they are looking for while recruiting. If they are themselves not aware what differentiates a good animator from a bad one, of course they will not get the talent they are looking for. A couple of years back one of my friend who had 8 yrs of 2D animation experience and 2 yrs of 3D experience, was called for an interview with the HR head of a very renowned animation studio(which still exists). They wanted 3D animators for the upcoming projects. He said he has 2 yrs of 3D experience and 8 yrs of 2D experience. The HR replied, he will be paid keeping in mind just his 2yrs 3D experience. My friend was surprised and asked them why. Their reply was “for 3D animation, 2D experience is not relevant ! I am sure things are slightly better now but still we need a long long way to go(of course exceptions are always there in few studios) before we can even meet the basic requisites for a qualified headhunter for the field of Animation. An HR needs to be updated about the different courses/universities who are good in training animators and not just in India but thru out the world. This will help them to get what they need much faster and in a more effective way when they have say 20 resumes in front of them.

Another area, I would say one of the top most areas where we need some concrete re-structuring is EDUCATION/TRAINING. The state of Animation education is nothing less than shameful. There are numerous training institutes but less than 1% can actually teach Animation, the way it should be. Each of the training institutes are charging high amounts for teaching the software and not the art. Software can be learnt from reading the manual itself, but how do we learn the creative and artistic part of animation. One of my friend has a franchise of one of the biggest chain of Animation training institutes in India. One day I asked him why his curriculum is more focused towards the tools/software and not the art itself. He said he is restricted by the main management of the Institute and that they cannot change the curriculum else their franchise will be taken away. It clearly shows they themselves don’t know how/don’t want to teach and what exactly is the proper curriculum for Animation. Nowadays courses are for min 6 months duration to 1 yr. In this time frame they teach everything about Multimedia like Photoshop, Flash and so on and if you lucky they will also teach you animation. Like which tool to used, where to find the required tool in a particular software package and how to set a key frame. That’s it, now you are an animator. Now if the so called biggies in Animation Training are providing such kind of education, I don’t even want to talk about the smaller ones who are cropping up with ads like “become a master in 3D animation in 6 months time”. The deeper problem which exists is the attitude of these so called animation training providers who are nothing but businessmen with a fake and cheap color coating of educators splashed all over them. All they care about is earning money, whether what they are teaching will actually be useful for the student who is putting at stake his/her parents hard earned money to make a career out of whatever training he will be provided, is not at all a concern. Everyone wants money, but nobody has the patience, all they looking for is shortcuts. No one is bothered about long term. They plant a seed but as soon even a single fruit is grown, they cut it down in order to eat the fruit. They lack the common sense to understand that in the long term the same seed will not only provide him with lots of fruits (and that too on a regular basis) but also shade on a rainy or on a scorching summer day.

There is another way of training which is on the job training. To my knowledge so far very few studios are actually taking the effort to train their employees. The field of animation consists of various skills like Modeling, rigging, animation, lighting and so on, and only when all the skills come together it culminates into the final animation product. Now each of this skills require constant learning and updating. And since we are already behind by many many years it becomes that much more crucial to keep educating ourselves if we want to ever catch up. Animation is nothing but acting, in fact more difficult than even acting in front of the camera. Things like blinks, using eye-brows, breathing, etc comes naturally to live action actors. But for animators we need to plan when the character should blink, when he should use his eye-brows and so on depending on the scene. Ask any good actor worth his money, how many years it would take to learn acting and many would reply “lifetime”. And animating is nothing but a different form of acting. You got the picture ?

Now onto the area of fully CG Animated feature film from INDIA for the Indian audience and also the global audience to be shown on theatres.

To quote Akshata –

“Bollywood makes over 800 live-action films a year. The animation industry is miniscule in comparison. Though 70 plus films have been announced in the past one year, less than half of those will actually get made. We expect 8-10 of them to release this year. As they say, we have miles to go before we sleep!”

Now out of 800 live action films, let’s assume in a good year 40 are worth watching. That is just 5 % of the total films made. Now out of these 40, there will be further categories, like Blockbuster, Hit, and Average. Again to think from an optimistic point of view, let’s say 10 are blockbusters, 15 are hit and 15 are average. So that comes to 25 % (of 40) films are blockbusters, 37.5 % is Hit(of 40) and 37.5 %(of 40) are average. Now if you look at the overall picture 10 out of 800, that is 1.25 % are Blockbusters, 15 out of 800, that is 1.875% are hit and the same number for average. And these 5% of the films are controlling at any point of time more than 80% of the revenues. Now bring into the animation schedules, 70 films are announced, half of them would actually be made, how much time they make it in, your guess is as good as mine. Lets for now assume that 10 would be released(which I very much doubt) how many would actually hit the chord with the audience? I can be optimistic once again and say than all 10 can be hit. But ask this question to yourself and you will know the answer.

Now comes the question why there are just 10 releases instead of the 800 as in live action. The reason as I see it is, that producers want their return of investments(ROI) in less than one year. Now animation film itself takes 2-3 years to be made(finding nemo was made in 4 yrs and after seeing the end result, I am sure you will agree it was worth it and why it took so much time) so that leaves almost half the producers out of the game since they can’t wait for so long. The other producers who do take the courage to invest so much for a longer time frame, lose their confidence in the middle, the production is told to work faster, which results in lowering of quality, may be even cutting corners in the overall story and the final output. The final result looks ugly and gravely unfinished, the audience fails to connect, and what happens, the Animation medium as a whole looses out.

Money is not the sole ingredient to make Animation films work for us. We need people who have a genuine passion and enthusiasm for this wonderful medium and art. I am not saying take all the time you want, but at least chalk out a realistic timeframe, instead of this totally unrealistic, back breaking, time crunching deadlines which doesn’t do any good to anyone and instead just harms in the long run. Employees don’t have a work life balance, they get sick both physically and mentally, their productivity decreases and who suffers in the end, the project on the whole. When the project suffers, the client looses confidences and may be withdraws the project. The company lacks work, but has a whole team of employees to pay salary to. The dreaded action comes into force, either lay off people, or declare bankruptcy and shut down completely. Another prospective studio with dreams of competing with Pixar digs his own grave and gets buried under it.

So far all the animation films released in the last year is based on mythological stories, like Hanuman, Krishna, Hanuman Returns and now Ghatochkach. Come on give me a break, there is only so much that the audience can take in terms of mythological movies and add to the fact that none of them are truly wonderful and looks rushed, the audience knows that even the next animated feature won’t be something totally different or out of the box. Audiences have become very mature and they are very selective in what they will see and what kind of entertainment they really need. Unlike the past, if one formula works, dozen more films using same formula (and actually doing well) things have changed now. We can fool the audience once but not always. Instead of rushing and making mythological films, take one film, if it’s mythological also, that’s fine as long as you give the time it needs to make it look good. It’s very important to gain the confidence of our audience first and then globally, that even we can make good appealing Animation Feature films, have characters with whom we shall have empathy, which we will connect on an emotional level. Instead of rushing in and showing something unfinished, why not take more time but do it right. The rewards and satisfaction will be much more in the long term.

To conclude, it is extremely important for all of us (the govt, producers, distributors, exhibitors, various studios and their top brass both management and creative, the HR department, directors, animation supervisors, artists whether experience or fresher, teachers, students, parents) to understand at various levels that making good quality animation is like cooking a delicious dish. The right ingredients and the correct proportion of each is what makes a dish good or bad. I am confident we have the right ingredient in terms of talent(or we are getting there in finding, sourcing and cultivating it), now all we need is to make all the ingredients work together to create a delicious dish called Ratatouille ! (Pun very much intended)

P.S. - Based on the comments received i have continued this post here.