India to be US$ 15 Billion Animation Industry
Wow! US$ 15 billion animation industry by 2008. Sounds great. But where are the animation professionals in the Indian market? Do we have those many to serve even with a US$ 60,000 payout for the animation industry.
I guess the animation industry in India is too young at this point of time to achieve US$ 15 billion. We need more manpower and for more manpower we need more animation training centers in India. Specially the government or university affiliated / recognized education centers, since our culture and thought process has brought us to thinking that only recognized (from govt. of India) product is the right product.
Considering the billions of dollar of animation industry expecting almost the same amount of foreign currency revenue in the country as equivalent to IT industry, our Indian government must look into the intricacies of Infrastructural facilities, recognition, industry support, ex-assumptions and so on. And to whom do we talk about here? These are merely small multimedia animation education institutes and organizations training people on the professional front. These are the institutes to be given more respect and fame and be encouraged to establish careers in the remarkable fields.
Everyone talks about the revenue expectations, but are our revenue builders stable and quality controlled? Where is the authority to approve the quality education? Who controls the overall lookout of the education spread in the country?
Well these are the questions we need to focus first, rather talking about expected billion dollar revenues from the animation industry. I guess if we do not have our foundations strengthened today we may expect a BIG NOTHING in future. Our governing bodies are weak; our trade process is not recognized, controlled and provided any backups or security by a controlling body.
Recognition to the industry and promotions are the first most and important things to be carried out throughout the country. We have China for example as our trade gurus to be followed from. We must understand only one thing at this point of time, our strength (not just cheap labor but better artists) and our weakness (not very well supported or encouraged – on-our-own we survive and demise and flourish)
Our strength as an artist becomes more powerful due to several reasons, a multi-cultural society, ancient history of arts and artists, vast diversity in our thought process from one location to other and so on. These strong points give rise to more creative people coming from different parts of the country. All we need to do is polish and train them in the digital media.
We usually talk about cheap labor in India, how cost-effective is it? Are not our living standards much superior to what we lived 20 years before? Do we not have the most sophisticated equipment to work on?
So how can we expect to be cost-effective compared to the world.
Recently I read few articles in the IT and Business magazines on how the salary structures have raised and were comparing ourselves with the top company pay outs in the world. Reading this I guess many Indian professionals migrated to back to India, those working for companies abroad.
And I guess it really did happen. They got what they wanted and the companies in India also made it happen. So my point is – How cost-effective are we, when compared to the rest of the world?
Animation is a defiantly a growing industry in India and I can say that with confidence. Well I have been saying this for last 15 years. Being the first to forsee Multimedia Animation and Internet Education in 1993 in India, I still have high hopes and belief in my countries strength. But stating this does not become easy for me to say, that we still need to strengthen our foundations.