Why is India’s film animation industry still struggling?

The biggest hurdle for animation to have its roots in India say industry experts is due to the fact that, there is lack of originality and home grown characters.

New Delhi: According to last month’s report The Japanese Animation Association had come up with an estimate that the country’s animation industry’s market value is at 2 trillion yen ($18 billion or Rs1.1 trillion) for the year 2016. Comparatively the report by The Indian Media and Entertainment Industry which was co-authored by industry lobby Ficci and a consulting firm KPMG, which had placed that the Indian animation and VFX market to be at Rs. 5,950 crore. In spite of the fact that India has supplied talented people and provided services to numerous Animation and Visual Effects based films like the West and other major Bollywood studios that includes Yash Raj Films and Dharma Productions who have attempted in making localized animation movies for example Roadside Romeo and the yet to be released Koochie Koochie Hota Hai with little success though.

“The Animation market in India began 10 years ago for all the services that originated from the West. When the animation industry started here we basically looked at concepts which had mythological backing in comparison to the West where they’ve made characters for instance: Spiderman and Batman”, said the COO, The Chief Operating Officer of Reliance Animations Tejonidhi Bhandari whose company has made films for example Krishna Aur Kans in 2012 and for Shaktimaan and Little Krishna (both were television series). “The major reason for bringing out mythological content was that we had lack of funds for investment as we wanted to establish new characters. A Krishna or a Hanuman on the contrary has already been etched in people’s minds and consequently it’s easier to weave stories around them”.

It was the other way around in the West Bhandari added. Investments were made by building characters which are strong spunning stories and movies revolving around them. A good quality animation film in India is made for Rs. 8 - 10 crore approximately which is considered a bit lower than a middle sized feature film.

“The Indian market is not big enough on its own. Firms for instance Disney and Pixar spend millions of dollars about $40-50 million each on each project” said Ketan Mehta, the director and co founder of Animation Company Maya Digital Studios. “ So , we  have a competition with global players with 20-30 times with the budget that the Indian animation can manage and on the other hand our producers who don’t have the ability to attract international finances so that they can do animation films which can compete globally ” .

Although The Jungle Book is something that should have been made in India as the lead character Mowgli is an Indian the type of investment required is just too high. Furthermore Hollywood films (and many other foreign films are anyways being in all local and vernacular languages for instance: Hindi, Tamil and Telugu etc doesn’t provide enough opportunities for Indian animated movies to be made.

“ We must stop addressing animated feature films as cartoons and consider them as movies meant only for children ” , said Nikhil Advani , a director who has made a 3D animation comedy called Delhi Safari in 2012 with voiceovers by Akshaye Khanna  Govinda  Sunil Shetty  Boman Irani and Urmila Matondkar  “ . However in the US, they launched the Toy Story franchise as a summer blockbuster and even competed with big tent pole films. Here we release animated feature films as if to ask apologies”.

Advani , mentioned that cartoon based movies which have animation formats may work for televisions but the marketing and distribution circuits need to understand that a good animation film must be able to compete with a Bajrangi Bhaijaan kind . Delhi Safari , however made a budget of Rs.24 crore had the box office collections ringing of a little over Rs.2 crore in India but had made around  Rs. 12.5 crore in South Korea alone according to Advani . It has also been one of the highest grossing Indian films in China apart from Dangal and PK. The second part of the franchise has been sold by producers Krayon Pictures to a Hollywood studio to have a China based story.

“Evidently there is a market for it”, Advani said. “Our indian distributors and exhibitor still follow the extremes of a herd setup. What works will definitely work till something new comes and clicks. Only then the realization dawns that we hadn’t been thinking that way. The difference between us and the West in terms of industries is that they think out of the box they don’t follow the usual path. They encourage creativity and use different formats on the other hand here we stick to a formula and we wait for someone to come and rewrite it” .