 Animation industry
India is increasing presenting itself as a favourable destination for the animation industry, particularly in post-production and 3D content development activity, provided the industry is fully geared for the purpose, said two American experts in visual effects and computer graphics, George Merkert and Tim McGovern in Chennai recently. According to an Arthur Andersen study on the Entertainment and Media Sector, animation by Indian producers alone is expected to be of the order of $1.5 billion in year 2005. .
These American experts are in Chennai to help ICAT (Image College of Arts, Animation and Technology) in identifying crucial areas in its curriculum so as to prepare them for the needs of the industry.
This surge in demand has spurred significant growth in the visual effects industry and has created high paying jobs for hundreds of digital artists and other technical specialists, pointed out Madhusudhanan, a leading special effects producer based in Chennai.
An entry-level job in animation fetches about Rs 8,000 with no upper limit for good talent. There is a significant demand for highly skilled and trained workforce that merges technical and artistic capabilities. According to NASSCOM report around 3 lakh skilled professionals will be needed in the country by 2008, pointed out V Natarajan, Director, ICAT. 'We will have the numbers but the question is of quality. Not many of them will meet the standards and specific requirements of the film industry. Institutes providing multi-media courses, with emphasis on animation computer graphics, would have to dovetail their courses in accordance with the needs of the industry", said Natarajan.
The animation industry offers career opportunities in a range of activities - from technology-based jobs such as scanning, compositing, digital ink and paint, and game designing to creative guys like visual-effects supervisors, 3D modellers and character animators.
There is an immediate need to increase awareness about the industry to attract talent and to offer-training programs that trains talent comprehensively in all the skills, but also focuses on skills that best suits the individual's aptitude, Natarajan said.
The use of digital technology to produce visual effects for feature films is at an all-time high. Today, virtually every Hollywood movie employs digital effects in one form or the other. While certain blockbuster titles featured hundreds of incredibly complex digital scenes, movies like Jurassic Park involved digital effects encompassing several gigabytes of data (an unprecedented number at that time).
Movies like Independence Day, Starship Troopers, and Titanic featured data sets measured in terabytes -- a staggering increase in just a few years: A few years ago, single companies usually provided most or all of the visual effects for a film. But today, a dozen or more suppliers take on the effects load.
The Entertainment and media industry is now on an upswing after three years of sluggish growth caused by economic weakness and terrorism. According to industry reports the Global industry revenues are set to increase from $1.2 trillion in 2003 to $1.7 trillion in 2008, a 6.3% CAGR. The global Film Entertainment Market is set to grow at 7.5% CAGR, reaching $108 billion in 2008, Natarajan and Madhusudhanan pointed out.
In 1989 approximately 600 animators in the industry made a full-time living in digital film effects and the industry spent less than $100 million for the development of effects, on less than 30 shots. But today more than 100,000 animators make a full-time living creating digital film effects and the industry spends more than $2 billion for the development of effects, with the average number of shots more than 300 per film.
George Merkert has an extensive history of involvement in innovative media. He was one of the original creators of Music TV (MTV). George Merkert has produced visual effects for numerous motion pictures in addition to more than 100 music videos, TV commercials and other short films. After leaving Colossal, he continued his career as a freelance producer. During a stint with MetroLight Studios he produced the Academy Award winning Skeleton Sequence for the motion picture Total Recall. He joined Sony Pictures Imageworks in 1993 and while there produced visual effects for many motion pictures including My Life, In The Line Of Fire, Johnny Mnemonic, Wolf, The Ghost And The Darkness and the Academy Award nominated Starship Troopers. He also served as Executive Producer for the company.
In 1998 he became Executive Producer for Pacific Data Images and in that capacity supervised production of visual effects for Forces Of Nature, Supernova and The Legend Of Bagger Vance. Merkert currently produces visual effects for motion pictures and writes and develops screenplays.
Tim McGovern, after his graduation in Chicago, took the offer to work at a new division of ABC, specializing in animation and graphic design for on-air. The work at ABC was exciting, but the lure of computer-controlled cameras and computer-generated imagery proved irresistible and soon brought him to work at the legendary Robert Abel & Associates. Within six months McGovern was working with a group of three others for five months creating a fifty-five second sequence of computer animation for Wait Disney's TRON (1982). This represented his first taste of motion picture work and was his first of many screen credits. This movie was a peek into the future of both the world of computer animation in motion pictures and of his career.
As the computer technology slowly changed, the imagery and complexity continued to increase. McGovern won five Clios, a Hugo, and a Mobius award pushing the technology with his co-workers at RAM. One of those Clios was for a groundbreaking commercial for canned food called 'Sexy Robot'. With this commercial the public saw a computer-generated robotic woman for the first time, during the Super Bowl in 1985. It also was the beginning of McGovern's pursuit of human animation applied to computergenerated characters.
In 1987, McGovern (with a group of former employees of Cranston Csuri and RA&A) founded MetroLight Studios. There he worked for five years as a Visual Effects Supervisor working with directors James Cameron, David Lynch, and Paul Verhoeven. In 1989, he supervised the computer animated work for Carolco Picture's TOTAL RECALL. He won an Academy Award for his work on the Skeleton X-ray sequence in that film, which once again involved human motion and CG characters. The work was recognized for the fluid and realistic motion of the film's nine humans and one dog. McGovern was the first Visual Effects Supervisor with a CG or digital background to have his work recognized with an Academy Award.
In 1992 he founded Sony Pictures ImageWorks with seven others and functioned as a Senior Visual Effects Supervisor as well as the Senior Vice President of Creative and Technical Affairs. With McGovern at the creative helm the company grew to employ over 250 people and worked on many successful feature films, including SPEED, The NET, WOLF, IN THE LINE OF FIRE, JAMES and the GIANT PEACH, and JOHNNY MNEMONIC. McGovern also personally supervised LAST ACTION HERO (1993), HIDEAWAY, VIRTUOSITY and MONEY TRAIN (all 1995), THE GHOST & THE DARKNESS (1996) and AS GOOD AS IT GETS (1997). McGovern left Sony Pictures ImageWorks as his interests turned to developing
screenplays, and pursued this both as a director in conjunction with writers as well as a writer / director. He also served as an independent Visual Effects Supervisor on both STIGMATA in 1998 and SUPERNOVA in 1999 for MGM. Then in 2000, he supervised two films in Europe. He shot DOWN in New York & Amsterdam and posted it in Germany and also shot EQUILIBRIUM in Berlin and posted it in LA for a 2002 release.
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