Animation industry in India - Road ahead
Animation, briefly described, is rapid display of time sequenced frames to create an illusion of continuous movement. The sub-segments within Animation and Gaming may be defined as follows:
Animation
Animation Entertainment : Custom animation development for television, movies, or DVD.
Visual Effects (VFX) : Special effects development used mainly in movies and ad productions.
Custom Content Development : Development of custom content catering to multiple segments, including Corporate, Higher Education etc.
Gaming
PC Games : Games played on the personal computer can be single-player or multi-player.
Mobile Games : Games played exclusively on the mobile handset. Currently consists of mostly single-player short games.
Console Games : Games played on dedicated gaming consoles. These boast of better graphics, and controllers than other types of games.
Online Games : Games played over the internet. The platform can be through PC, Mobile or Console.
Animation Entertainment Value Chain
The Indian Animation industry was worth US$ 631million in 2018 and is expected to reach US$ 961 million by 2020.
Animation Entertainment Service Models
Size, Growth & Segments
Animation Industry Size, Growth & Segmental Split
This trend is expected to continue, which bodes well for the animation entertainment industry in India.
Recent Trends and Growth Indicators
The Animation Entertainment Industry in India is expected to be shaped by trends and growth drivers in both domestic and Outsourcing.
Animation gradually comes of age
For animation to achieve the same level of success in India, as in the west it requires an audience appeal not just restricted to kids. Animation has gradually come of age from its perception of being only for kids. Increasing viewership of animation content among adults as a percentage viewership of kids’ channels indicates, substantial increase in viewership for the 14+ age group category. Increasing popularity of animation content among adults is expected to be a key propeller for the domestic animation entertainment industry.
Global channels cater to original Indian content
The demand for original Indian content has been increasing over the years. Channels such as Turner network that hold a substantial market share in Kids’ channels have forayed into the live action original productions space in India with iconic shows like M.A.D and the animation series such as Kumbh Karan. This focus on originally produced content has been witnessed across kids’ channels in India.
Comics’ Players: Increasing scope for character licensing
The rising number of TV channels, greater accessibility to Internet, proliferation of mobile devices that leads to the popularity of video and gaming content is set to offer a huge potential for the animation and character licensing in India. Hence, Comics’ players are looking to monetize their content libraries through other new media mediums in addition to TV and Film. Recently, Diamond comics joined hands with License India, a licensing solution provider to market its famous characters to be used in animation films marketing campaigns.Indian publishers like Diamond, Raj, Vimanika and Chandamama have announced plans to enter the movie space with their famous comic characters. Some of key events in this area were:
Increasing influence of comics’ players in the animation industry
Diamond Comics considers the launch of a TV channel with shows based on some of its popular characters in animated versions, including Chacha Chaudhary.May also look at promoting and selling them on other digital platforms like Internet, television,Direct-to-Home (DTH) and mobiles Large production houses are also buying rights from these publishers to produce animated TV series – Big Animation Pvt. Ltd has bought rights from publishers of Chandamama to produce an animated TV series In Oct 2008, Toonz Animation entered into a partnership with Chandamama India to produce a full-length animated feature film based on a prime property from the library of Chandamama The dog-masked popular superhero from Raj Comics is set to be developed into a movie by film maker Anurag Kashyap.
Animation in TV Advertising
The Indian TV advertisement industry size is expected to increase to US$ 6.3 billion by 2020. This, coupled with growing popularity of animated characters is expected to boost the industry. The reasons can be attributed to making cost effective commercials or doing away with the clutter of celebrity overkill. Animation commercials cost far lower compared to advertisements with celebrities and establish connect with children and adults alike.They relate to audiences irrespective of language and cultural barriers. Further, in some cases animations are also used to increase the visual appeal of the advertisement or as a part of the concept of a commercial.
Animation Movies for Theatres
The release of ‘Avatar’, a movie that is a hybrid of live action and computer generated animated characters became the largest grosser in India indicating that Indian audiences are interested in high quality animated content. The animation film industry sighted the trend and a number of animation films were made and released to capitalise on this interest. However, Indian animation films did not live up to the expectations set by their Hollywood counterparts. As the country moves out of recession and Indian audience matures, animation movies in the pipeline are expected to see execution.
Examples of animation used in Indian TV advertising
Upcoming animation movies
Increased usage of VFX in domestic movies
There is a rising demand for visual effects in most mainstream films in India today. VFX has been used in live action films to increase the visual ontent in the screen. Films such as Patiala House, Tees Maar Khan, No One Killed Jessica, and My Name is Khan etc. have used VFX to improve shots. The use of VFX in live action films has seen a steady and significant growth over the years.Many live action films today include a VFX sequence and the sheer duration of these screen shots has also risen substantially. Further, owing to its large domestic filmindustry India is bound to find increasing opportunities to use VFX in the domestic market.
Cost advantages drive increased domestic and outsourced VFX
Usage of VFX in broadcast helps in significant reduction of costs. Its usage brings down the set creation costs for a broadcast by almost 60-65%, particularly for mythological shows. It also helps in costs savings of 30-40% for commercials. The whopping success of VFX extensive movies at the box office overseas is expected to drive the VFX usage in other movies as well. This coupled with the cost savings is expected to lead to greater outsourcing. Indian studios are increasingly receiving work for quality western productions. Pixion, a post-production company that offers visual effects services, has worked in globally acclaimed films such as The King’s Speech.
Growth in e-learning to drive custom content development
Growth in e-learning market has been rapid in the past few years and is expected to continue going forward. However, the market is now expected to be more mature and stable. Major markets for e-learning globally are the US and western European nations across both educational institutions and Corporate Sector for training purposes. Currently, e-learning initiatives amongst mid-sized firms and SMEs are low. However, a large number of these small and mid-sized companies are expected to show willingness to adopt e-learning,the main drivers being cost savings and wider reach. As the corporate sector expands its distribution and adopts IT increasingly, demand for custom content development is expected to increase. Most of the increased demand is expected to come from the small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
