No, the Karnataka animation industry is not planning to catch them young. That may come in later; but it will nevertheless start with those who catch the young – faculties.
The state government, in collaboration with the Association of Bangalore Animation Industry (ABAI), will launch a Train-The-Trainer Institute in the city next month to train up faculty members from across the state who teach animation techniques to young professionals. The institute, which will be located in HSR Layout, is being funded (as in, being set up) by the government, and will be run by the association, the apex body of the industry in the state.
The new institute will will be a direct outcome of the Karnataka Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming and Comics (KAVGC) Policy of the state government which had laid emphasis on the quality of teachers so that the standard of professionals entering the industry was impeccable.
According to Jai Natarajan, executive member of ABAI and CEO of Xentrix, the objective of the institute would be two-fold. “The first is to create the next generation of faculties which will enable the standard of education to go up. The second is to provide ongoing support for the development of faculties all over Karnataka. Fine arts colleges in Hubli or Shimoga, for instance, have very little access to cutting edge teaching mechanisms as well as industry knowledge. Moreover, it is very difficult for industry leaders to leave aside their work and travel to far-flung places to teach. Therefore instead, the TTT institute will act as a hub,” said Natarajan.
Dinesh Damodaran, ABAI executive member who is handling the facility, said, “The setup will be coordinated by industry professionals. The government is helping establish the institute, but we want the unit to be self-sufficient later. We are yet to work out details like the fees.”
The institute will be training 25 individuals in each batch to start with, and is spread over an area of 3,000 sq ft. The facility will have a classroom, conference hall and lab in the initial phase. Faculty members will be taught both softwares and teaching methodologies. “We are also looking at overall personality development of teachers,” Damoraran said.
The institute apart, ABAI is also in the process of setting up digital arts centres in collaboration with fine arts colleges across the state, according to Natarajan. “Three months back we invited these colleges to a symposium, where we wanted to know about the problems they were faced with. Their main issue is that they are not digitally savvy. Their students have great arts skills, but are handicapped when it comes to computer skills needed for the animation industry.”
The association will seed digital labs in these colleges and provide long distance support to them. “We will provide both infrastructure and knowhow to the faculty. These digital art centres will be streamlined with their own BFA programmes. Their own faculty will be trained up, and the process will be tied up with our TTT Institute,” Natarajan said.
The backdrop to the initiatives was explained by Biren Ghose, ABAI president and country head of Technicolor, “One of the problems we are facing is that of quality professionals, primarily at the entry level. The objective is to create an ecosystem of people with quality skillsets.”
The association, which helped the state government stitch together its KAVGC policy, identified the core issues with the intention of making Bangalore the number one animation hub in the country. At present, it is way behind Mumbai-Pune, Chennai and Hyderabad. “We (Bangalore) are a fledgling industry compared to the others. We (the association) are barely five years old. It will take at least 3-4 years for us to go to the top,” asserted Ghose.
Destination Canada for city's industry
As is usual with any trade conference, there were a number of industry leaders and professionals from foreign countries who either spoke or just attended the Karnataka Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming and Comics (KAVGC) Summit at the Chancery Pavilion in the city on August 28-29.
But then, a solid chunk of them came from Canada. Not only was an entire session, 'Opportunities in Canada's Digital Economy', devoted to opportunities there, trade representatives of as many as three Canadian provinces were presented at the summit, the annual trade event of the Association of Bangalore Animation Industry (ABAI).
Canada is clearly looking at attracting the animation sector of Bangalore. But did anything come out of the interaction between Canadian trade representatives and the city's animation professionals? "It is too early to tell, as yet. ABAI came to us knowing that Canada is a big player in the digital media space. And many of the major players here are already working with Canadian companies," says Kyle Nunas, Canadian consul and senior trade commissioner for South India.
Is there a promise somewhere? Continues Nunas, "Among the areas that we are immediately interested in are building an ecosystem of skilled professionals here and looking at capacity-building. We are exploring the possibility of bringing some of our leading institutes here."
Canada is a world leader in digital media games, animation and special effects. It is home to eight of the top 10 game publishers and Canadian software is used by 80 per cent of the world’s animators and visual effects artists. But that's not the point.
What Canada is pitching to Bangalore is the fact that government support for digital media is very strong. The province of Manitoba, for instance, offers 40 per cent refundable tax credits to digital media, with a ceiling of $500,000. Nova Scotia, on the other hand, 50 per cent refundable labour costs. British Colombia offers a 17 .5 per cent digital animation or visual effects tax credit. That's a lot of money to save.
Still, that is not all. The government support for research and development (R&D) is extremely attractive proposition. A credit of 20 per cent is offered by the Canadian government, that can be combined with individual province credits. In Manitoba, the combined credit rate is as high as 36 per cent, and in Quebec it is 34 per cent.
Canada also has one of the lowest corporate tax rates in the world — at 26 per cent, it is another 13 per cent lower than it is in the United States. Canada has done its bit — it has offered all the sops. Now, it is up to Bangalore's animation industry to grab it.
