One studio which evokes the most amount of intrigue and interest in Indian animation circles is Prana. If the industry is curious about something, we at Animation 'xpress are even more curious. Recently we managed to get in touch with Prana's Arish Fayzee and Kristin Dornig and here's what they had
to say.

Since its inception in April '03 the studio has worked on quite a few projects including FMVs which are now being published.

Commenting on the FMV work, Prana head Kristin says,"FMV work gives our artists complex and challenging material to work on, and we're now building a reputation of delivering quality work in this market"

The core strength of any animation studio is its team, its people. On being quizzed about its people and team size, Kristin replied, "We are very proud of our artists and what they are creating. We have an extraordinary team who work well together. Their work and artistic sophistication is progressively getting better and better"

"Prana is a mid to large size studio, a size where we can produce longform projects on tight delivery schedules. We are growing, but as a young studio are building carefully for the longterm. We don't intend to be 3000!" she added.

Keeping in line with the kind of low profile that Prana has so far maintained, Kristin had a lot to say about the importance of maintaining client confidentiality and the need for the industry to collectively get sensitive to this issue.

She stated,"The better work, that is high end feature or game work based on franchises, etc. will not come into India unless clients have the sense that Indian houses respect the sanctity of NDAs, confidentiality agreements, proprietary assets, etc. It's crucial all studios guarantee this and collectively build a reputation where India is identified as a secure location for production."

Kristin also had a lot to say about current trends in CG and about India's chances in both the outsourcing and IP market. "We think the current wave India is experiencing is also being experienced by the rest of the world. This is driven by the ocean of Pixar and Dreamworks. As long as these two studios keep releasing great films driven by compelling stories and progressive technology, we believe there will be a reasonably steady appetite for CG. In India itself, the wave has been driven by the river of Mike Young Productions. Mike, Liz and Bill should be knighted for taking the first leap of faith, legitimizing the space by bringing Jakers! and subsequent projects into the country."

"As far as we can tell, already there is sufficient bandwidth available in the world for mainstream CG production. When it comes to "service work", unless India can do the best work in the world at the lowest prices, or provide superior artistry in a time-efficient manner, we will face increasingly stiff competition from some of the other Asian countries, particularly where the government is subsidizing the industry. Productivity, quality, and efficient output must increase in order to catch and surpass the competition." she added.

"It's our opinion that Indian studios will only be world class competitors when they can create -- from scratch -- original films (driven by great stories, fantastic concept art, and remarkable animation) which they wholly own. We love India and believe this is possible. India needs writers who can craft screenplays with an international sensibility -- written within a three act structure -- approximately 80-120 pages in length. We also need more world class concept artists. We're fortunate to have a few at Prana, but we're always looking for more. We invite anyone with a great portfolio to get in touch with us" concluded Kristin.

- Anand Gurnani