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AP
govt. principal secy for IT Dr J C Mohanty
and Reliance Entertainment chairman Amit Khanna
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Day 2 at
NASSCOM's Animation India 2005 began with a keynote address by Reliance
Entertainment chairman Amit Khanna.
The well informed
Khanna spoke about the potential that the bandwidth revolution offered
to content creators and providers.
"There is a revival in investment in IT and ITes globally, the advancement
in digital compression technology is making bandwidth available the world
over. We are moving from C to KU band and in some parts of the world KA
is already in use. This means much more transponder capacity and bandwidth.
Bandwidth will no longer be a constraint" remarked Khanna.
"Currently
as part of the Reliance broadband initiative we have close to 250 webworlds
with bandwidth of 2mbps per node" "Gradually an online gaming
community is emerging" he added.
Drawing attention
to the gaming potential in the wireless space, Khanna stated, "The
penetration of data enabled phones is growing in the country. The Gaming
& animation industry can grow in the wireless space at 100% compounded
growth over the next 5-10 years"
Commenting
next on the issues that faced the animation industry Khanna said, "It
is a very sorry state to be in 2005. We talk about the huge potential,
but what have we done? The results are not commensurate with the potential.
The potential is huge. The global animation business is $50 Billion while
the Global Online and Gaming industry is $30Billion. The Indian animatics
industry is just worth $300 million. We are just nibbling at the edges"
"While looking at the sky we forget to look at the ground" continued
Khanna. "The biggest problem with the Indian animation industry is
the lack of skilled manpower.There are only
12 to 15,000 people in entire animatics industry.Till recently we did
not have enough training facility. We have been churning out people with
a little bit of flair. These software operators were picked up by sweatshops.
As expected, many of these folded up. In the last couple of years there
have been efforts at consolidation. There is still a big chasm that exists"
he added.
Important points made by Khanna
-Bollywood
directly employs 1.5 million people and indirectly employs 5 million people.
Indian Television directly employs 800,000 people and indirectly employs
2 million people.
How many does the Indian animation and gaming industry employ?
-We are
demographically the youngest nation in the world today. 50% of Indians
are in the 14 to 25 age group.(Immense potential for gaming)
- There
is very little effort related to creativity.
Very poor quality writing. No theoritical knowledge of writing for games.
- We need to work on the creative aspects if we want to jump from a $300
million industry to a few billion. This is immensely
possible. Human resource is the foundation of this business.Today most
writers for animation and gaming are half baked.
-We need
to train at least 5-10,000 at the minimum. To be called a succesful industry
at least 8 out of 10 studios should deliver.
- Get
more creative professionals involved in your work
- Ethnocentricity
is critical to success of any entertainment
- Dubbed
content can be originated in India
- Voicing,
Music is not upto global standards at the
moment
- Marketing
is an area which we need to understand, It is very important in a globally
competitive world.
- The
existing 10-12 studios must engage more creative professionals.
- The
government didn't set up an IT institute for Narayan Murthy, we have to
put in our own efforts.
Asking the
industry to get its act together and grow,Khanna concluded his address
saying "It is my earnest plea to all of you. From a cottage industry
let's at least grow to a medium sized industry. Let's have at least a
100 studios which employ over a 1000 people"
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