"Pre and Post Production periods in film making are getting shorter due to rising costs. Shipping out some less demanding shots is a good option"

You know that there is an India story in animation and VFX when Industry Heavy Weights like Colin Brown frequent the country and studios therein. The VFX & Animation major was in India recently for FICCI FRAMES 2006.

Over the past 13 years, Brown's studio in the UK, Cinesite, has worked on a number of Hollywood Top Grossers including Harry Potter and Charlie & The Chocolate Factory.

Just as FRAMES was about to get underway, Animation 'xpress Editor Anand Gurnani met with the Industry stalwart who gave a quick interview on issues like Indo UK CoProduction treaty, HR, The outsourcing business model and other related topics.

Excerpts

We'd like to have your comments on the Indo UK co production treaty
The Co-Pro treaty between India and UK hasn't been signed yet. I believe that we (India & UK) should work more closely together. Each of us stands to benefit in many ways. UK based studios have good access to funds and developed markets. If the Indo UK co pro treaty happens then and a lot more animation funded in the UK can come to India and the Indian film and animation industry can get access to those funds as well as markets.

In short the benefits out of this treaty include Access to markets, Cultural Exchange and Financial benefits.

What is the level of awareness about Indian animation in the UK?
Probably some work has to be done in the UK to raise awareness that India can do some great work. The best thing that could happen would be a Indo UK co produced feature that did well in the UK.

Being an animation and FX studio that out sources work to Asia, could you share with us the outsourcing perspective?
Globally due to rising costs, pre and post production periods in film production are getting shorter. So shipping out some less demanding shots is a good option.

Like in any other business what matters most to the big studios is cost and along with that comes in the consideration of quality, efficiency, and turnaround and so on. The usual demand is always more, much faster and for lesser money. That's the constant model for the last 13 years that I have been running my company.

Cost is a major factor for outsourcing.

Comments on India in that context?
India has a lot of bright people. The country has a lot to attract people to it. Studios in India however have to make sure that their model never loses sight of the cost advantage. If you do lose the cost advantage there is a problem. One has to remember that if the industry is growing fast in India, it is growing at an even faster rate in China.

India is all about potential. Potential as a word is 'future, conditional' Actually, there aren't a lot of huge companies right now. People are developing quite slowly in a way which is gradual. Training is needed on a much larger scale.

What I see is that over time with a growing number of artists working on international projects and also thorough training, you would develop a large artist community. The model for the Indian studios then would be to make a small sized core creative team and hire freelance artists on a project to project basis. Something much like a floating talent scenario.

Have you worked with Indian studios?
I Have been observing India for quite some while, though we just started working with Indian studios recently when we farmed out some shots for Storm Breaker to Chennai based Frameflow. Our experience working with Frameflow was "very good" and that much of that was down to Mahdu. We will not just work with one studio; we want a number of suppliers. Moving ahead we'd like to do something bigger with Frameflow and other studios.

Your comments on Indian studios?
Just as I said, we've just begun working with Indian studios, but again I have been visiting India and observing the Indian animation space for quite a while now and from a technical and technology point of view the Indian studios are extremely good. Where things need to improve are on the management and business development fronts. They are very keen on over selling. If I had to make commitments based on Indian studios commitments', I would have to be extremely cautious and wary before doing so

In terms of art & creativity, I would want to have a producer and creative director supervising the project. That would be advantageous for the Indian artists too, in that they would get guidance and direction. I believe that if you look at the demographics, most Indian artists are young, single and they are looking to work in better projects and its not just money that they are looking for.

One more thing, while some Indian studios look after their artists very well, some don't. I'd like to emphasise that the sweatshop model doesn't work in animation and VFX. In UK, we don't have employees we have colleagues.The bosses here have to understand that too.

Another thing that needs to improve in India is the level of animation education. The training has to be good, legitimate and of such a quality that the students can be recognized and appreciated not only locally but internationally too. If I was a young aspiring student of animation in India, I would be very careful about where I went because there are not many great places to go.

Cinesite Experience on Harry Potter?
Warner Bros did Harry Potter in UK for two reasons, talent and financials. Ist Harry potter Cinesite did some shots in UK, 2nd Harry Potter we did some more work and a lot more in the 3rd one. Now Harry Potter can be started and fully completed in the UK, that's because our artists have become so experienced on that project. Similarly this is what I was saying about India, the more the co production treaties, the more international quality work that the Indian artists work on, the faster they will grow.

Cinesite is a Kodak company. Your perspective on 'Film vs Digital'?
Film is never going to go away. It is the preferred capture media. There are only about 16 to 20 tape less digital cameras operational currently. Recent experiences on digital have been interesting, One major production was working on tape less cameras and there was a fault on the CCD that created huge problems. They had to write algorithms to remove the artifacts.

Digital projection, on the other hand looks set to grow rapidly. In terms of DI too, it's a great thing. A lot of DP's may disagree but the fact is a lot of problems can be tackled at post, thanks to DI. Besides it can held in creating subtleties of mood and you can play around with a whole lot of parameters. The communication between the director and the artists in the DI pipeline like the colorist, the scanning artist etc has to be very good.

Cinesite was a pioneer in DI. We did one of the first DI for a film 'Oh Brother Where art thou' the movie was created by the Cohen Brothers in 99. Even earlier than that, in 96 we had done DI for a part of the movie Pleasant Ville. We are no longer doing DI, but we still do a lot of scanning. We do a lot of super 2k which means we scan it at 4K and apply an algorithm to take out small amount of details and then process it as a 2k frame. It saves time on rendering, yet giving 4K kind of a result. We did that for Harry Potter, Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, Troy etc

What are the exciting trends that you see in VFX and Animation globally?
Exciting thing is that more and more films have VFX in them and most of the films that are box office toppers have had a great amount of VFX in them.

One thing however surprises me. VFX plays an important role in helping the director execute his vision on screen thereby being one of the critical components of BO success for movies. However VFX artists would have to wait till the end of the credit rolls to see their name. I'd like the Directors Guild of America to reconsider where within the credit rolls should the names of VFX artists figure. Better Credit. That's an issue.