Interview with DreamWorks‘Shelly Page 08 August 2008 08:50 PM
Animation conglomerate DreamWorks recently partnered with Bengaluru based Paprikaas Interactive to set up its base in India. In a step toward scaling up its operation in India, the company is on a major talent acquisition spree. With the current team of 40 including French and Indian artists, DreamWorks plans to expand to 150 in a year‘s time.
Shelley Page
DreamWorks Head of International Outreach Shelley Page was in Mumbai for a couple of weeks and visited few animation institutes as a part of her outreach program. AnimationXpress.com‘sMoney Sharma had a freewheeling chat with Shelley at Whistling Woods International, where she spoke about DreamWorks‘ plans in India, the Bengaluru setup, animation talent in the country and more…
Excerpts…
Please share about your role in India. My role as head of International outreach is to be involved with looking for talent to join us internationally, including for the two studios in California and now for our new set up in Bengaluru. We came here [to India] several years ago as we were attracted by talent that already exists in India. It‘s an exciting opportunity for us as it gives us a chance to expand our production environment.
We already know that there is a strong talent pool here. My work is to go beyond the existing talent in the studios and look at the next generation of talent coming out of the animation schools.
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What are the reasons behind your shift to India? This is a very exciting opportunity for us because it is very difficult for us to expand in California for a variety of reasons, not least because the talent pool there is heavily fished by all our competitors. It‘s very difficult being just round the corner from Disney, Pixar and Sony. Coming to India gives us an opportunity to bring something new here. There are a lot of great studios here and I have always been impressed by the quality of work I have seen from the leading studios like Prana, Crest, Pixion and so on.
Tell us more about the Bengaluru setup. We have supervisors trained at DreamWorks who will exclusively work on our projects in India. The second thing is that the Bengaluru team will be equivalent to the teams in California. This [the Bangalore setup] is not an outsource situation, but a new environment which is going to be equalized with the California studios in one pipeline.
We brought in a group of recent graduates from two leading animation schools in France and trained them in California. At the same time we are looking at a new team of experienced artists from India. So what we have is a team of very experienced people from India (about 25) coupled with inexperienced but equally talented people from France (about 12), hence the first team will number at 40. By next year when we are in production of the first project, ultimately we‘ll be around the 150 mark. A lot of people would be trained from India.
When will the production at the Bengaluru setup begin and what are the projects under the pipeline? The first project will be a direct TV special for NBC in the US which is a Christmas Special called Mad Santa. This project is a very important one for us because it is using characters from Madagascar. We did a similar thing last year with the Shrek characters and it was very successful. 24 million people saw it on the first screening. These things will be shown for ever. When you make a TV special in the US that‘s popular the coming generations end up watching them. So the quality of these series has to be equivalent to the quality of our features, because that‘s what people are expecting to see. We are bringing this project [Mad Santa] in its entirety to India.
We will be commencing work by October and the final product has to be delivered by October 2009. So it‘s a tight schedule. But by that time the team should be pretty integrated; they would be bringing in new people all the time. By then, we are pretty confident that we will have a great crew.
About relationship between Paprikaas and DreamWorks… It‘s a very unique situation. When we first came to India, we explored a number of different options on how we could have a presence in India, which included buying an existing studio or partnering with a VFX studio. Finally we realized that we needed an equal partner. We were approached by Technicolor in the US who had recently acquired Paprikaas Intercative studio in Bengaluru and they approached us to be a creative partner. This was perfect timing for us.
So what has happened is that Paprikaas has moved into a new building in two floors and we have moved into the same building on an adjoining floor. So we are linked in terms of the structure, but otherwise we are a completely separate unit.
What sort of talent are you looking for in India? Obviously we are looking for experienced artists. That inevitably means people who are working on other projects. We are very clear to the people whom we talk to; that we want them to complete whatever their current responsibility is. We have told everybody whom we meet, to let us know when they might be interested in shifting after their current projects. Beyond that we have certain needs. Mainly we are looking into areas like VFX, rigging and lighting… the more technical areas.
What about your plans of training young talent in India? The team that we have is very strong and we are happy with it. Hence we are not aggressively looking at many people at this point. Our next stage, for which I am here, is to look for juniors who will join us as interns or trainees and eventually as employees within the next one year. And we want a lot of those; we are very excited about the young artists we have met so far.
Which are the next movies from the DreamWorks stable? Madagascar 2 will come out towards the end of this year. After that, we will switch our entire production pipeline into 3D stereo, which is a very big challenge for us. That‘s another reason why we are excited to expand our production capacity to India. For one year we will produce only one movie Monsters Vs Aliens, which will be our first entirely 3D stereo movie.
In 2010 we have three releases in 3D including Shrek Goes Fourth and two others. Among the other two, one is How to Train a Dragon, which is my personal favourite. These movies will be produced in California, especially in terms of getting the voice-overs done.
Any comment on the kind of animation from India? There is some really good work coming from India. And since I am very interested in Bollywood, I am also looking forward to future projects which link the two. I have seen a few mythology projects but am looking forward to projects which are based on our model.
What are your plans with the Bengaluru setup? We are here for the long term… it‘s not a short term project. We will be hiring more people but we the intention is to not grow too big and stay the optimum size.
TurtleinMotion Studio,a group company
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Matte Painting
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Cornershop Animation Studio, A Zee Network
Company (Essel Group Enterprise) which focuses on 3D and 2D animation content
development and broadcast media has opportunities in various departments.
BIG AIMS, a premier animation training institute
of BIG Animation (I) Pvt. Ltd. a part of Reliance Big Entertainment - the largest
entertainment group in India is hiring for following position for various franchisee
locations in India:
Sheen Animation Studio Pvt. Ltd. A Delhi
based Production Studio is looking for talents in 2D and 3D for their ongoing
and new international as well as national projects. If you have the experience
an expertise of 2-5 years in the relevant domain handling any of the following
functions, apply in confidence.
Hiring for all VFX Positions
ANTS is seeking talented artists and teaching
faculties to be a part of the expansion team and work on various national and
international projects. Areas of key vacancies are: Lighting, Animation and Rigging,
Dynamics, Game Design, Texturing, Creative Art, Designer, Web Developer and Content Creator. Interested candidates can send their resumes and works to 
India`s No.1 Multimedia & Animation Academy
with one of the best state of the Art infrastructure requires trainers in the
field of:
