Right from shutter up to the time that the store management is in the midst of shutting shop, a great deal happens at the Retail Superstore. That great deal of activity includes a great deal of kids buying a great deal of animated DVDs. This is a daily phenomenon in the developed markets especially North America, Europe, Australia and Japan etc.
And this is exactly what fires up the instincts of many an animation business head, the world over. The urge to create Animation Brands that will sell well and will lend themselves across platforms.
Amongst one of the most well known marketing brains in Indian animation, Biren Ghose too harbours similar aspirations, to create animation brands. He is in fact, in the midst of creating the same in his latest role as the President & CEO of Toronto based Kahani Inc.
Formed nearly a year ago, the base of Kahani Inc’s business philosophy is to own Animation IP and when feasible, to create and distribute it as well. The Toronto based company has three member board including Chairman Akash Sahai, President & CEO Biren Ghose, and Secretary & Treasurer R K Moorthy with Rajiv Maikhuri as the Creative Producer/Director.
Speaking to Animation Xpress.com Kahani Inc President & CEO Biren Ghose shared, “I first got involved with Kahani nearly a year ago as a producer on three of their projects. I am a marketing person at heart and the ‘Animation Brands’ approach that Kahani had got me hooked and for the past one year, I have been completely focused on Kahani and the brands we are building that we have initiated out here”
The Toronto based Animation player makes Indian themed animation content for global audiences. The approach is to create ideas, stories and concepts in house; to develop a story line and character designs by contracting it to the best talent and then farming out pre production, production and post production work to specialist studios on either a service-fee or co production model.
“We are working with highly experienced creative people including writers, directors and illustrators who are mostly Canadian, some being of Indian origin,” shared Ghose. “We generally put up 2-3 member teams on each property that we develop. Usually the writer is Canadian of Indian origin and can provide the Indian flavour and theme, while the Illustrator is Canadian, someone who can create Illustrations that will have an international look and feel”
Current projects at Kahani include a pre schooler D2DVD titled Raju the Autorickshaw which it is co producing with Toronto based J2K. “We have entered into a MoU with a distributor to ensure a minimum volume. The product will hit retail by summer ’07” shared Ghose.
Another title currently being worked on at Kahani is CoderMan targeted at the D2DVD market for 8-14 year olds. “At Kahani, we believe that the only thing lacking with the IT industry is its own super hero and so we have Coder Man whose super powers lie in his programming and soft coding skills! He solves the world’s problems using his techno-saavy mind rather than gadgets and gizmos as in other muscular heros!!” quips Ghose.
On being asked about TV series, Ghose shared that, “Currently we believe that are almost 3000 pitches made by global producers competing for about 80-100 broadcast slots available in a typical year. Of that, close to 15-20 would be “preferred” in favour of last year’s successful producers or big name writer/director talent! That makes the odds heavily stacked against a “new producer” trying to launch a new genre of contemporary ‘Indianesque’ content for the global market! Now consider instead that we have a fully finished in-market Animated Brand in the mainstream US market as a DVD; the metrics and feedback can immediately make us an inside track runner to approach the acquisitions executives at the broadcast networks! The entire model changes, we are then licensing our IP with no risk to the buyer on outcomes and we continue to own the underlying rights for regions , platforms and extentions for years to come! That’s our preferred route and strategy.”
“Another reason for us opting for the original content D2DVD space is that in our observations of the North American market, we believe that at least for the next 12-24 months, there is a demand -supply gap for original animated kids content in the DVD space. And hence we feel this is the best space for us to be in! Taking advantage of this ‘window'” concluded Ghose.
