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Celebrating birth of Krishna through animation
By siliconindia
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Friday, 14 August 2009, 22:53 IST |
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Bangalore: India celebrates Janmashtami, the birthday of one of the most popular Hindu gods, Krishna today. Janmashtami celebrations are full of color - with different sweets being prepared at homes and distributed in the temples, ornate pujas being organized, devotional songs being sung and merry making.
Animation industry celebrates Janmashtami with a marathon of Little Krishna back to back episodes on Nickelodeon. "Krishna is the most known and revered brand having a cult following across the world, beyond the people of Indian origin. Secondly, the series has been created using state of the art 3D computer generated character animation in a manner that combines Indian design motifs with classical Western styles," said Ashish Kulkarni, CEO, BIG Animation (creators of Little Krishna).
Animation industry has been most active when it comes to festivals. It has grown tremendously in the last few years and has managed to reach out to a large audience in India as well as abroad. According to a report by Ernst and Young and NASSCOM, animation industry is set to grow at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 27 percent to reach $1163 million by 2012. In terms of revenue and growth, this is definitely a positive aspect, but majority of this revenue still comes from outsourcing projects from Hollywood. The lack of animated shows and original content creation is choking the animation industry.
So far most (almost all) of the animation projects in India have been on the strong and rich Indian mythology. The success of Hanuman has prompted several production houses in India to turn to animation of Hindu Mythologies. Since then many animated series and films have come out based on the battle between good and evil and Hindu Gods. Some of the famous animated film based on mythology include, Pandavas - The Five Warriors (first 3D animated full length feature from India), Hanuman, Ganesha, Krishna - The Birth, Gatothkacha, and the latest Krishna (Video trailer above). Arjun - The Warrior Prince, a movie based on the life of Arjun, the third Pandava brother in the Mahabharata, is in the pipeline.
There are still many challenges faced by Indian animation industry like low domestic demand for animated shows, lack of quality training, dependence on outsourcing industry and lack of variety.