The Dinosaur of Indian Animation

E_suresh

E Suresh Kumar has a nothing-is-impossible attitude about him as he ventures into his second entrepreneurial venture – Studio Eeksaurus that he started last year. “After 11 years of successful work with Famous House of Animation, we called off our association. It was time to branch out on my own.”

Supported by wife Nilima, E Suresh set up the Studio Eeksauraus Productions Pvt. Ltd. The production house focuses on design, creative content development for both TV and cinema, pre-production and production of ads, short films and feature films. The fact that the entire team of 35 designers from the Famous House of Animation moved with him to realise this vision is testimony to Suresh’s cult status as an animation guru and a great leader.

The story started when Suresh passed out of the prestigious National Institute of Design, NID in 1997. “I had a completely different set of skills compared to traditional animation, which was the only prevalent form at that time in India. When we set up Famous in 1998, we had just one room to operate out of and we were doing whatever work came our way with crazy timelines,” remembers a nostalgic Suresh.

Famous started by making Amar Chitra Katha into real animation films. But, he had to shelve that project and get into a self-sustaining way of running the company by getting into advertising films direction and production.

“It was probably too early for animation coupled with poor awareness among broadcasters about animation as a medium” says Suresh, “perhaps we were thinking 10 years ahead of our time. Today, when I see Amar Chitra Katha as an animated series on Cartoon Network, I must say it is very badly done!”

What’s your contribution to the success of animation in India?

Animation was rare in ad films in 1998, people understood only ‘Disney’ kind of animation. We broke many myths and people started accepting animation. We popularized animation in various types other than the ‘Disney’ kind of animation. That was one of the key achievements and a key strength of our company.

Till some years back, animation was mainly used in children-oriented commercials and cartoons. We made the animated Amaron Battery commercials. It was for the first time people used animation as a marketing tool to target grown ups. That was path breaking!

I don’t want to claim we started clay animation in the country because it’s a very old area. But we introduced clay animation to the Indian market and popularized it.

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What made companies get into animation for marketing?

Many sports stars like Saurav Ganguly and Ajay Jadega were at their peak and modeled for a lot of ads. But the moment they got into a scandal or a dip in their career, advertisers moved away from them. Animated characters are different!

Animation is classless, doesn’t have sex biases, and does not create any kind of status difference. Also, animated characters do not get into scams and scandals. So, you need not bother about whether a character would do a Tiger Woods!

What makes clients come to you?

Clients found us as more like a design house rather than a film making house that trades skills for passion. We work very closely with our clients to find their requirements, their product’s reach, and their target groups.

They found us as a problem-solving bunch of people who could help find a solution through animation as a medium, rather than those who just make animation from the story provided.

It hasn’t been easy to convince clients; we always put in lot more effort than the usual. Seeing this kind of sincerity and focus, clients get interested in working with us. This is the impetus that has brought our company to this level.

Your company has received a lot of broadcasting awards. Is your company the best animation company out there?

We are definitely at the top in terms of quality! But we are yet to make the mark in terms of team size and revenues!

We are not a cheap, third world animation BPO or do factory production kind of work. We are designers and problem solvers and we believe in developing our own content while maintaining highest standards of quality.

Moreover, we would not mind growing into a large company of 600 people. As long as everyone is aligned to a singular goal of making fantastic animation content, it’s good. Having 600 people with conflicts in interests and goals is not growth.

A good animation company must have animators who are complete film-makers. Animators must know everything from character design, storyboarding, animation and editing to sound design. Our studio holds screenings and artists are exposed to a wide variety of animated films. This helps motivate our people to excel at their work. The studio also holds theatre and drama workshops. Suresh asks “Afterall, if we don’t know how to emote, how do we make our characters do the same?”

You talked about cheap animation BPO companies in India…

Many companies started outsourced animation work – a service model like a outsourced BPO operation. Foreign companies sent finishing work to India and the BPOs delivered it dirt cheap. Many animation BPO companies mushroomed all over the place but few survived.

Have you looked at the way how design schools like NID produce animation designers? Every year only 10-15 animators come into the market from these good schools. This is not going to satisfy the huge demand in the market.

On top of that, local institutes that claim to teach animation, churn out poor quality kids. A few institutes started by animation studios are churning out better expertise in students, but even they need a giant leap in quality of education and output. With such poor quality of animation input, many animation companies who depended on these kind of people had to shut down!

The moment one company shut down, another came up and the cycle repeated. People kept moving from Cochin to Hyderabad to Pune to Mumbai, and so on. This kind of movement wiped out good talent. Now, a limited quantity of good talent is spread all over and they cannot do what they could have done staying together!

Kids need to understand animation properly and know what they want to do. It shouldn’t be a shallow dive, they should look deep into what they want to do in animation. Do they want to be film makers or do they want to be specialists in a particular process? The threshold for people to call themselves animators has to be far higher.

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What are the misconceptions about animation in the Indian film industry?

There is low awareness about animation; however misconceptions are far bigger. People think that most animation work is done by computers. People always ask me – with computers you don’t have to work at all these days right? Even after many years, people only know animation as a term, but they don’t know how it is done.

Bollywood people think live action film directors can direct animation easily. Look at the international scenario where Spielberg has set up an animation company – Dreamworks, which produces animation films. But he has never bothered to direct animation films, although he is a brilliant director himself. He is intelligent enough to understand that and delegates responsibility to people who can do it better.

Have you seen Shrek? Eddie Murphy doesn’t sound like Eddie Murphy when the donkey talks, does he? You believe that the donkey is expressing itself and that is its voice. You don’t imagine Eddie Murphy’s face talking that. That kind of talent has to evolve in India!

We heard that you met up the I&B minister recently. Why?

The government does not realize the goldmine they are sitting on. We have been asking the Government of India to promote Indian animation industry. Unless the government is told, they’ll not be able to act on it. Do you expect them to know everything that is going on?

Do you know that Japan’s largest industry is not steel but animation and Korea’s third largest industry is animation? A little bit of push from their side and this industry can flourish to be the strongest industries of the country.

In India, we have so much of talent, so many stories, and more than a billion people who not tuned to animation. So, if you are able to tune the audience into an animation savvy audience, you’ve got it all: a big industry and everyone will come here to showcase their work.

We acted like cry babies! We were a panel of 10 people from visual effects, animation and gaming industries who made a case to the minister. She was kind enough to give us ample time and talked to us in detail about the animation industry in India. She wants further proactive action from us too.

JAM

Is there any particular unforgettable moment in your career that you would like to share?

I think this was in 1998-99, when we realized that the company that we are running is not going to work out and we probably might have to shut shop. I was working for Famous and there was a point when I was asked to shut shop overnight. We had 15 people I had to give an assurance to the management that I take it under me to find money to pay everyone. From that point onwards, I started marketing the company myself by going to agencies and showing our work. That was a big turning point for us.

If there was one person for whom you would like to design a thing. Who is the person and what would you design?

Right now, I would like to design a bullet proof jacket for the tigers to save them from the poachers.

One word that would define your design style?

Clever

As a designer from the animation industry, one thing that you would like to change in the present system?

The hype about animation

What is your favorite color?

Blues

What are you afraid of regarding the future?

Animated characters asking the creators for royalty!

How do you differentiate yourself from other designer?

I am ‘EEKS, the Dinosaur’

What are the challenges you face in the present context?

Lack of refined talent and overambitious youngsters

One aspect of design you give the highest priority to?

Process

One design-related book you highly recommend to read?

I shall write one!

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