Animation is a lucrative career these days. A lot of new opportunities are falling in place. In the last two years, the domestic animation market has grown significantly and so has the quality of production. This makes animation a safe, long term career, as long as one chooses the right course and institute.
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Scope
Animation industry is booming in India and not just its usage in films, television has become a major part, but also other sectors like automobile designing, interior designing, gaming, scientific animation, digital tutorials show a much high incorporation of animation. Being a part of entertainment industry and having the power to create an unreal environment makes this industry generate as a unique combination of art and technology.
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The future of animation industry looks very bright. As per a Nasscom report, the animation industry in India was around US $460 million in 2008 and is set to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 27% to reach US $1.16 billion by 2012.
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Faculty members say that there is a shortage of trained professionals in the industry. "There are many multimedia experts in the city but there are hardly any animators, so at the end of 2009 the industry will need approximately 100000 animators and thus recession has not hit this sector," says Abhijit Bhadra, faculty animation, S T Infotech Limited.
Lajita Thampi agrees. "We had our placement expo for our students a few weeks ago and there were companies were recruiting animators. This is a clear sign that recession has not hit this profession," says Lajita, the placement head at Arena Animation.
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Nature of work
Creating an animation consists of idea development, pre -production, production and postproduction. The characters are created in idea development. In pre-production, the ideas are converted into layouts. Scriptwriting, storyboarding, character development, backgrounds, layout designing, animatics and voice come under pre-production. The actual result of the story can be visualised in the production stage which is a blend of animation, in-betweening or tweening (i.e. the creation of intermediate frames between two main images to give the appearance that the first image flows smoothly into the second one), scanning, compositing (i.e. combining images from different sources to create a finished frame of animation), background preparation and colouring. Final sound recordings, colour editing, testing and special sound effects are all added at the post-production stage. Post-production stage activities include editing, special effects (SFX), colour correction, compositing, voice and music editing and rendering. Rendering gives the final touches to an animation scene, in which the data is converted to raster image or animation.
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Content developers
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Modellers - They make the models for animation. Must have a solid understanding of anatomy, form and volume.
Story board artists - Those with strong drawing skills, who can visualize a sequence of events from frame to frame.
Character animators - They bring characters to life and generally have knowledge of traditional animation, stop-motion animation as well as claymation
Background artists - They specialise in painting the background of the characters and setting the background for the project.
Layout artists - They decide the lighting and camera angles and sketch the background design for the animation.
2D animators - They are involved in the creation of a high volume of separate drawings that define a sequence.
In-between animators - They have to learn all the basics of animation and are at the beginning position in the career.
Scanner operators - They scan the clean up artists’ drawings.
Compositing artists - Layering individual frames of animation on top of one another to create final images.
These images are then strung together to create complete shots or mini animated movies.
Visual effects artists - They integrate live-action footage with computer-generated imagery or other elements.
Audio and video specialists - Designing the sound for animation and also editing the visuals with softwares such as Avid and Final Cut Pro.
Visualisers – Visualise the script and create basic designs for the project.
Texture artists - Apply surface to the 3D character, object or environment.
Rigging artists - They take the modelled, textured 3D character or object and set it up with a skeletal system or joints (if required). Without this step, the 3D model would not be able to animate, talk or move fluidly and correctly.
Clean-up artists - They check the accuracy and consistency of the designs and drawings. A good clean up artist should have excellent draftsman skill with the knowledge of density, width, volume and mass.
Lighting artists - They create variations of shade, colour intensity and shadows.
Digital ink and paint artists - They give colours to each frame.
Compositors - They bring together all the different characters and backgrounds into a single frame.
Editors - They edit the visuals with softwares like Avid and Final Cut Pro.
Key frame animators - Draw pictures of a movement’s beginning and end.
Rendering artists - They take all the data in a scene such as models, textures, animation, lighting, etc and output the correct combination in the form of individual frames of animation.
3D animators - They take the sculpted, textured and rigged 3D model and breathe life into it. This is done by putting in order the key frames so that they appear to be in motion.
Image Editors - They assemble visual and audio components of a film into a coherent and effective whole.
Compositors - They combine visual elements from separate sources into single images, often to create an illusion. It involves the replacement of selected parts of an image with other materials.
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Visual effects (commonly shortened to VFX) are the various processes by which imagery is created and/or manipulated outside the context of a live action shoot. Visual effects often involve the integration of live-action footage and computer-generated imagery in order to create environments which look realistic, but would be dangerous, or costly, to capture on film. They have become increasingly common in big-budget films, and have also recently become accessible to amateur filmmakers with the introduction of affordable animation and compositing software.
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Educational Qualification
Students need to have passed their Class XII with a minimum of 45 per cent for a diploma or a bachelor's degree. Arts graduates are generally given preference for postgraduate degrees, although students with a bachelor's degree in any discipline can apply.
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Reputed institutes like National Institute of Design (NID) have entrance exams that test a student's perception, attitude, aptitude, achievement and motivation essential for a challenging and satisfying design career.
"We do not look for excellent marks all we need is creativity accompanied with innovation and power of imagination," says a HR personnel who declined to be named.
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Skills
A creative field, animation requires imaginative skills along with a penchant for sketching and drawing. If one is considering a career in this in animation he/she should be prepared to put in long hours of hard work and dedication into his work.
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Jitendra Arora, a second-year member of the Faculty Development Programme, NID, says: "One should have a good concept of colours and be very, very passionate about their work, because animation is not a glamorous career but definitely a exciting one.
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"There is no need of any extraordinary talent in a student to be an animator he just needs superb visualisation that needs to be polished," explains Bhardra.
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Specialization
Specialisations can be done in the field of 3D or 2D modelling, special FX creation, animation in general, character designing, game designing and interaction designing.
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For programming and game design, individuals from IT, engineering and science background are generally given preference due to nature of job. For graphic and concept artists, fine arts background is considered a must.
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Professional courses
There are several courses available in the field of animation and multimedia, each if them are aimed at equipping a person in various styles and techniques that are quintessential in this profession. These include:
· Traditional animation
· Stop-motion animation
· Computer generated 3D and 2D animation
· Clay animation
· Photoshop
· Human anatomy
· Drawing
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Remuneration
A good salary is the most attractive part of this profession. Within a few years these professionals can earn six-digit salaries. As a junior animator or trainee one could get between Rs.8,000-15,000 per month. With three to five years experience an animator will get Rs.25,000- 40,000. And a well-experienced animator who has a good portfolio of excellent animation work could easily get Rs.50,000- 60,000 per month.
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Institutes offering courses in Animation |
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Ahmedabad |
Animation Film Design |
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Mumbai |
Animation and Game Design |
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80+ centres all over India |
Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming, etc |
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Mumbai |
2D, 3D |
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Bangalore |
Animation and Game Design |
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Pune |
Animation and Game Design |
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Mumbai |
3D |
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4 centers |
2 D, 3D |
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Thiruvananthapuram |
2D, 3D |
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Toonz Webel Aacademy |
Kolkata |
2D, 3D |
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Chennai |
2D, 3D, Visual Effects, Game Design |
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ANTS |
Bangalore |
2D, 3D |
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Mumbai |
2D, 3D |
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Hyderabad |
2D, 3D, Editing |
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Kolkata |
2D, 3D |
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3 centers |
2D, 3D |
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Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi |
2D, 3D, Web Animation |
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