Re Lucky Dog - having followed the course of animation in India since the early 80’s I’ve always felt that the future lies in the hands of independents, and it’s been a long journey.
A bit like imagining what American animation would be like if Disney’s “Snow White” had not been the huge success that it was.
The early ‘00’s were marked by a few prestigious, well-financed features launched to great fanfare but that uniformly tanked despite the involvement of many talents - a case of running before you can walk.
Sitting here in London and taking a somewhat cynical view of what was playing out , a view shared by Ram Mohan, the director of the “Ramayana”, I think I may have annoyed a few of the main players but frankly, no one was going to listen to what I had to say..:)
I do remember a very respected animation scholar telling me that she “didn’t expect much” when it came to animation from India so I guess it’s just been a matter of time for things to gain traction as people work in private on their films.
The big, blousy, high profile projects have mostly failed and carry a great deal of financial risk that demand international distribution, but that hasn’t been forthcoming in the past and the subjects have been too localised - the “Ramayana” being a case in point.
Another aspect has been access & I think YouTube has been the big game changer as far as getting those independent shorts out there and finding an audience eg in the case of Eekasaurus’ films - films are no longer subject to the whims of possessive distributors.
Thanks for your insights on this! It does seem like the internet (YouTube especially) has been huge in changing the status quo for indie animators in India. That and the slow, steady buildup over the course of decades -- Vaibhav Studios (for one) is more than 20 years old now, and it just came out with an indie feature film. Like you wrote, it's definitely been a long journey. But there's a lot of great stuff coming out in recent years, and it seems like there's a lot more destined to appear soon.
Re Lucky Dog - having followed the course of animation in India since the early 80’s I’ve always felt that the future lies in the hands of independents, and it’s been a long journey.
A bit like imagining what American animation would be like if Disney’s “Snow White” had not been the huge success that it was.
The early ‘00’s were marked by a few prestigious, well-financed features launched to great fanfare but that uniformly tanked despite the involvement of many talents - a case of running before you can walk.
Sitting here in London and taking a somewhat cynical view of what was playing out , a view shared by Ram Mohan, the director of the “Ramayana”, I think I may have annoyed a few of the main players but frankly, no one was going to listen to what I had to say..:)
I do remember a very respected animation scholar telling me that she “didn’t expect much” when it came to animation from India so I guess it’s just been a matter of time for things to gain traction as people work in private on their films.
The big, blousy, high profile projects have mostly failed and carry a great deal of financial risk that demand international distribution, but that hasn’t been forthcoming in the past and the subjects have been too localised - the “Ramayana” being a case in point.
Another aspect has been access & I think YouTube has been the big game changer as far as getting those independent shorts out there and finding an audience eg in the case of Eekasaurus’ films - films are no longer subject to the whims of possessive distributors.
Thanks for your insights on this! It does seem like the internet (YouTube especially) has been huge in changing the status quo for indie animators in India. That and the slow, steady buildup over the course of decades -- Vaibhav Studios (for one) is more than 20 years old now, and it just came out with an indie feature film. Like you wrote, it's definitely been a long journey. But there's a lot of great stuff coming out in recent years, and it seems like there's a lot more destined to appear soon.