nimax is angry. It believes that a vast majority of television viewers in India don�t understand or appreciate the difference between animation and cartoons. To provide some of its viewers a crash course in animation as an art form it kicked off a series of animation workshops (in association with Indiantelevision.com�s Animation �xpress) which concluded recently.
The workshops were held in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata and Hyderabad. The groundwork was laid during the �Get Irfan to School Contest� which was held late last year. During the course of the contest the channel had requested the principals of the 500 schools that cricketer Irfan Pathan visited to nominate two artistically inclined students and an art teacher to attend the animation workshop. The idea obviously was to catch them young. Around 1,000 kids and 500 art teachers attended the workshops across India. The average age of the students was between eight and 14 years.
"Animation is a growing industry in India," says Rohit Bhandari, assistant vice-president, sales and marketing. "Very soon, studios across the world will start outsourcing the product from India."... more