Goodbye Hollywood, Hello Haalivud?

From Spiderman’s realistic skyscraper slinging to Keanu Reeve’s bullet dodging in The Matrix, computer-aided animation has come a long way in bringing our wildest imaginations to the silver screen. The entertainment industry is raking in big time from the digital effects business, where a single animated movie such as the recent Tom Hanks flick ‘Polar Express’ can cost upto ‘a million dollars per minute’; NASCOMM estimates global revenues to clock a massive US$70 billion from this sector alone by 2005.

The good news is that the international special effects industry, in particular the studios in US and Europe, is eagerly outsourcing computer graphics (CG) work from its leading film and television series to other cost effective avenues such as Korea and Philippines. In return the companies get high standard CG work done at only 10 to 40 percent of the original cost it would take them to complete the project at home.
India too is cashing in, with current earnings tipped at US$150 million according to a recent CNN report. 2008 is expected to be the year when 300,000 of the enormous Indian tech force will dedicate itself exclusively to this trade.

Pakistan, on the other hand, has recently woken up to the huge potential in this area. Presently there’s only one animation house in the country, Post Amazers, that boasts a portfolio of international projects in hand including the Hollywood blockbusters ‘Exorcist-The Beginning’ and ‘Son of Mask’. On a positive note, the Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB) has started to show ‘interest’ in this arena and started off on the right chord last June when it invited an internationally renowned CG artist of Pakistani origin, Muqeem Khan, for a workshop in Lahore.

Currently the ‘daal roti’ of all the local animation business combined comes from TV commercials, many of which create special effects that border narrowly on the lines of lunacy. Cases include dancing cows for a washing soap, detergent boxes capable of acrobatic feats and a 2D animation of an annoying fat cat that promotes bubble gum. The last example was actually created by an overseas group informs Asif Iqbal, CEO Post Amazers, who puts the entire earning of the local animation trade down to ‘a million dollars’.

An encouraging sign is that Pakistan is witnessing a revolution in the electronic medium. Already 12 new local TV channels have sprung up with 34 more in the pipeline. FM radio too is getting a major boost with 55 licenses in the offing from the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA). Ironically, because of this very boom we have ourselves a cart put before the horse situation, where although the medium is there, the trained creative lot required to run the show that includes animators, film makers, script writers, producers, directors, creative managers, actors, radio DJs etc. isn’t. In fact, not until recently, there wasn’t a single film making or acting school available in the country that could polish the creative skills of our talented community. Even now that the National Academy of Performing Arts (NAPA), an acting and music school, has been formed in Karachi under the chairmanship of Zia Moheyuddin and the first department to offer a four year bachelors degree in television and film has been launched at NCA Lahore, the results of these initiatives will not be seen until at least for the next few years.

Against this backdrop, the animation and video production houses are left with no other option but to impart on-the-job training to new recruits. Terming it ‘a missed opportunity’, Asif states that the government could have nurtured an industry of upto five to six thousand animators just for local projects if it had capitalized on these upcoming channels from the start. To achieve that, the government needed to formulate futuristic policies, such as a mandatory children’s hour slot with programs containing locally developed 2D or 3D cartoons for television. But since no such policies are in place even now, the increase in TV channels won’t necessarily entail a huge demand for animators, who derive their work primarily from advertising agencies.

While stressing the need to develop an ‘infrastructure’ in order to create an animation industry, Tahir Moosa a partner in Sharp Image, points out that none of the art institutes here, be it NCA Lahore, the Karachi School of Art, Indus Valley or the Visual Studies department of KU, are delivering ‘professionals or even semi-professionals’ that can be labeled as digital artists. Further, he goes on to say that ‘we’re churning out technicians rather than engineers, capable of using popular animation tools such as Maya or 3D Studio Max, but those that lack the essential story board and character building skills.’ He believes that things can change for the better if these institutes start offering specific degree programs in animation like they do for communication design, graphic design and the fine arts.

Taking the cue from our local tech leaders, the Ministry of IT&T has started to collaborate with NCA Lahore to launch six month certificate courses in animation and video production. Apart from hiring an American and a German teacher, this evening program will hire the services of noted drama writer Asghar Nadeem Syed to teach story writing, TV producer Shaukat Zainul Abidin to impart production skills, and Faryal Gauhar to coach on culture and film. The government has agreed to sponsor 90% of the total fee for each of these 70 seats, 40 to 45 for animation and 25 to 30 for video production, requiring every student to pay only Rs. 2000 per month. Moreover the Ministry of Education has approved a generous grant of Rs. 40 million for the purchase of equipment to be installed at the newly established Film and Television Department of NCA, for which the whole of Sindh got only one seat out of the total 16 seats offered in their degree program.

One wonders why the art schools in Karachi and elsewhere have been ignored with similar kind of opportunities. Dr. Amir Matin, the Managing Director PSEB, offers this explanation: ‘There is no particular reason for the initiative not being offered to art schools in Karachi. In fact, we have been urging the animation industry to set up a center of excellence in Karachi in collaboration with an art school, and have formally requested them to submit proposals. However, the quality of the proposals submitted was unfortunately not such that they could be funded. This does not mean that we have given up, however. Please also note that such initiatives take a long time within the government to mature. For instance, the NCA project took over 18 months and it is still not yet fully operational. Capacity within our own Ministries and departments is also limited. We think that we have to keep this reality in mind and try to deliver few things instead of starting off a lot of projects and then not be able to do justice to any one of them.’ The private institute Indus Valley School of Art in Karachi is also planning to offer a bachelors program in film making but with its Rs. 50,000+ per semester tuition fees, it caters to a select segment of our society.

A few months back PSEB had also announced a four-month apprenticeship program to the computer graphics, animation and game development companies, offering them subsidized training costs associated with hiring fresh employees. Whether these schemes have the muscle to churn out the required CG artists to create an animation industry within Pakistan remains to be seen. To his defense, the PSEB MD argues that all these programs ‘are in line with what the industry has provided feedback on.’

Saqlain, an art teacher at Karachi University (KU) with experience in creating the visual f/x for ‘Exorcist-The Beginning’, feels that the government is concentrating only on meeting the market for people who want to make quick bucks, and is ignoring the faculty of art schools that can truly tell them what steps are needed to nurture the human resource. Calling on the government to ‘feed the mother’, Saqlain believes that unless there’s a huge investment in the educational sector, in particular the state run universities such as KU, in terms of equipping them with the latest camera equipment and other expensive machinery, hiring foreign faculty and arranging workshops regularly, the students won’t get the proper training.

Duria Qazi, the chairperson of the Visual Studies department at KU, suggests that instead of buying and duplicating expensive equipment for each and every art school, an entire studio can be built for the purpose of educational experimentation, with help from the government and private donors, such that different institutes can share time on it.

Sure, fostering partnerships with foreign industry giants is a step in the right direction; courtesy of the GoP, representatives from nine local companies were flown into South Korea last November for a five day visit to seek possible collaboration and outsourcing opportunities. At the same time the government needs to set up more film making and animation schools around the country, especially in Karachi, if it is to grab the market from its competitors.

Are we lagging far behind? Technologically yes, but we haven’t missed the boat yet. Pose this question to anyone involved in the animation business and they’ll tell you very optimistically that with the right kind of investments and well thought out plans based on long-term strategies, we can catch up with global animation hot spots in just two to three years. Hope floats.