MUMBAI: The Indian film animation space has seen a lot of activity and interest from players in recent times. Companies like Percept Picture Company, Shemaroo Entertainment, DQ Entertainment, Pritish Nandy Communications, Adlabs, to name a few will all have their animation films releasing in the next couple of years.

With the sector attracting companies increasingly as the backdrop, the first day at FICCI FRAMES had the top brass of the Indian animation industry discussing where Indian animation was headed. Moderated by Graphiti CEO Munjal Shroff, an eminent panel shed some light on the intricacies of the world that is animation.

The father of Indian animation and Graphiti chairman Ram Mohan held firm on the view that mythology was the way to go for Indian animation. What with Japan creating their animated version of the Ramayana, every other country seems to be catching up on the numerous original characters Indian culture has to offer. Other Japanese anime movies have borrowed heavily from Italian and other European folklore.

In effect, the conclusion was that Indian animators need to use the vast sources of material available, like comic books, graphic novels etc, from all over the world to create interesting animation content. Mohan said, "Indian animators need to look beyond themselves for content, but the narrative style needs to be their own."

However, to create original content that is appealing on a national and global level is a daunting task. Animation magazine CEO and president Jean Thoren identified a few key questions that an animator or creator should ask himself before pitching his character as the next biggest thing. It is important for the IP creator to be sure that his character is different from the rest, easily identifiable globally, has a few traits and quirks, unique to him, humorous at some level and can hold the attention span of at least the creator himself.

From another international perspective, Joanna Ferrone, creator of the well-known and loved character Fido said, "Content needs conviction; children need content." She elaborated that any character that was created with some original thought, an added twist and had spontaneity would work, provided you had...

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