The Evolution of Animation in India

In recent times, the name animation bears an integral association with the film industry. Even the millennial crowd too, used to believe that the animation movies they grew up watching, were imports and made abroad. But do you know that the application and usage of animation in India started as early as 1934?

Are you surprised? Not an issue! Today, we will discuss in this article about the evolution of animation in India. In this article, we will talk about how animation technology evolved and consistently made its way to emerge out as what we see today. From the initial black & white days to today’s cutting edge clarity with colors, the evolution of animation bears a vibrant and exciting history in India. Let the discussion start.

The First Animation in India

Throwback to the year 1957, the film named “The Banyan Deer” was cited as India’s first animated feature film. However, it is said that it had its predecessors. Pune based “Prabhat Film Company” released “Jambu Kaka” in Bombay (presently Mumbai), on 15th November 1934.

The short film features of a jackal which was animated by the pioneer ‘Raghunath K. Kelkar’. Some famous names in some of the pioneer animators of that time include:

Dadasaheb Phalke
Gunamoy Banerjee
K S Gupte
GK Gokhle
Ram Mohan

While discussing the evolution of animation in India, a famous name associated with the same happens to be Clair Weeks. It is said that Claire Weeks used to visit the Film Division of India as a critical juncture. He was born in Mussourie and was a leading animation artist of his times. He went on to work for many animation films like ‘Peter Pan’.

On an invitation by the Film Division of India, he facilitated and helped to establish India’s first (officially claimed) film studio, as a part of the American Technical Co-Operation Mission. Further, he also trained a group of Indian animators, and in the year 1957, produced the film named “The Banyan Deer”.

Therefore, to jot down the pointers, some useful facts about the history of animation in India can be briefed as:

Dadasaheb Phalke is considered as the father of Indian Cinema and the first animator as well.
In the year 1914, Dadasaheb Phalke made an animation film about the growth of a peapod to a fully grown plant, via stopover animation.
In 1956, the renowned Disney Studio animator Clair Week was invited by Film Division of India to train the Indian animators and set up the first-ever animation studio in India
The officially claimed, first animation film was made in 1957, named “The Banyan Deer”.
Veteran animation artists like Bhim Sain and Ram Mohan took training from Clair Week and started their career in the cartoon unit of Film Division
Veteran artist Ram Mohan collaborated with Japanese filmmaker Sako and made an animation film “Ramayana: The Legend of Prince Rama”, which received outstanding acclaim in India and abroad.

And thus, by going through the fellow pointers as discussed above, it indicates that the evolution of animation technology is not a post-millennial phenomenon. Instead, it has its roots from the time when only a handful of few patrons were aware of it.

And that is the reason perhaps, the history of animation is one of the most unexplored segment. Even the veteran artists of modern-day are not aware of the time immortal, since when animation was in vogue in India. However, this article is sure to clear a lot of doubts and confusions regarding evolution and consistent development of animation in India, with time.

Animation in India Over the Years

During World War 2, there was sheer shortage of regular films for entertainment. And eventually, the animation technology started to become a critical contributory factor in film making. The filmmakers began to turn towards animation to convey messages and tell their stories.

Slowly, the animation industry started to grow and develop as one of the promising sectors. Talking about the evolution animation in India, this is one of the most crucial phase to discuss.

Some famous works include:

Bakam Bhatt by Kohlapur Cinetoons
A Lafanga Langoor by Mohan Bhavani, in 1935
Superman’s Myth by G. K. Gokhley, in 1939
Akash Pataal by Mandar Malik in 1939
The War That Never Ends by IFI
Cinema Kadampam by S. Thanu, in 1947

Apart from the entertainment purposes, animation was also considered as an essential tool of educating children. In the year 1974, there was a short educational film made based on animation. The name of the film was “Ek Anek Aur Ekta”. It was frequently aired on Doordarshan channel and was destined for the children to teach them the value of unity.

Also, in the year 1986, the first-ever animated series was released and aired on Doordarshan. The series was about a friendly ghost (Ghayab), and was named ‘Ghayab Aya’. And hence, it indicates that animation in India was experiencing consistent growth and acceptance over time.

Animation in India for Creating Ad Campaign

While the application of animation was finding its way commercial film industry, the advertising industry too adopted animation real soon. Some animated characters that were made way back are still popular and are in vogue.

Some noted applications of animation in India, in the advertisement sector, are:

The mascot girl for brand Amul: Designed by Sylvester Da Cunha in 1966
The Maharaja mascot of Air India: Designed by Umesh Rao, in 1946
Mr Chintamani, the renowned mascot for ICICI Bank: Designed by clay animator Nand Kishore

Also, there are several ad campaigns and videos, we witnessed over time, was dependent a lot on animation technology. And with every passing day, the applications are getting even more, beautiful and cutting edge, with the advancement of technology.

So, no matter what we see today, the roots of everything throwbacks to the time immortal, since when the animation in India was in vogue.

The Process of Creating Animation: As it was Back Then

Since the time from when there was animation in India, it involved a necessary stepwise procedure. And it was too complicated and time consuming for the artists to prepare one. It was said that an average short cartoon needed as many as 45000 frames.

Needless to mention that the process developed and advanced with time, but the necessary backbone always included the quintessential segments. In this part of the article, we will discuss the essential steps that were followed back then to create animation films and videos.

Writing the Story: The very first step that was followed since ages is to write the story. Be it the animator itself, or some other, a storyboard was prepared at first. A series of one panelled sketches pinned on aboard. The action summaries and dialogues were then written under each of the design, and then they were rearranged several times.
Recording the Music & Dialogues: Each of the characters used in the movie was assigned with a distinctive voice by voiceover artists. The artists used to record the voice in magnetic tapes. Also, several other background sounds were created, including footsteps, door slamming, and so on as per the scenes. The music was timed for beats and accents. A bar sheet was used to keep a record for the timings of applying such recorded music, and dialogues.
Dialogue Measurements on Exposure Sheet: Talking about the history of animation in India, the role of a track reader artist also deserve a special mention. The track reader artist used to record the dialogues in exposure sheets (also called dope sheets or x-sheets). Each of such layers formed a single film frame. The animator used to synchronize the character’s movement of the lips, according to the dialogue recorded.
Creating Model Character Sheets: Model character sheets were prepared to keep the characters uniform in dimensions all through the film. Detailed descriptions and the expression of the character in various situation and circumstances were detailed and depicted in such model sheets.
Creating a Layout: Animation in India is beyond imagination without the layout artist. And so was the case even centuries back. The layout artist used to create linear drawings. Those drawings were then used by the animators to create the action for the characters, and by the background artists to create the background colors and objects in the frame.
Sketching the Actions: This process involved a few steps. Using the model sheets, the head animator used to create extreme actions. The drawings were done on a transparent drawing board and lighted from below. And once it was done, the second sheet of drawing was placed on top to figure out the differences and proceed accordingly.
Accuracy Check: In the earlier days of animation in India, checking the accuracy involved a team of 7 artists at least. They used to test the characters against the modelling sheets. The accuracy of the scenes is verified to ensure that the actions are included on the sheet. Also, the drawings were enhanced accordingly as per the requirement, but not altered.
Conduction of Video Test: In this step, a digital videotape was prepared with the sketches to check the smoothness and accuracy of the motion and facial expression. Once the video test was done, and the optimal efficiency was ascertained, the video was processed to the next step.
Inking and Sketching the Sketches: The drawings were then transferred to cells using xerography. Xerography is a similar procedure as that of making photocopies. On the reverse side of the cells, the colors and inks are then applied. The background color too was used in a similar manner fort the rest of the frames. After the inking and painting, all the works were checked to ensure optimum accuracy.
Filming the Action: The cells and the backgrounds were photographed according to the instructions on the exposure sheets here. The cells were laid on the top of the experiences first. A multiplane camera was then suspended high above to photograph the scenes. A single view of action used to take several hours to shoot and was extremely tiring and challenging. In the particular scenes where more than one character used to appear on the screen, the number of cells stacked on the top eventually increased in numbers. Each level was then lit and staggered, which used to create the illusion of three-dimensional action. Finally, the film was sent to the photo lab, where a print and a negative was obtained after that. When you are reading about the history of animation in India, you know that back then, it used to run on print & negative only.
Dubbing the Sound: The very next quintessential step was to dub the sounds. Believe it or not, 10 or more separate tracks were prepared of dialogue, music, and sound effects. And then they were combined into one balanced track. The accuracy levels were highly checked during the recording session. Also, it was ensured thoroughly that no external noise or sound gets incorporated within the recording. A minute trace of noise can even destroy the entire clip. Often, the films were sent to foreign countries. Under such circumstances, another set of 2 tracks were prepared. One with the dialogue, and others with the music, background score and the sound effects. In case the dialogues needed to be translated in some other language, the separate set for such talks were recorded with the help of the corresponding dubbing artists and interpreters.
Combining the Dubbing Track & Print: The final step of the entire process was to concoct the dubbing track with the print extracted from the photo lab. If the animation series was for a television show or episode forecast, the negatives and records were sent to a video post-production house. There the entire thing was subjected through a videotape, which was finally sent for forecasting. The history and evolution of animation in India render a vivid picture of how animation films were made. The process indeed was way more complicated than it is today. But, this is how it was started and gradually progressed towards consistent and further development. The animation works which we see today, would not have been possible if the basics were not invented. And in the paragraphs above, we just had a comprehensive discussion above the same.

Animation in India: The Present & The Future

Presently, India has grown into an outsourcing hub for animation studios located outside. Today, the animation studios in India are backed with the ‘state of the art’ infrastructure with cutting edge equipment & setup. Also, there are a lot of talented artists in recent times who are incredibly efficient in executing their task.

With the emergence of a lot of animation training institutes, today’s youth is choosing animation as an option for a career. Needless to mention that it has led to a promising future as well when it comes to animation in India.

However, to keep growing consistently in future, the Indian Film Industry still needs to focus on some key points. Today, when the big production houses of Hollywood are collaborating with the Indian Film Industry, it is a responsibility from our end as well to hone up even better.

More we focus on our expertise, more will be the chances of growth and getting consistent good work, in the long run.

A quick glance to the scopes of improvement can is as follows:

Investing more in technology & modern-day infrastructure
Acquisition and recruit more talented artists on board
Focus more on onsite and offsite training of the individuals
Investing more on opening credible animation training institutes
Conducting more workshops and live seminars on the importance of animation
Encourage fresh talents to experiment with their creativity and come up with new film making ideas.
Investing more in Research & Development (R&D) to make the industry achieve that extra mile
Focus more on the components like VFX, sound effects, computer graphics, lights and others, to meet up to the present day requirements
Taking expert individuals as trainer & teacher on board, for creating future talents
Focusing on taking more outsourced projects from abroad and allowing the individuals to work on global standards
Inviting interested investors to invest more in animation technology for further progress and cutting edge outputs

Till date, animation in India has covered a long path, but yet it can be better in the long run. It is such a sector, which is consistently improving & upgrading. So, it is the need of the hour to take it towards further excellence.

And once again, if you have that creative spark, be the game-changer.

Think no more and join the league today.