And the basis of such optimism is the pool of artistic talent available in the country, more importantly in Maharashtra, which the group plans to harness to produce international quality cartoons.

"Animated cartoons, even in this day of digital advancement, need to be painstakingly drawn – picture by picture, frame by frame. This makes it a very people-intensive and talent-intensive industry. Hence, India, with its abundance of low-cost talent, is most suited to house a production studio of this type," says Abhishek More, director of Digikore Studios.

First off the block in this ambitious project will be a 26-episode cartoon serial based on India-specific content – folklore, history, mythology. "Akbar-Birbal, Vikram-Betal, or Indian mythology," says Mr. More. Once the skill sets are all in place, which the company has begun putting together, the theme would be further narrowed down.

The television medium, says Mr. More, is crying for good content. "There are 110 channels, local and national. It is becoming increasingly difficult for them to fill their slots with quality content and I believe that even non-cartoon entertainment channels would like to include a cartoon series in their ''family'' slots."

This paucity of quality content is also the reason why Digikore has undertaken distribution of broadcast series on behalf of three of the largest South Korean animation studios - Animagic Studio Inc., Akom Production Co., and Hanho Heung Up Co. Ltd.. These studios have appointed Digikore to market their animated series in India and across Asia. The Asian market will be catered to by the Growel group’s office in Singapore. The first batch of cartoon series includes Flying Superboard, Toad Patrol, Maroons, Alex and Alexis, and Marsupilami.

These Korean studios, besides producing their own series, will also undertake production work for major American and European studios, including Warner Bros., Disney, Universal Studios, Dreamworks, Fox, etc. All the popular series such as Casper, Dilbert, Flash Gordon, Batman, GI Joe, Ghost Busters, Winnie the Pooh, Tintin, etc., have been part-produced in these Korean studios and their involvement runs deep.

According to Mr. More, international companies like Warner Bros. and Walt Disney carry out all their own creative jobs, including story board, character designing and sound tracking, but are prepared to offload middle-order production jobs, including animation, in-betweening, layout and background, ink and paint and compositing, to outside agencies.

And with production costs being a quarter of that in the US, this is the field where India can play a major role, says Mr. More. "A one-episode production, which would cost $300,000 in the US, would cost $80,000 to $100,000 (Rs 40 lakh) in India. Further, with production costs steadily firming up in Korea and nearing US levels, a country like India stands to gain," he says.

To begin with, Digikore has started with ink and paint jobs, with trial testing on for a few South Korean and Philippine studios. There are objectives behind taking up ink and paint jobs. One, to give a foothold in the industry and get a hands-on experience of the nitty-gritty involved. Two, to set rolling the much-needed revenue streams.

"Ink and paint jobwork will bring in $10,000 to $12,000 per episode, bringing us a revenue of Rs 4 to Rs 5 lakh per month. For a start up, that''s not a figure to sneeze at. In the US, the same would cost over $20,000 per episode, while even in Korea, costs have moved up to $17,000 to $18,000," explains Mr. More.

He states that the company is building up capacities to carry out any of the ''episodic'' tasks from animation to compositing, including drawing, clean up, in-betweening, layout and background, scanning, ink and paint and compositing for overseas studios. It will then be up to the overseas studios to decide what jobs they want to download.

Significantly, to carry out one full episodic animation work per month would require a manpower of 200 people, ranging from conceptualisers, visualisers, storyboard artists, layout artists, animators, background artists, clean up artists, in-between sketch artists, digital ink and paint artists and compositors.

"Overseas contracts are not given piece meal, but for full episodes, which come only after you have the required capacities," says Mr. More. "Once we ramp up the capacities, we will move on to our own production, starting with an animated series for television. Our creative talent will be used initially to produce content for the domestic market."

On this front, the company has already begun by creating small-animated shots for TV channels, cable networks, and story-series CD-roms. Here, all the creative abilities of the outfit are put to use – right from storyboard, characterising, conceptualising to translating into animated series.

He views doing job works such as ink and paint, animation, compositing, etc, as stepping stones for the real thing – setting up a full-fledged animation production house and producing international quality animated serials.

To accelerate this process and simultaneously transform itself into a major production hub with an impressive pool of talent, the company even proposes to have its own training school in an effort to professionalise the talent pool it already has.

India is thirty years behind the others in the field of animation, says More. Because of this, there are only a handful of players in the Indian market. How would a small outfit like Digikore hold against competition from leaders, like Pentamedia, for instance? "In terms of quantity and capacity, we have a long way to go, but in terms of quality, our work is comparable with the best," says Mr. More.

Besides, the demand today outstrips supply. "There is so much work, there is no need to compete, there is enough space for everybody" he says. The crux is to be able to bring together talent in such large numbers at a given point and then to nurture it.

So hate it or love it, animation is here to stay – and that too in a big way.