Creativity, even in the very recent past, could not earn a person a monthly salary but now the scenario is completely different. In the booming market of cartoons and animations, one can easily satiate his creative spirits and take home a handsome pay packet. The art of animation, a creative field dominated by the West, now has India running as one of the most serious contenders. Cartoons are illustrations of a single diagram with varied meanings, while an animation is a rapid display of 2-D or 3-D images to create an illusion of motion. There are several institutes all over India offering courses on animation and cartoon and students coming out of these institutes have very bright futures ahead of them.
Qualifications: There are various courses on animation and cartoons offered in colleges all over the country. The major colleges are :
» National Institute of Design ( NID, Ahmedabad)
» J.J School of Arts.
» Zee Institute of Creative Arts ( ZICA)
» Industrial Design Center (IDC), IIT - Mumbai & Guwahati
» Arena Multimedia
» Pentamedia
Although, both diploma and degree courses are available across colleges in India, post graduate degrees in animiation and cartoon are very rare. Among the colleges mentioned above, the Industrial Design Centers in Mumbai and Guwahati offer post-graduate degree courses.
For acquiring a diploma in animation, one has to pass the 12th standard examination from any recognized board with a minimum of 45% marks. For the bachelor's degree program the same eligibility criterion is applicable, while for the PG program one must have a bachelor's degree.
Benefits: As the animation & multimedia industry is growing rapidly, pursuing a course in these fields can boost your career. Moreover, if you have a knack of drawing or creating characters it would help satisfy your creative spirits.
Scope in India: Animation in India has come a long way with Indian animations catering to the needs of several private and public sectors and indigenously produced animated films constituting the bulk. Various T.V programs, advertisements / commercials and computer games are demanding a huge quantity of manpower from the Indian market. Animation is also being used in titling films, creating special effects or in web entertainment programs. Thus the scope for students of animation is huge in the context of the emerging Indian market.
Scope Abroad: Though cartoons and animations hardly seem to be products meant for outsourcing, yet Indian cartoonists and animators have begun working for foreign companies. Indeed, Indian companies are moving ahead of their South East Asian counterparts in the field of animation. architecture and medicine. But the application of animation in these fields in western countries is quite common, thus providing the Indian students with career opportunities. The western countries are favoring India over any other country for outsourcing animation because of the following reasons :
» Vast base of English speaking manpower
» Cost advantage
» Abundance of well-equipped studios