9 billion cartoon animation market. 
   Says Siddarth, "You cannot keep pace with the statistics with the kind of growth. Around 200 animators are working in the Philippines. In fact all Hanna Barbara cartoon are being done in the Philippines. Its like an OEM job. They have billions of jobs. They provide the script. And the entire job will have to be done here. We have to prove our capability and get their approval".
   Sicklarth is extremely ambitious "I plan to make a Hindi cartoon film. I would like to create something desi like Mickey visiting India! I want to be No. I by 1998".
Slivertoon
  Pixel Point plans to set up a studio, the likes of which Silvertoon has already set up in Seepz. By 1998 Pixel Point estimate the animation

Tac Toon software and hardware costs Rs.30 lakhs. "An important consideration in favour of Tic Tac Toon is its Resolution independent feature," explains Nitin "At the planning stage, it does not matter if the drawing is finally to close up, longshot or midshot."
   "Thirdly the Tic Tac Toon is not resolution based but vector based. This helps tremendously in stamping of characters. It subsequently helps in animating and colouring. How it helps is its ability to close each segment/part of a drawing not randomly, but as it was drawn," claims Nitin
    Silvertoon is also on the verge of soliciting work from the international market. It has its own office in USA. The Seepz unit has a satellite link on a 64 Kbps leased line. Which is soon to be upgraded to 128 Kbps. This

 selected 30 applicants out of 382 and trained them by April. Further two French animators spent three months in Mumbai training these 30 animators in the European style of animation When the training was completed four groups were made and a total of 19 minutes of animation was produced by them.  
   Manpower is of course the biggest problem with near despondency by the accomplished animators like Bansod, Samant who are veterans and also greenhorns like Hari' Sudhakaran are discouraged by the non-availability ofgood artists. Pixel Point was able to pick up most of its artists (not animators) from rural areas who quickly adapted to computer technology. Zee Television's vision and foresight, in setting up Zica, an institute shall go a long way in  remedying the situation, hopefully we

Silvertoons

 will facilitate instantaneous export of job completed.
   While Mumbai sleeps after a hard days work, the US animation production house will be able to check out the days work. Essentially allowing Silvertoon to function on a 21 hour work day.
   Nitin Honavar is least bothered about getting animation jobs. Its all a

industry in India to be worth Rs.30 to 40 crore.
   Silvertoon's parent organisation Silverline is the fifth largest software exporter in the country. With a turnover of Rs.90 crores. Last August Silvertoon decided that a full fledged animation division should be set up for creation of cartoon film or films. Right from the outset the idea was to become a service provider to broadcasting companies and producers. And never to itself become a production house.
    Nitin Honavar, today runs the show at Seepz, where Silvertoon an EOU is ready for the kill. "We evaluated various softwares on the basis of capability/cost benefits. The platforms on which they operate. And plus support of vendors of the required hardware and software in India", says Nitin.  "
   Tic Tac Toon provides a complete paperless animation which no other soft ware provides" explains Nitin Honavar, his decision in selecting Tic Tac Toon. Silvertoon has invested Rs.3 crore in 10 stations of Tic Tac Toon running on Digital Alpha workstation. Each station of Tic

 question of handling the work floor. "We have a huge database of hundreds of animation producers", explains Nitin.
   Nitin has spent 4 years with Silverline projects in US/Canada. He teams up with veteran animator V. G. Samant of Films Division in realizing the Silvertoon project which commenced only in the beginning of 1996. His only grief is the manpower situation.
   FTI has not introduced this subject as yet. He complains the institutes teaching animation of dubious efficacy, and scheme to exploit the student thereafter as bonded labourers.
   V.G. Samant was entrusted with creating a team of animators to work on the Tic Tac Toon. Samant joined Films Division in 1959 and in the 30 years of his career at Films Division produced more than 120 animationfilms and experimented with puppet animation. In 1986 the technique of live action being mixed with animation was successfully carried out by Samant. Samant has  spent a lot of his time in workshops on animation. In Feb '96 he had

 have no feedback as to Zica's functioning. Studio Systems hopes to report that in the next issue.
   Leaving aside cartoon animation entertainment, the advertising world is exploiting animation. CMM has -sold one Animo System to Cartoonics films, a Mumbai based production set up mainly for ad films like Amul. Another sale of 5 Animos also aimed at servicing the ad world will be clinched by end of December. One has to keep in mind an ad spot would not exceed in all probability 30 to 45 seconds or at the outermost a minute.This timeframe production of cartoon animation is gladly being attempted where product animation is required. With regard to entertainment cartoon animation, the larger investment and longer time frame for production is, proving to be a deterrent. At least 5 animation systems in the minimum are required for such a production setup. Like Silvertoon has 10 Tic Tac Toon systems, this enables them to complete with 10 machines, 45 seconds daily with a 15 hour workday. In a month they could complete a serial of 23 minutes.                     ¡¡