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Crest Communications to draw on animation exports

Indian animation and special effects firm Crest Communications Ltd has its eyes set on exports, expecting nearly 70 per cent of its revenue from overseas markets in two to three years, a senior official said.

Crest, which has mainly made commercials for Indian television, is pitching to provide animation production services for overseas studios, besides developing its own content for export, Senior Vice-president International Business A K Madhavan told Reuters over the weekend.

"Last year, our revenues were completely from India. This year there will be some earnings from overseas," he said.

"But the next couple of years will see a big change. The revenue model will be 70 per cent from exports and 30 per cent from India," he said in an interview at Crest House, where fun-animation characters are created.

The three-storey building, lodged in drab industrial surroundings in central Bombay, houses high-tech animation computers and some 70 lively animators including students of arts, engineering and some talented college drop-outs.

Founded 10 years ago by Shyam Ramanna -- son of Indian nuclear scientist Raja Ramanna -- Crest has made more than 2,000 television commercials so far, mostly featuring special effects and animation.

Shyam Ramanna, well known in the ad world for his technical wizardry, shot into the limelight for his technique of morphing which he developed 10 years ago and used in a commercial showing a cheetah turning into a motorcycle, Madhavan said.

SOURCES OF EXPORT REVENUE

Studios in the West typically do the pre-production work of story concept, script-writing, character designing and voice tracks. They then outsource the actual production -- the arduous work of drawing, colouring and composing images -- to Asian studios.

India is a recent entrant in the animation scene but demand for its production services is growing. "There are today at least 20 Hollywood studios waiting to download work to Crest," Madhavan said.

The company has invested nearly $12 million in animation infrastructure over the past four years and could gain from this increased outsourcing as it is among India's few animation houses. Others include Pentamedia Graphics, UTV Toons, Padmalaya Telefilms and Toonz Animation India.

"I would say the year ended March 2003-4 is when we will see big dollar money kicking in," Madhavan said.

It made a net profit of Rs 50 million on revenue of Rs 240 million in the year ended March 2001.

Crest also aims to make its own content for the overseas market together with US subsidiary Rich-Crest, formed by its acquisition of Rich Animation Studios last year, he said.

Madhavan expects a boost from a 3D computer-generated imaging film being made together with Rich-Crest.

Crest is in talks with Columbia TriStar to either co-produce or distribute the 90-minute film, he said. Columbia's decision is likely to be known by the end of the month.

Tentatively called 'Automation', the project is in the genre of films like 'Toy Story', and is about robots in a car factory coming alive after its human workers left.

"The budget for the film is almost $30 million, but inclusive of promotions and advertising, the total budget is about $50 million," Madhavan said.

PLANS FOR DOMESTIC MARKET

Crest, which made some serials for domestic television last year, plans to build on its production skills for the television market, including making interactive game shows, Madhavan said.

"Apart from television commercials and post-production services, we are building TV serials and getting into the feature film market," he said.

"We plan to make four budget films in the Rs 30 to 50 million range every year and one big-budget film every two years".

In the pipeline is a Rs 330-million, live-action-cum-animated feature film in the Hindi and Tamil languages, written by Indian poet and scriptwriter Javed Akhtar. It is slated for release in another two years.

The country's largest term lender, the Industrial Development Bank of India, is lending Rs 165 million, to the project as part of its foray into film financing.

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