By Trisha Chowdhury
Kolkata: Ashish Kulkarni, the founder of Punnaryug Activision Pvt. Ltd. and the Chairman of FICCI Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming and Comics. He is a well-known figure in the animation industry. He was one of the speakers on 3rd day of #Medianext 2020 and focused on the future of Indian Animation, Visual effects, gaming and comics.
#Medianext 2020 is being organized by the Adamas University in association with Sharda University, Birla Global University, DME, AIMEC, Lok Samvad Sansthan, Exchange4media, ABP Education and India Real. The mega conclave focuses on one specialized domain of the Media and Entertainment (M&E) Industry and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on that specific domain.
Mr.Kulkarni started his talk about how we Indians are two decades old in animation and how we started with hand drawn cartoons to animation. India being kind of more tech savvy, we quickly shifted to traditional animation.
He further included the challenges i.e. recognition of the creative arts, performing arts and design in the school curriculum. He believes that one who wants to be a good animator should first be good at his basics. It is very important to know the basics of art, drawing, sculpting. He added that we are considered as the top five countries producing animation, visual effects as well as comics.
He discussed about the gaming world and also included that one of the significant features of animation is that kids are the audience and we know it as a kids genre as of now but we will move to family entertainment as the revenues are much bigger in family entertainment.
He nicely explained about the rise of OTT, present and future of animation in India and also spoke about the pandemic in the present day, and how the animators are dealing with it. He said, “If you want to attract more audience to the dig ital platforms, then one needs to concentrate only on the story. As a creator one needs to concentrate on your story format and research, and rest of the things would happen. Also, local content is the key.” He also stated the need for the creation of original content in India, which we would deliver to the world.
He lastly said people learn more visually than learning in classrooms. It is much more different than what we learn from textbooks.
“Students who are willing to pursue a career in animation and gaming have a wide range of opportunities available today in NCR and other major cities of India. You need to have the necessary skills, as the work is creative and performance is very important. If you have it in you then nothing can stop you”, he added. This concluded with questions and answers round where he was asked many questions about the topic.
His journey
During his career, Mr. Kulkarni has set up world-class animation studios in India, created original animated content, as well as completed and marketed several animation films for Hollywood studios over the last nine years. The Entrepreneur Magazine recently awarded him “The Creative Entrepreneur of the Year.”
Mr. Kulkarni began his career in the field of arts and media in 1995. He has since immersed himself in the pursuit of conceiving sustainable careers in film, animation, visual effects, gaming, visual arts, and graphic design in India. His presence in the field of the arts commenced with the animation industry. At this early stage, Mr. Kulkarni facilitated the outsourcing of animation projects in the country with giants such as Disney, Warner Bros., Sony, and Dreamworks. He also contributed towards India’s status as an outsourcing platform by creating the opportunity for Indian animation services to grow to international standards. During this stage, he produced ad films for All Out, Flying Machine, Max Candy & Max Ice cream for HLL, Nestle, Veneta Cucine, and Kelloggs.
He is a science graduate with Diplomas in Marketing & Sales Management, and Public Relations, Ashish worked with several companies finally becoming CEO of Reliance Animation and AIMS. Being one of the pioneers in animation education in the country he has designed the curriculums for Arena, Whistling Woods, Birla Institute of Technology, Manipal University, Annamalai University & Lovely Professional University and also served on the academic council of FTII Pune. Ashish S K initiated Reliance AIMS (Animation & Infotainment Media School) one of the most premium Animation and VFX education venture in the country. As CEO he took Reliance Animation to the global arena while carving a niche as the finest Indian animation studio for original IP creation. Soon after, he launched his own Punnaryug Creations.
He has been a final jury member on iEmmys, Kid’s iEmmys, VES, 24 FPS, FICCI BAF, New York Film Festival, Banff Awards, Dada Saheb Phalke Awards. He has bagged several awards. Recently, in 2013, he was honoured with an Honorary Doctorate in Business Management by the Open International University of Complementary Medicines, Kuala Lumpur. He has one burning desire – to take Indian animated content to the global market and provide the artistic talents in our country a direction, a solid route map to take Indian Animation Industry to its heights.
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