Why is Indian Animation/Cartoons so incredibly bad?

The title says it all.This is a hate thread :wink:

I watch a few cartoon channels (or rather i'm forced to by my little cousins),and everyone of them features at least one Indian cartoon which sucks really bad. For example, Chota Bheem, a relatively better cartoon.

The cartoon has very poor animation and even poorer drawings. Come on,I don't think the animators even know what they're drawing half the time. :shock:

The English in it is poor but relatively better. Often there are stupid & funny uses of phrases which make u LOL quite hard.

Then,there's the plot of each episode.....which is just....soo crappy & predictable.
Have you guys seen the number of Krishna,Hanuman, & Mahabharata animated movies recently? They lack creativity,talent & brains.

Overall, I feel less proud of my country after every episode. :-(

low budgets, some of the big budgets movies have a ton of animators who do exceptional work, you will not even notice it is animation most of the time (Golmal 3, Houseful 2 etc)

animation is not cheap its very expensive

We lack resources. As anorion said Indian cinema has Budget constraints.
Our makers can make 3-masala movies for the money of single animation movie.

Indian animation movies are still underlings among world cinema.

our animation industry is totally depend on outsourcing projects ....one of my friend was working on Shreak 2 movie in 2008 ...and he told me that most part of that movie was made in india....just that since it was an outsource project no body can claim its made in india

sujoyp said:
our animation industry is totally depend on outsourcing projects ....one of my friend was working on Shreak 2 movie in 2008 ...and he told me that most part of that movie was made in india....just that since it was an outsource project no body can claim its made in india

Indian companies do character-modelling for big movie & game companies. But, what we need is a FULL-and-FULL world class animated movie. It makes me feel that WE LACK INNOVATION and IDEA.

We have to learn a lot from Disney & pixar. Animated movies should give us a sense of belonging to the movie itself.

I almost cried at the climax of Ratotouille, where Anton Ego recollects the feelings of his childhood on tasting the Ratatouille.

Dont say me sissy. Thats the level of achievement, indian animated movies need.

The goals in movie,Chakde india' were animations.

Indian animators do not get Big Budget and most importantly time well it is dependent on budget..

If you talk about hollywood there they take month for pre-production then month or two in production and again months for post production.. and this all for any average movie.

movies like avatar and nay other good movies takes years to finish..

but here producers want their output in less then 6 months.

I think those 'cartooney' animations are bad,those in movies are good.

think we export bits and pieces of all sorts
knowledge, and creativity also, apart from core animation inc models, rigs, textures, lights, poses, ... list is endless actually

its not a technical prolem, our movies look a lot more processed. In fact multi- layer compositions, green-screening, animation and colour correction are all used superflously and carelessly to the point of being overused, as against most foreign productions - they have smaller more focussed, and much more complicated cgi segments interspersed with camera only sequences
there is no demand for only animation productions here, people still think animation is for kids, and there is a lot more demand for big stars. just look at how colourful and glamerous our movies are, dont think even james bond producers spent as much time on touching up the lead actor's abs as we regularly do in our films
these big budget movies include plenty of real good animation

First of all there should be audience for Animated movies. Most of people in India think that Animation is for kids. And so Indian animation makers here focus the stories more towards kids, therefore crappy. If you compare Anime in Japan, even the Adults go over there for these movies or at least many of them watch it on TV. There is different genre targeted towards different age, sex. And the're sure that at least someone is gonna watch their show on TV. But in India if you tell people that you watch Cartoon/Anime you're sure to be ridiculed. Thats why creating cartoons in India is not a very high paid job. Indians do have lot of potential of creating Cartoons or at least the Animation part, thats why lot of it is outsourced by Hollywood giants(where there is more audience for that media).

Because their are no such great facility to teach and the most of the developer get call from abroad.

^what tech are you talking about? the bleeding edge technology is created in tandem with production demands
we are as good, only we dont have fully animated movies... matter of time till some good filmmaker/ studio masters this technique if and when animation clicks here

SIDDHARTH.BEAM said:
Because their are no such great facility to teach and the most of the developer get call from abroad.

we have all the resources & talent we need . we just need Demand for it in Indian Market..

We need world class animation movies. Our producers/directors are unaware of the trends in animation.
Though we use animation in special shots, none is bold enough to produce a full-length-animation-movie.

We need guys like John Lassetter & Brad Bird.

Before producers , we need Good story, many Indian animation are either kiddish or religious

clmlbx said:
Before producers , we need Good story, many Indian animation are either kiddish or religious

Do you mean HANUMAN-the animated movie?

We should appreciate our attempt in Roadside Romeo

we need some common ground
chacha choudry animation will be hit?
or panchatantra animation will be hit?
it's not so hard. it's not like all hollywood movies are original concepts. almost none of the big hits are. Avatar is only exception, everything else is based on something else, a comic, a novel, or an adventure ride, or something.

Adapting something in animation is not BAD.
What matters is HOW WE DO?

^Arthur C clarke who writes 2001: A Space Odyssey (donno if he was living in Sri Lanka at that point), or Michael Crichton who pens Jurassic Park, Congo, Disclosure, Sphere and so many others... you can make a list of movies that followed books. the best we can do is Chetan Bhagat and Amish Tripathi. only hipsters are aware the Blue Umbrella exists.
our cinema is at a better level than our literature, maybe our writers suck
look at our music, our movies, all copied instead of something original.
our studios are top grade, we have many as good and better than the best. our mainstream industry is the biggest in the world, and that requires a ton of cgi. we may not have Massive sims, but we sure got loads of Smokes - think we might just be the biggest industry for FMCG shots (think pens, cereals, soaps, washing powders, toothpastes, shampoos, facials, deodorants, paints, chocolates, creams and all those stuff .... someone sits animates all that stuff)
at copying we are baap of all, wud rate gol mal 3 above pulp fiction or matrix in terms of pure pop culture references per second.

Gearbox said:
Do you mean HANUMAN-the animated movie?

We should appreciate our attempt in Roadside Romeo

yes,hanuman,bal ganesh and many more.. but point is if you want audience you need to show something new..not same story that every one knows about.. and personally I am always against any religions and religious things.. (no offence and I meant all religions not any one. and it is just an personal opinion. )

and yes roadside romeo was very good attempt but again story was very weak.. same Indian Love story , they just removed humans and added Dogs in it ... :lol:

and +1 to Anorion.. would love to watch chacha chaudhry, akbar birbal, panchtantra.. .well anyway I love all Animated movies and have watched many and yes I do go in Theater to watch..

I would again say that its all about budget....if animation studios charge heavily just coz they get better paid from bits-n-pieces projects from hollywood..then y would they waste there time for a project in India

Also if they work for a part of project of hollywood they get a better exposure to world market...and chances of getting bigger project is more

And the thing is true that in India people think animations is for kids...even girls think that (I am surprised , those same girls would cuddle with there teddy bears even today) watching tom and jerry is such a stress buster those people wont know

Some Indian comic character like dhru natraj dooga& etc
Indian animation industry should try making movies on our own Indian comic heros.
Like people do in abroad.

Dunno.. but ~8 years back Tenali Raman cartoon was very nice. It used to air on CN.

Better than these mota Bheems and chota Hanumans. Animation quality hasn't improved since Tenali Raman. I think these guys use Flash to animate.

Not related to cartoons, but anyone remembers Aryamaan? After Shaktimaan's success Mukesh Khanna invested quite a lot of money in Aryamaan and it flopped.

sujoyp said:
our animation industry is totally depend on outsourcing projects ....one of my friend was working on Shreak 2 movie in 2008 ...and he told me that most part of that movie was made in india....just that since it was an outsource project no body can claim its made in india

yeah makes sense, guess
we dont consume it, we outsource it
in some convoluted way, good for us!

also, at least some of the bits of the biggest animated productions are contracted, so it's a matter of tracking down where portions of major projects are contracted to... and this never shows up in the credits, because the contractors are not workers in the relevant union of that industry, or dont have the necessary qualifications that these regular workers do
we may not watch animated movies, or we may not pay for apps and games, but we are one of the global hubs for these things
not taking the trouble to quote any articles

Indian Animation
*www.kulfoto.com/pic/0001/0028/9e32R27018.jpg

@Faun - You should post that in here --> *www.thinkdigit.com/forum/cafe-games/148080-all-phail-epic-lol-pics-here-high-bandwidth.html

Not here! Thats not funny!
Indian Animation Industries do better than what you posted above!

Gearbox said:
Not here! Thats not funny!
Indian Animation Industries do better than what you posted above!

No..........

Faun said:
Indian Animation
*www.kulfoto.com/pic/0001/0028/9e32R27018.jpg

^^You can say that about the Bollywood industry. But Indian Animation Industry is lot better that that. At least they're trying their best with all the available budget, you guys should stop ridiculing it.

^hey it's cool, think we were supposed to notice the 9gag-like kulfoto.com watermark, which is what indian animators are wasting time doing

Because they don't have quality writer/stories/ideas.

cartoons ? oh please ! those r children stuff, why even care to put so much effort and money for such childish thing .....

^^Admit it everyone of us spends time watching Tom&Jerry, Looney Tunes, Road-Runner-Show, Dragonball, Pokémon, Pink-Panther Show etc...

icebags said:
cartoons ? oh please ! those r children stuff, why even care to put so much effort and money for such childish thing .....

That's a typical indian mentality on games and cartoons - "Child's play" or "Why're you still seeing this" or "You still play/see cartoons? Shame on you!!"
Cartoon is a form of art and creativity. Even the neanderthals (are believed to be) drawn dots and pictures on walls/caves.

Cartoon (paintings) is hardwired to us. Ignoring it as a child thing is just unwise.

Gearbox said:
Cartoon is a form of art and creativity. Even the neanderthals (are believed to be) drawn dots and pictures on walls/caves.

...

icebags said:
cartoons ? oh please ! those r children stuff, why even care to put so much effort and money for such childish thing .....

Your games also a form of cartoon :wink:

icebags said:
cartoons ? oh please ! those r children stuff, why even care to put so much effort and money for such childish thing .....

Tell me, how $hitty was your childhood?

I believe a good story or a good concept is more important than animation "quality".. Just see Simpsons, it has average animation quality but its a massive success..
Indian animation companies lack originality and believe in reusing the same old "religion" based cartoon idea over and over again..
And the fact that animated movies etc are considered "children's material" just like video games doesnt help either.. and those adults who actually watch cartoons are viewed as a strange new breed of homo sapien by those that dont. :/
On a side note, This is also one of the reasons why I dislike gameloft games.. They lack originality and good story

In india...producers and managers write stories instead of actual story writers

Religion sells here. most indian animators just try to squeze as much as they can from religion.

Framing. animation is jumpy, too fast. Focus is on movements and actions, not the time it takes to do those things. Robot / endhiran, big budget example. The animated robot scenes are too fast and choppy. Compare with transformers / avengers scenes where action slows down when there is too much stuff going on.

Suspect it's just render time. Budgets are not accomodating machines doing most of the work for some reason.

Anorion said:
Framing. animation is jumpy, too fast. Focus is on movements and actions, not the time it takes to do those things. Robot / endhiran, big budget example. The animated robot scenes are too fast and choppy. Compare with transformers / avengers scenes where action slows down when there is too much stuff going on.

Suspect it's just render time. Budgets are not accomodating machines doing most of the work for some reason.

Are you the salarian scientist/doctor from Mass Effect, Mordin Solus in anyway?

Nerevarine said:
I believe a good story or a good concept is more important than animation "quality".. Just see Simpsons, it has average animation quality but its a massive success..
Indian animation companies lack originality and believe in reusing the same old "religion" based cartoon idea over and over again..
And the fact that animated movies etc are considered "children's material" just like video games doesnt help either.. and those adults who actually watch cartoons are viewed as a strange new breed of homo sapien by those that dont. :/
On a side note, This is also one of the reasons why I dislike gameloft games.. They lack originality and good story

Its more of a passion vs studio greed thing. There are some really good animation studios in india, Vaibhav Studios being one of them(the 2d and watercolor visuals from Taare Zameen Par, the recent mini Zoo Zoo ads, and a lot of stop motion animated ads from the 90s). These guys stick to smaller stuff. Coming to the TV series, it makes a ton of money with little effort, kids don't give a single F about the quality anyway. Though its not just India, there are copy cats and quick cash grab attempts from houses like Disney as well. Like I said, its all about studio greed, the men in suits have the ability to destroy billion dollar franchises like Lion King into straight to tv movies like Lion King 2, sad $hit.

T

*www.thinkdigit.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=11632&stc=1

You think superman can do that? huh

Tobuscus said:
The title says it all.This is a hate thread

I watch a few cartoon channels (or rather i'm forced to by my little cousins),and everyone of them features at least one Indian cartoon which sucks really bad. For example, Chota Bheem, a relatively better cartoon.

The cartoon has very poor animation and even poorer drawings. Come on,I don't think the animators even know what they're drawing half the time.
The English in it is poor but relatively better. Often there are stupid & funny uses of phrases which make u LOL quite hard.

Then,there's the plot of each episode.....which is just....soo crappy & predictable.
Have you guys seen the number of Krishna,Hanuman, & Mahabharata animated movies recently? They lack creativity,talent & brains.

Overall, I feel less proud of my country after every episode.

The reason for bad drawing is that they don't have me.

If you are recruiting, you can hire me

H

icebags said:
cartoons ? oh please ! those r children stuff, why even care to put so much effort and money for such childish thing .....

Sarcasm?

This retarded belief is exactly why animation in India sucks. Pixar doesn't go "Children don't care about animation quality" and budgets their titles well giving us some of the best animation in the industry.

Look at the Japanese industry. Anime doesn't cater to children all the time and have grown some really good animation talent that they budget properly. Compare Shingeki no Kyojin with any indian animation. SnK will win by a long mile.

@gollum: since you can draw well...why don't you create your own Indian manga...m not kidding ???

abhidev said:
@gollum: since you can draw well...why don't you create your own Indian manga...m not kidding ???

Only drawing is not needed, I would require a story and someone to direct the scenes.
I can take care of the rest.

abhidev said:
@gollum: since you can draw well...why don't you create your own Indian manga...m not kidding ???

Its not as easy as it might sound

cyborg47 said:
Its not as easy as it might sound

m sure its not easy...

Gollum said:
Only drawing is not needed, I would require a story and someone to direct the scenes.
I can take care of the rest.

well for starters...try out small stories

abhidev said:
well for starters...try out small stories

like Dilbert?

Gearbox said:
like Dilbert?

yea maybe but thats too short...I meant something like half the size of Deathnote but with an intriguing concept and story

abhidev said:
yea maybe but thats too short...I meant something like half the size of Deathnote but with an intriguing concept and story

that's like asking too much.
I may need to start with one page snippets/stories and proceed from there.

Gollum said:
Only drawing is not needed, I would require a story and someone to direct the scenes.
I can take care of the rest.

write a tdf manga with some popular characters here. may be someone can help u with a short story of 2-3 comic pages or if u remember any funny incident here.

don't forget to post on a thread if u do so.

dead5 said:
Sarcasm?

This retarded belief is exactly why animation in India sucks. Pixar doesn't go "Children don't care about animation quality" and budgets their titles well giving us some of the best animation in the industry.

Look at the Japanese industry. Anime doesn't cater to children all the time and have grown some really good animation talent that they budget properly. Compare Shingeki no Kyojin with any indian animation. SnK will win by a long mile.

Even Shin Chan is billions of times better then Indian animations. Every anime is.

Interactive Comic - NAWLZ - Season 1 and Season 2

Anorion said:
Interactive Comic - NAWLZ - Season 1 and Season 2

Hey that's nice.
Will read it at home. Can't do so in the office.

icebags said:
write a tdf manga with some popular characters here. may be someone can help u with a short story of 2-3 comic pages or if u remember any funny incident here.

don't forget to post on a thread if u do so.

well, I've not been much active here. But yea I do have a little funny story.
I will try creating some characters over the weekend.
Time to put the mannequin to some use.

*www.facebook.com/garbagebin

Gollum said:
Time to put the mannequin to some use.

You've one? :razz:

Gearbox said:
You've one?

yes, its a tiny one. As tall as my monitor 19"

Gollum said:
yes, its a tiny one. As tall as my monitor 19"

I thought it's lifesize :lol:

Gearbox said:
I thought it's lifesize

Life sized ones give me the creeps, I have Pediophobia.

Animation will take some time to improve in India....
but Indian comics are @ par with DC/Marvel comics...paper quality improved,so as the Graphic Art,Design etc

Zangetsu said:
but Indian comics are @ par with DC/Marvel comics...paper quality improved,so as the Graphic Art,Design etc

True, do people remember the Hanuman comics back in the 90s? The art style was miles ahead than the DC or Marvel comics. I still remember the artwork so well, no interpretation of Hanuman matches this one.

It isn't the quality of the drawing or anything else of that sort which causes animation to be bad in India. Rather, it is the lack of detail in the animations itself that causes it to be bad.

For example, when someone is speaking, instead of some lipsyncing, most indian animation studios just do open-close mouth motions. Then, the characters themselves appear unnaturally animated. There is no concept of "camera motion" in many cartoon animations. Environmental animation is lacking or non-existent.

For 3D rendered animations, a lot of the above applies, apart from the low polycount, low-res rendering, low quality effects and a lack of effort to blend animation with real acting.

Of course there are exceptions, but the above applies in case of most.

agree with extreme gamer , plus the physics and character animation they both are poor.

just realized Indian animation is not bad at all
we make pretty good animated movies, among the best - Finding Nemo, Madagascar, Cars, Wall-E and Up! check out this 2010 src (pdf) for more detailed info

And Prime Focus World, a company founded in Mumbai has worked on the very best

Prime Focus has had the honor of helping to bring some of the best-known Hollywood feature film releases to spectacular life, including the critically acclaimed Gravity for director Alfonso Cuarón, and the stereo re-release of the 1939 classic The Wizard of Oz. Other films we have partnered on include The Great Gatsby (2013), White House Down, World War Z, Men in Black 3, Star Wars: Episodes I, II & III, Dredd 3D, Total Recall (2012), Tim Burton's Frankenweenie, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Resident Evil: Retribution, Green Lantern, Immortals, Wrath of the Titans, Mirror Mirror, Transformers: Dark of the Moon and Avatar

homepage of Prime Focus World

looks like our local production houses cannot or are not willing to afford good quality animation. in the credits, seen some of our own animation outsourced to ukraine and korea instead of being made locally. not saying the country of origin makes a diff, but the budgets do.

I wish I had experience to work at a company such as this

yeah, prime focus contributed a lot. heard great things from my close friend working there.

I haven't read the whole thread, but here are my views.

The first reason I think Indian animation industry "sucks" is because of lack of good producers. The only good producers are the ones who use a narrow or limited subject matter that only a small demographic would appreciate as opposed to international flicks that are made to market to an international audience. Indian producers are not trying to do something revolutionary or groundbreaking, either because they are not confident that it would sell or because they just because they have more money than brains.

Secondly, In India, everything thinks that Animated movies and serials are for Kids. This is why producers are only making animated features aimed at kids.

Thirdly, there is no quality control. When high budget international animated movies are outsourced to Indian studios, there is a representative who verifies whether the animations are of the right quality that the standard requires, that is why their movies look much more polished than fully Indian animated features where quality control is taken with a pinch of salt.

Fourthly, Marketing. Making animated feature films to sell to Indian audiences will not sell much because of the mentality. If they want any success, they will want to market to an international audience and to do that they need to maintain the standard that is demanded at the international level. They should learn from Japan, who markets everything in a manner that it would be appealing to an international audience as well as at home. That what I like about Anime and Manga. Some of them are made in a way that it is very location and culturally neutral, such that any person around the world could feel connected to it and/or imagine it in their own manner.

DeSmOnD dAvId said:
I haven't read the whole thread, but here are my views.

The first reason I think Indian animation industry "sucks" is because of lack of good producers. The only good producers are the ones who use a narrow or limited subject matter that only a small demographic would appreciate as opposed to international flicks that are made to market to an international audience. Indian producers are not trying to do something revolutionary or groundbreaking, either because they are not confident that it would sell or because they just because they have more money than brains.

Secondly, In India, everything thinks that Animated movies and serials are for Kids. This is why producers are only making animated features aimed at kids.

Thirdly, there is no quality control. When high budget international animated movies are outsourced to Indian studios, there is a representative who verifies whether the animations are of the right quality that the standard requires, that is why their movies look much more polished than fully Indian animated features where quality control is taken with a pinch of salt.

Fourthly, Marketing. Making animated feature films to sell to Indian audiences will not sell much because of the mentality. If they want any success, they will want to market to an international audience and to do that they need to maintain the standard that is demanded at the international level. They should learn from Japan, who markets everything in a manner that it would be appealing to an international audience as well as at home. That what I like about Anime and Manga. Some of them are made in a way that it is very location and culturally neutral, such that any person around the world could feel connected to it and/or imagine it in their own manner.

Right on good sir !!!!

A

animations in movies and even in some TV shows are good and can be worked upon for more with good budgets.

ash63425 said:
animations in movies and even in some TV shows are good and can be worked upon for more with good budgets.

With a high budget, they will make high budget crap.