Career Opportunities in Animation

ANIMATION CAREER

Industry overview
Animators can work on full-length animation movies, create television commercials, make DVDs, make games for Internet, mobile, PC or consoles (like PlayStation or XBox), work in the advertising industry or as web designers. The e-learning industry also uses animators and so do fields like medicine, engineering and architecture. The entertainment industry including movies, TV programmes and Special Effects (VFX) for movies or TV is a major employer. A typical animated film requires 700 to 800 animators. Of the 30,000 animation studios around the world, 70 percent have a turnover of US $1 million.

India, South Korea, Philippines, Singapore, Japan and China are seeing a deluge of outsourced animation work from across the globe. Indian companies are creating a number of animated films and cartoons for US and European studios.

The latest NASSCOM statistics predict the size of the Indian animation industry to be US $1.5 billion by 2009. Currently, it is at US $550 million. India has over 300 animation studios employing over 12,000 animation professionals. In addition to outsourcing, content is being made for the Indian market as well. Films like Hanuman, Krishna, My Friend Ganesha, etc. have proved that animation can make huge profits at the box office.

Animation is a global industry with a large turnover (estimated at $59 billion in 2006) and a growing demand; this is causing a shortage of skilled people.

Want to get into animation? Check out Arena’s courses.

What is animation?

In Latin, ‘Anima’ means soul. Animation is all about giving soul to a character. It is about moving something which cannot move itself. Time and space play a critical role in animation.

The object of animation could be a 2D painting, a clay statue, a picture of a person/ animal/ thing – just about anything at all.
Animation simulates movement through a series of pictures that have objects in slightly different positions.