Hasta La Motion!

Media and Entertainment Skills Council (MESC) with support from Ministry of Human Resources and Development (MHRD), Government of India organized Manthan– an Academia Meet at Ramoji Film City, Hyderabad today. This platform was for the dignitaries to connect, exchange ideas and build relations for career opportunities for the coming generations.

Manthan was inaugurated by the chairman-MESC film maker educationist chief guest Shri Subhash Ghai alongwith Govt. of India Min. of HRD sr. economic advisor Rajeev Jalnapurkar, Ramoji Film City & MESC CEO Mohit Soni amongst others.

The event brought together academicians, media and the entertainment industry and was focused on the skills training and career opportunities in the Media and Entertainment Industry. It also highlighted the possibilities of an association between Media and Entertainment Skills Council and participating esteemed Academic Institutions.

The event also showcased the unveiling of “Creative Warriors”, MESC’s specialized programs in B.Sc. courses in Performing Arts, Animation and VFX and Film Making and would also include Graphics, Gaming and VFX etc. at a later stage. This will provide the students with complete and in-depth knowledge in their chosen trades and equip them with job ready skills. The universities concerned are empowered to take up these courses through their colleges, while autonomous colleges are readily empowered, and other colleges can take up these courses with their university approval.

Speaking on the occasion, MESC Chairman film maker educationist Subhash Ghai shared, “We are all working together to develop and innovate young creative minds through this initiative of Manthan. Today, India is only a job-doers country despite the rich and glorious 3,000 years of wisdom and knowledge. Currently, we are facing a huge problem of lack of jobs for youngsters with degrees, here is when, we come into the picture of rethinking and reinitiating processes to develop what should be developed. I believe, Indians are a very creative set of people but we far behind the times. With the initiative of Manthan, we will be able to focus on human, skill, creative and innovation development to make our future generations seekers, explorers and believers.”

Sharing his views, MHRD, Government of India Senior Economic Advisor Mr. Subba Rao said, “With great anticipation and hope we have started this initiative of merging the two most huge segments Media & Entertainment and Human Resource Development to garner unexplored possibilities and opportunities for the sector. The introduction of relevant courses and developing the right skillset will provide students with complete in-depth knowledge in their chosen trades and make them industry ready. This would help in addressing the disconnect between education and economy with the industry growing at an autonomous rate. We already have around 300 colleges present with us and we are looking to tie-up with around 10,000 colleges in the industry and service sector in the next one year to get this program started.”

Dignitaries on Stage

Addressing the delegates, MESC CEO Mohit Soni said, “Media & Entertainment Industry is growing at an exponential rate but at the same time it is grappling with many Skill Development Challenges including a huge supply-demand gap both in terms of quality and quantity of workforce. Our focus is to create entrepreneurs, who in turn will create jobs bridging the existing job gap in this fastest growing industry. Through this event and the encouraging words and presence from the industry, we are hoping to have many more Manthan sessions.”

“The Media and Entertainment landscape has changed tremendously, and we have serviced more than 4000 films in multiple languages. Ramoji Film City has recently won the largest film studio complex in the world replacing Hollywood’s Universal Studios which is a proud moment for us. We want to provide more training programs and opportunities for filmographers, directors and so on because there is a need for trained staff at workplaces like ours,” said Ramoji Film City CEO  Mr. Rajeev Jalnapurkar

Other renowned personalities among many others who addressed the delegates included Mr. Manvendra Shukul, CEO – Lakshya Digital Studios, Treasurer, MESC, Mr. Pete Draper, Co-Founder, Division Head and Chief Technical Director, Makuta VFx (Baahubali movie fame), Mr. Sathish Narayanan, Founder, DMES, Chief Expert WorldSkills India, Graphic Design Technology, Mr. Chaitanya Chinchlikar, Chief Technology Officer, Whistling Woods International.

MESC is the industry led sector skill council promoted by FICCI and setup by National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC). MESC is working under aegis of Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship (MSDE).

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Indie game developing company PlayBae’s upcoming new game, In The Shadows bagged the “Best Puzzle Game” of 2019 accolade at Tencent Gaming Without Boundaries (GWB) Awards.

In an exclusive conversation with AnimationXpress, PlayBae founder Nakul Verma shared “To my extreme surprise, ITS had won the “Best Puzzle Award” beating a lot of unique games in its category. Unfortunately, I could not go to the event to collect the award but Tencent has offered to help in the journeys of developers like me in promotion and development.”

During the GWB awards innovative, independent video game developers submit their upcoming games from around the globe. According to the set of rules of the awards, the winner will receive professional consultation, technical and publishing support, funding, and publicity for their upcoming games from Tencent.

Earlier at Indian Game Developer Conference (IGDC) 2018, In the shadows received the ‘Upcoming Game Of The Year’, post that he “met with the Tencent team at their booth and came to know about the GWB awards that encourage games with unique and innovative gameplay. In The Shadows (ITS) is a very unique game, seemed to be a good match for this competition so I applied online at the appropriate time.”

Post winning the Award Verma shared that there is no cash prize involved as such, however they said they would help in promotion but nothing is planned and shared yet. Says Verma on winning the award, “it is a major source of encouragement and motivation for me because the development of  ITS has been taking a lot of time and resources and an award like this can really get things back on track.”

His future plan is to work on the game and to add narrative as well which will require another four to five months to complete it latest. Adding to that he asserts that he is reaching out to publishers and collaborations might change the future road map for the IP.

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Noah’s Ark– A Musical Adventure, a co-production among Walter Salles’ Video Filmes and Caio and Fabiano Gullane’s production company Gullane, has signed with Indian animation studio Symbiosys Technologies, headed by CEO Naresh Kumar with studios in Visakhapatnam and Hyderabad, India. The co-production is the first Brazilian/ Indian co-production of a 3D animated feature film. The deal between the parties was brokered by Cinema Management Group (CMG), the film’s sales agent on behalf of Gullane and Symbiosys Technologies following four months of negotiations.

From Left to Right : Fabiano Gullane, Naresh Kumar, Sumedha Saraogi, Edward Noeltner

Over 20 international distributors having signed up for Noah’s Ark since it was launched on the international market by CMG last year. The animated feature is being directed by Sérgio Machado and will feature songs by Brazilian singer/ composers Vinicius de Moraes and Tom Jobim. In addition to Moraes’ many musical works and poems, he wrote the underlying story to Cannes Palm d’Or and Oscar winning foreign language feature Black Orphus (the only feature film ever to win both prestigious awards in the same year).

Noah’s Ark was initially introduced to the international market by Fabiano Gullane at Ventana Sur’s Animation Spotlight in Buenos Aires for Latin American animation. CMG’s president Edward Noeltner said, “When I heard Fabiano’s pitch at Ventana Sur and then read the script, we were convinced Noah’s Ark would find audiences around the world. The film’s principal characters, two adventurous minstrel mice, embark on humorous new telling of the story with the amazing music of Vinicius de Moraes as a backdrop.”

Symbiosys Technologies learned of Noah’s Ark thanks to its co-production on another CMG licensed property, Salma’s big Wish (Dia De Muertos) which is also a far-flung international co-production between India based Symbiosys and Mexico based Metacube Technology & Entertainment in Guadalajara. During CMG sales efforts on Salma’s big Wish, Noeltner was approached by Symbiosys Technology director of global business Sumedha Saraogi, who immediately felt that they could become a vital partner on Noah’s Ark much like they did for Metacube on Salma’s big Wish. “With the high level of 3D animation being delivered by Symbiosys, the decision to embark on a Brazilian – Indian co-production was not that difficult to make, though it still took four months to find the right work-split and financial relationship among the parties,” said Noeltner. Assisting in determining the right work-split along with other technical details to the co-production were the film’s co-producers Daniel Greco and Felipe Sabino from NIP (Tito and the Birds).

Gullane producers Caio Gullane and Fabiano Gullane mentioned, “We are very happy with closing this partnership with Symbiosys Technologies. During the trip to India, our team was very impressed with the quality of their professional and technical standards of their studios. We are confident that through the joint efforts of Gullane, Symbiosys and CMG in Noah’s Ark we will deliver to the market a funny family audience film, which will be a success around the world.”

The film’s leading characters are two cute, free-thinking mice named Vini, a charismatic poet who suffers from terrible stage fright and Tito, a talented musician who’s also naturally elegant and always accompanied by his inseparable guitar. As only one male and one female of each species are allowed on the ark, Vini tries to board the ark in drag (in a homage to Some Like It Hot) only to be found out by Noah and kicked off the ship. But with the help of the ingenious cockroach Alfonso and fate’s good luck, Vini makes his way back on to the ark and together with Tito, they avert a showdown among the ships carnivores, led by the self-important lion Baruk, and the herbivores led by the hugely comical old goat Severino. Staging a talent contest to buy time before the ark runs out of food, the animals perform a series of classic songs by Vinicius de Moraes until finally, land is sighted after 40 days and 40 nights, bringing a happy ending to the ark’s perilous journey.

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India’s foremost licensing and branding representation company, Dream Theatre, has won the mandate for licensing and merchandising for animated kids show Little Singham, which is inspired by the popular film franchise Singham. 

Created in collaboration between Discovery Kids, Reliance Animation & Rohit Shetty Picturez, Little Singham, was launched in summer 2018. It soon became one of the most popular shows in a very short span of time and helped propel Discovery Kids ratings, making it the fastest-growing channel in the kids’ genre in 2018. 

The Licensing and merchandising partnership with Dream Theatre will further extend the franchise by building a large and comprehensive licensing portfolio comprising toys, apparel, back to school merchandise, footwear, fashion accessories, bags, sporting accessories, FMCG promotions, retail partnerships and more.

Jiggy George

“Little Singham is a phenomenal success story, showcasing the coming together of the best in business in India and Dream Theatre is thrilled to manage the licensing portfolio for the franchise. It has all the tick marks of engaging Indian storytelling, vast content library, popularity and platforms, making it a top licensing choice for partners,” mentioned Dream Theatre founder and CEO Jiggy George.

The Little Singham Mobile Game has further added to the IP’s success, hitting the top of the charts in the Arcade section by garnering more than 10 million downloads. The show is broadcast in English, Hindi, Tamil and Telegu and continues its success story.

Commenting on the partnership, Reliance Animation COO Tejonidhi Bhandare said, “We are excited to work with Dream Theatre to bring Little Singham products and services to our fans. The licensing program will offer them another opportunity of engaging with the brand beyond the screen and make Little Singham a part of their lives with authentic products across a wide-ranging portfolio.”

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Donick Cary

Comedy Central has inked a first-look animation deal with Donick Cary, best known as a former head writer for The Late Show with David Letterman and co-executive producer of The Simpsons and other shows.

Under this deal, Cary will develop and produce animation projects across all platforms for the network and its new studio-production arm, Comedy Central Productions. He will also be developing his own ideas, and work with other talent and creators to identify and develop animated programming for Comedy Central as well as other platforms.

Commenting on his new role, “I couldn’t be more thrilled and can’t think of a better place to be developing funny cartoons for than Comedy Central. It has always encouraged the right mix of funny, smart and super stupid content! I definitely check at least one of those boxes! Looking forward to rolling up my sleeves and figuring out how to draw stuff…”

Cary’s writing career began with Late Night with David Letterman. He also served as a co-executive producer on The Simpsons for four seasons, and in the same role writing and producing Just Shoot Me, New Girl, Bored to Death, Silicon Valley, Parks and Recreation and A.P. Bio. Cary is also the founder of Sugarshack Animation.

“Cary has left his brilliant stamp on some of television’s best comedies. This is an exciting partnership for Comedy Central and CCP and we can’t wait to work with him to find our new favorite animated shows,” added Comedy Central’s co-heads of original content Sarah Babineau and Jonas Larsen.

Among other creators that have first-look deals with the company are Derek Waters, Anthony King, Stuart Miller, Lucia Aniello and Paul W. Downs’ Paulilu production company, and Daniel Powell and Alex Bach’s Irony Point.

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