JadooWorks takes the partnership road for further growth

Stanley Glancy / Mumbai

JadooWorks, a Bangalore-based animation and digital content creation facility, recently entered into a series of partnerships to enhance its presence in the global animation market.

Ashish Kulkarni

The partnership with Wild Brain, a San Francisco-based animation studio, will see JadooWorks executing the entire production work for a 26 half-hour animated series for distribution in the US. The production work would involve setting up backgrounds, rendering, lighting, compositing and the first edit. Said Ashish Kulkarni, chief operating officer for JadooWorks, “A lot of 3D animation and flash work has been coming to India over the past year. But this is the first time that a project of this magnitude has been outsourced to an Indian company. We are planning to employ close to 150 animation experts on this project.” The series is scheduled to be completed in 58 weeks time and will premier on US television in October 2004. The total cost of the production is expected to amount to more than $3 million.

Other than this, the company is also planning to produce a 50-minute direct-to-home video for the pre-school US market. The project, which will cost more than $1 million, will be executed in association with Los Angeles-based Guardian Angel Animation. Creative teams from both the companies will work in tandem with each other to produce this film. JadooWorks will also be involved in the pre-production stage for this particular project. Said Kulkarni, “JadooWorks will handle the entire design aspect for this particular production. The direct-to-home segment is one of the fastest growing markets in the US. Successful execution of this project will enable us to get a foot into this segment.”

India produces the largest number of live action movies, and is also a superpower in software services. Animation falls right in between the two segments. But animation is an expensive mode of entertainment and can cost anything between $150,000 to 300,000 for producing a half-hour feature. Kulkarni feels that it is not possible to recover the money invested from either the Indian or the Asian market, and hence it is important to tap the burgeoning global market.