Industrial animation is growing big: Mayabious Art founder Images by Avishek Mitra

Industrial animation is growing big: Mayabious Art founder

by IBNS 27 Oct 2014, 06:13 pm

Mayabious Art has been making a mark with its performance in the paradigm of digital media. Winning several awards, including the Dada Saheb Phalke Film Festival award 2014 for its contribution to Indian cinema, has added new feathers to the company's cap. IBNS correspondent Supriyo Hazra caught up with co-founder and CEO of the company Akhil Bandhu Paul for a brief chat over his future plans and the animation sector recently.

Excerpts:

Today, you are quite a successful person in the animation industry and the performance of your company has been quite remarkable in recent times. What attracted you towards taking up animation as a profession?


The creative talent of the people of West Bengal is very high. People from others states like them for their talents. Initially, animation did not flourish in this state. But the people,  who were working in the animation sector in other states, were from  Bengal. I followed the same path. I got trained from outside Kolkata. When I came back, I found that this state has a huge pool of talented people.I felt that we can easily take a new initiative here and then started my company. Remember, for any business it is important that one takes an initiative role. So, taking the step is very crucial. Slowly our company grew and now, in this sector, we are the leading company in Kolkata.  

How does it feel being the number one digital media company in Kolkata? 

See, we have a global competition. We are thinking nationally and internationally. When we give service to international clients, we need to create our products by keeping in mind the international standards.  I can tell you that we are doing it quite well at present.

You have received several awards in recent times. Does award motivate you?

Awards indeed motivate us a lot. It makes us realize that we need to keep on developing ourselves and our products.

How do you perceive the current status of this digital media business across the country?

At first, animation was nothing else than cartoons and then it helped in making movies. If you see the overall pie chart then you can find that only 14 to 15 percent will be occupied by the entertainment and movies sector. The rest will be occupied by the industrial animation.Our company also focuses on this sector. It is an emerging business. Today, animation is used by all industries. From scientific analysis to engineering works, it is needed everywhere. Hence, digital media marketing is a very important sector in India today, And all companies need to create the best products to sustain in this world.

Away from the world of business, you are also a teacher of animation. What is that one point which students should keep in their minds when they learn this particular skill?

In any profession, dedication is necessary and this is one point which they should always keep in  their minds.

You run the Mayabious Academy and it acts as the umbrella for two new schools‐School of Animation and Visual Effects (SAVE) and School of Digital Marketing (SDM). How are your schools different from the other institutions operating in Kolkata at present?

The industry needs industry-oriented training. Animation education used to follow an old course structure. They had modified their course for the sake of changing. We have structured our course in a way which will shape up the students as per the needs of the society. We can say that our course has a demand and students want to learn about animation from us. We also run an interactive gaming course. It is the only course here where students will have the opportunity to learn gaming programming.

Any significant project in which your company is working at present?
 
We are working for the Odisha and West Bengal governments.We have also done the main visualization of the Calcutta giant wheel project.We also did the visualization work for a museum that is coming up in Gujarat.
 
How do you see the growth of your company in the next few years?

Well, I can see my company doubling its size in the next one year.
 
(Images by Avishek Mitra)