Tag: KAM Summit 2021

  • Here are the winners of the second edition of Ann Awards

    Here are the winners of the second edition of Ann Awards

    Mumbai: On 17 July, Animation Xpress concluded the second edition of KAM Kids Animation & More summit that successfully brought together all the stakeholders of the animation space from all across the globe. The summit was followed by a grand award ceremony titled the ANN Awards 2021 where the best talents in the world of animation were honoured and recognised for their artistry and creativity.

    KAM Summit and ANN awards were presented by Nick and co-powered by Cosmos-Maya, Unreal-Engine and Discovery Kids. YOTTA served as the workstation partner and OTT service partner whereas Green Gold Animation was the summit partner. ABAI promoting Centre of Excellence (COE) were the associate partners and the event was supported by in10 Media – GUBBARE and HUION. Tokyo-based TBS’ Digicon6 Asia was the festival partner and ASIFA India was the community partner.

    Animators, studios, and individuals from institutes participated across 66 categories, setting a benchmark in the animation space. Over 300 artists were judged by a well-qualified 10-member jury through an online mechanism. The jurors were Vidit Kundra, Shilpa Ranade, Yoshiya Ayugai, Sekhar Mukherjee, Joan Vogelesang, Indrajit Nattoji, Anil Wanvari, Vivek Ram, Jack Liang, Dhimant Vyas.

    The winners will receive the Ann Awards trophy along with digital certificates.

    This year to honour the creative genius and champion of Indian animation industry, the late Arnab Chaudhuri, AnimationXpress introduced a new recognition, ‘The Arnab Chaudhuri Director’s Award’. To select the winners, an Awards Committee was put in place that consisted of people who have been associated with Arnab and understood his philosophies- Vaibhav Kumaresh, Ashish Kulkarni, Pete Bishop, Orion Ross, P Jayakumar, Prakash Moorthy, Hari Varma, Anil Wanvari and Ashima Avasthi.

    The winning student director under ‘The Arnab Chaudhuri Young Ace Award – Short Form content’ will be awarded with a cash prize of Rs 15,001 and the winner of ‘The Arnab Chaudhuri Young Ace Award – Long fort Form content’ will be awarded with Rs 33,001. The cash prize is a joint contribution from Ashima Avasthi, Vaibhav Kumaresh and AnimationXpress. The winners will also receive a digital tablet from our support partner HUION. 

    Here’s the list of Ann Awards nominations and winners:

    PROGRAMMING

    Best Preschool Show

    ·  Mighty Little Bheem episode – A Royal Festival of Colors (Green Gold Animation)

    Best Channel Packaging

    ·  Warner Media India – Pogo Festive Packaging

    Best Promo

    ·  Kaal ka badla (Discovery Kids India)

    ·  Kris Live Action Sport (Warner Media India – Pogo)

    ·  Kris Live Action Stationary (Warner Media India – Pogo)

    ·  Toons ki barish (Warner Media India – Cartoon Network)

    ·  What’s Your Summer Plan (Sony Pictures Networks India)

    Best 2D Animated Series

    ·  Abhimanyu (Toonz Media Group)

    ·  Ting Tong as Inventor (Viacom18 – Nickelodeon)

    ·  Chhota Bheem Episode – Shrunken Kids (Green Gold Animation)

    ·  Fukrey Boyzzz: Vanaar Sena (Discovery Kids India)

    ·  Titoo (Cosmos-Maya)

    Best 3D animated series

    ·  Bhoot Bandhus Family Tree & Bhoot Bandhus Magic Show (Viacom18 – Nickelodeon)

    ·  Rudra – Race to the mountain (Viacom18 – Nickelodeon)

    ·  Bablu Dablu: Monster Plan (One Take Media)

    ·  Motu Patlu (Cosmos-Maya)

    ·  KickO and Super Speedo (Sony Pictures Networks India)

    Best Animated Film

    ·  Fatak Patak – Sheru Ban Gaya Champion (Nihodo Media)

    ·  Rudra – The Land of Nowhere (Viacom18 – Nickelodeon)

    ·  Bheem In The City (Green Gold Animation)

    ·  Little Singham : Kaal ki Shatir Chaal (Discovery Kids India)

    ·  Little Singham: Future mein Satakli (Discovery Kids India)

    Best Animated Short Film

    ·  Ting Tong as Kungfu Dancer (Viacom18 – Nickelodeon)

    ·  Jungle Mangal (Saggitive TechnoCreative Solutions)

    ·  Lamput – Transfer Gun (Warner Media India)

    Best Music Composer

    ·  Har Task with a Mask (Warner Media India)

    ·  Move it Like the Animals (YoBoHo Digital Content)

    ·  Kicko and Super Speedo vs Benaam Who (Sony Pictures Networks India)

    Best Remotely Produced Content

    ·  Bheega Diya na (Warner Media India)

    ·  We for the World (Warner Media India – Pogo)

    ·  Momo and Tulus (YoBoHo Digital Content)

     

    DIGITAL/ OTT AWARDS

    Best Animated Film

    ·  Bombay Rose (Paperboat Design Studios)

    ·  Titoo Ambulance (Warner Media India – Pogo)

    ·  Christmas Ident (Warner Media India – Pogo)

    ·  Simmba Biker Gang (Warner Media India – Pogo)

    Best Animated Digital Series

    ·  Gummy Bear & Friends (Toonz Media Group)

    ·  Mighty Little Bheem Episode – Come Out and Play (Green Gold Animation)

    Best Animated Music Video

    ·  The Fortune & Julia Nem – Lost (Kiran Venugopalan)

    ·  Titoo aisa kyun hain? (Warner Media India)

    ·  Har task with a mask (Warner Media India – Pogo)

    Best Remotely Produced content

    ·  Toons ki barish (Warner Media India – Cartoon Network)

    Best Animated Social Media Brand

    ·  Cosmos-Maya WowKidz

    Best Reels

    ·  Pixoury Media

     

    TECHNICAL AWARDS

    Best Title Design

    ·  Fukrey Boyzzz: Vaanar Sena (Discovery Kids India)

    Best Title Song

    ·  Keymon Ache (Viacom18 – Nickelodeon)

    ·  Hope Song – Phhir Dil Bolega YAY! (Sony Pictures Networks India)

    ·  Honey Bunny ka Jholmaal title song (Sony Pictures Networks India)

    Best Editing in an Animated TV Series

    ·  Motu Patlu (Cosmos-Maya)

    Best Editing in an Animated Film

    ·  Fatak Patak – Sheru Ka World Tour (Nihodo Media)

    ·  Fatak Patak – Sheru Aur Masti Ki Pathshala (Nihodo Media)

    ·  Honey Bunny in Ghost Palace (Sony Pictures Networks India)

    Best Editing in an Animated Digital Series

    ·  Momo and Tulus (YoBoHo Digital Content)

    ·  Ace2Three Rummy (Skill Tool Studio)

    Best Director of an Animated TV series

    ·  Toonz Media Group
    Chacha Chaudhary

    ·  Cosmos-Maya
    Selfie With Bajrangi

    ·  Cosmos-Maya
    Motu Patlu

     

    Technical Awards

    Best Director of an Animated Film

    ·  A THEOREM (AK RAPOLU THEOREM)
    DHIRA

    Best Director of a Digital Series

    ·  Skill Tool Studio
    Ace2Three Rummy

    Best Screenplay

    ·  Fatak Patak – Sheru Ka World Tour (Nihodo Media)

    ·  Fatak Patak – Sheru Ban Gaya Champion (Nihodo Media)

    ·  Honey Bunny and Super Car Race (Sony Pictures Networks India)

    Best Character Design

    ·  Tiger in Jungle Mangal (Saggitive TechnoCreative Solutions)

    ·  Gadget Guru Ganesha (Cosmos-Maya)

    ·  Bapu (Cosmos-Maya)

    Best Character Animation

    ·  One Take Media Bablu
    Dablu: Monster Plan

    Best Voice Over Artist for a TV series – Male

    ·  Sony Pictures Networks India
    Honey Bunny Ka Jholmaal

    Best Voice Over Artist for a Digital series – Female

    ·  YoBoHo Digital Content Build
    A Childrens Playground

    Best Technical Innovation

    ·  A THEOREM (AK RAPOLU THEOREM)

    DHIRA

    L&M (Licensing & Merchandising) Awards

    Best Animated Character Merchandise

    ·  Chhota Bheem Saregama Carvaan Mini (Green Gold Animation)

    Best Animated Series Merchandise

    ·  Fatak Patak (Nihodo Media)

    Best Licensed Animated Character Programme

    ·  Chhota Bheem (Green Gold Animation)

    Best Licensed Animated Series Programme

    ·  Bablu Dablu: Snow Daze (One Take Media)

    Best use of Leveraging a Character for Brand Marketing

    ·  Chhota Bheem Jelimal Candies (Green Gold Animation)

     

    MAM (Media, Advertising and Marketing) Awards

    Best Animated Brand Film

    ·  Air India Animated Brand Films (ARTHA Animation)

    ·  Ace2Three Rummy (Skill Tool Studio)

    ·  TRAQ by Titan (Paperboat Design Studio)

    Best Digital Campaign for an Animated Series

    ·  Fukreyy Boyzzz Launch (Discovery Kids India)

    ·  Kaal ki Shatir Chaal (Discovery Kids India)

    ·  Ace2Three Rummy (Skill Tool Studio)

    Best use of Animated Character in a Brand TVC

    ·  Air India Animated Brand Advertisements (ARTHA Animation)

    Best Experiential Marketing

    ·  School Contact Programme (Discovery Kids India)

    Best Brand Collaboration

    ·  Fukrey Boyzzz x Britannia Krunch (Discovery Kids India)

    Best Innovative Campaign

    ·  SuperHero Academy (Discovery Kids India)

     

    Student Awards

    Best Student 3D Film

    ·  Deep Trouble (MAAC Andheri – Mumbai)

    ·  Let’s Go (MAAC South Extension – New Delhi)

    ·  BOOND (MAAC Malad – Mumbai)

    Best Student 2D film

    ·  Story of a Beginning
    Balaram J (National Institute of Design)

    ·  Water Pollution
    Vishnu Balal (UNESCO H2Ooooh! – Waterwise Program 2021 by Toonz Media Group)

    ·  Blinding Lights Music Video
    Dhruv Dhindale, Sakshi Singh & Aman Singh (DICE VFS)

     

    SPECIAL AWARDS

    Best Animator – Female

    ·  Meera Latkar (Warner Media India – POGO)
    Bheega diya naa

    Best Animator – Male

    ·  Mukund Bhaleghare (Skill Tool Studio)
    ACE2THREE Rummy

    Best Indie Studio

    ·  Paperboat Design Studios

    Young Animator of the Year

    ·  Balaram J (National Institute of Design)
    Story of a Beginning

    Best Animated Music Video

    ·  Jazyl Homavazir & Amandeep Singh
    Homeless Homeboy Animated Opening

    ·  YoBoHo Digital Content
    Move it Like the Animals

    ·  Discovery Kids India
    Little Singham: Kaal ki shatir Chaal

    ·  Kiran Venugopalan & Aishwarya Manoj Mankar
    The Fortune & Julia Nem – Lost

    Best Bollywood inspired animated IP

    ·  Fukrey Boyzzz (Discovery Kids India)

    Best use of animation in a public service message nominee

    ·  Pollution Control Day 2020 (Digitalclay Studios)

    ·  Mumbai Police Parivaar (ARTHA Animation)

    ·  Fukrey Boyzzz: Swag wali Diwali (Discovery Kids India)

    Best Syndicated Content  

    ·  Bablu Dablu: Sunsational Summer (One Take Media)

     

    EDITOR’S CHOICE AWARDS

    Best 3D Series Overall- TV and OTT

    ·  Mondo Yan (Toonz Media Group)

    ·  Mighty Little Bheem Episode – A Flower For Mom (Green Gold Animation)

     

    Most Expansive Studio of the Year
    Cosmos-Maya

    The Arnab Chaudhuri Director’s Award

    The Arnab Chaudhuri Young ACE Award – Short Form

    ·  Notun Fasal (New Harvest)
    Sovan Dutta (SRFTI)

    The Arnab Chaudhuri Young ACE Award – Long Form

    ·  Story of a Beginning
    Balaram J (National Institute of Design)

    The Arnab Chaudhuri Animation ACE Award

    ·  Chandra’s Cafe
    Krishna Chandran A. Nair

  • KAM SUMMIT ’21 – Co-Production: Not a distant dream anymore?

    KAM SUMMIT ’21 – Co-Production: Not a distant dream anymore?

    Mumbai: Day one of the KAM Summit 2021 witnessed an enriching session on ‘Co-Production: Not a distant dream anymore’ where discussion over how co-production has been a lucrative opening for the animation sector and what are the different models and challenges being faced in co-production took centre-stage.

    The panel members included Toonz Media Group CEO P Jayakumar, Assemblage Entertainment founder and CEO AK Madhavan (MadMax), Punnaryug Artvision founder & FICCI chairman of AVGC Forum Ashish Kulkarni, Telegael CEO Paul Cummins, and Cosmos-Maya business development consultant Joris Eckelkamp. The session was moderated by Zebu Animation CEO Adi Shayan.

    Assemblage Entertainment founder and CEO AK Madhavan (MadMax) said his company has done about six full length feature films and most of them were co-productions. “Co-production is largely used to milk or take advantage of arbitrage, which could be skill oriented, tax exemptions or arbitrage of cultural and faith of expertise. Co-production gives you the experience of being a producer to learn the other areas of production and you also get into the nuances of understanding syndication, distribution, financing and taxes. It is a learning and evolving process,” said Madhavan.

    According to Punnaryug Artvision founder & FICCI chairman of AVGC Forum Ashish Kulkarni, the main reason for co-production is matching of skills, cost arbitrage and also considering fitting in timelines where you can contribute to the project and put everything together to make sense of co-production.

    “Lot of co-production mechanisms are effectively working within the country. We have produced two seasons of Shaktimaan. For the first season, we co-produced with Chennai based Excel Animations and the second season was co-produced with a studio based in Hyderabad. And also two of my upcoming projects are also being co-produced within Indian studios,” said Kulkarni.

    Sharing his 30 years of experience in the animation industry, Telegael CEO Paul Cummins said, “Animation can be considered as a big part of our production but co-production is very much our model. Since we started about 30 years ago, we have been involved in 100 co-productions, mainly animations. We co-produce with countries like Australia, Germany and we successfully launched many co-produced pre-school and TV animated series.”

    Quoting the risk behind co-production Toonz Media Group CEO P Jayakumar said, the essential part is to share the risk and rewards and it is the basic fundamental of co-production. It is difficult to analyse whether the risks and rewards are equitable. In initial stages we did some stupid co-productions, but over a period of time we learned and evolved, he added.

    Eckelkamp highlighted the importance of communication while co-production. “You have to choose your partner wisely and you have to ensure that you both find a solution for any problem that arises in the early stage or future, you have to deal with it effectively. I think it is an important task to keep up the communication working throughout the production, and not only in the beginning, to establish a certain communication,” he said.

    Elaborating on how co-production gets started and what thought process goes into it, Cummins said, “Co-production is all about building networks in the industry of context. Each co-production is different. A lot of time you build-up a network of partners where often you reach out to them for future co-pros. Building trust and confidence and delivering what you promised is essential for effective co-production.”

    Jayakumar enlisted key points about how co-production can make use of tax and government funding. “Co-production all starts from the producer and project; it is all about how you finance the project. Secondly the subsidies and tax collected is basically free money. There are many countries like Spain and Ireland which offer 50 per cent and it is upto you how you find the place to get your project done and get about 30-40 per cent of overall budget free of money,” he said.

    He added further, “Co-production is about how you finance the project. As a commissioning broadcaster, you have to look for how to optimally fund the production without losing too much of shares, and how to find your partner. To find the right partner in co-production without losing your shares is a game and for me it was a puzzle game.”

    Describing the model and future of what he has planned for himself and Cosmos-Maya, Eckelkamp said, “Our plan is to concentrate on more original IPs because co-production is effectively done based on who owns the IP, who is the producer and who has the project. The later you are coming into the project and it is already financed, the less share you own and you are in a weaker position as a co-producer.”

    Asserting that co-production is always an independent studio thing, Madhavan said, the need is to understand the origin of co-productions. “Big boys like Disney, Warner, DreamWorks don’t do co-production. It is mostly done by independent creators or studios that have gaps in skills, story delivery, design, and predominantly the gap in finance. Co-production doesn’t originate unless and until there is a gap; it may be due to creative reasons, distribution reasons and market reasons,” he said.

    Concluding the session, Kulkarni spoke about what the future holds for animation co-production mechanisms. “Blockchain is evolving and the whole co-production mechanism is going to change. It will take people a little time to understand blockchains but with this we can solve the large amount of issues we face during co-production. With NFTs (Non-fungible tokens) and blockchain mechanism, we, the creators, will be able to see the light of the day for some of the shows!” he said.

  • Animation Xpress’ KAM Summit 2021 begins

    Animation Xpress’ KAM Summit 2021 begins

    Mumbai: Kids, Animation & More (KAM) Summit and Ann Awards are back again with yet another insightful and exciting edition. The second edition of KAM Summit and Ann Awards 2021 began virtually on Thursday. 

    AnimationXpress launched the first edition of the KAM Summit and Ann Awards in 2019 at The Lalit, Mumbai which saw a participation of about 700 delegates and 45 speakers. The industry has gone through a lot of changes since then.

    One of the very few sectors that flourished tremendously during the lockdown period was Animation! A form of entertainment that is not reliant on production that presupposes physical gathering unlike live-action content and yet entertains children and adults alike. 

    The key theme of KAM Summit 2021 is ‘The Next Big Rise’. The three-day event will witness insightful sessions with industry leaders across studios, broadcasters, OTT platforms, creators as they discuss the options Indian animation has before itself and the direction it can take to propel it further. It will also focus on the medium’s expansion into myriad genres and platforms.

    The mission of the KAM Summit is to celebrate the stupendously growing animation industry and to bring together the animation industries – both in India and internationally – to pause and reflect on trends and developments in every aspect of the business and technology associated with it.

    With the animation industry’s creme de la creme on the advisory board, the summit is set to be a definitive virtual gathering and a vantage point for the entire animation industry.

    The advisory members include Toonz Media Group CEO P Jayakumar, Vaibhav Studios founder and director Vaibhav Kumaresh, Zebu Animation CEO Adi Shayan, Green Gold Animations CEO Rajiv Chilaka, FICCI AVGC chairman and Punnaryug Artvision founder Ashish Kulkarni, Technicolor country head Biren Ghose, Assemblage Entertainment founder and CEO AK Madhavan, Walt Disney Animation Studios character technical director-simulation supervisor Avneet Kaur, Autodesk India technical solutions manager Samit Shetty, Joan Vogelesang Consultants president and CEO Joan Vogelesang and Srinivas Sribhakta who is the CEO of VedAtma Animation Studios, director & CEO at ‎Arena Animation Malleswaram & Rajajinagar and secretary ABAI.

    KAM Summit is presented by Nick and is co-powered by Cosmos-Maya, Unreal-Engine, and Discovery Kids. ABAI and COE are the associate partners and the event is supported by GUBBARE and HUION. Digicon6 Asia is the festival partner and ASIFA India serves as the community partner.

    Viacom18 Hindi and Kids TV Network head Nina Elavia Jaipuria said, “The kids’ entertainment space is at a very exciting stage. With carefully curated IPs that are entertaining, engaging, and transport kids into a world of escape, it is no wonder that the category is on a growth trajectory. Since kids influence almost all major household purchase decisions and co-viewing of the genre, it is no wonder that kids’ channels remain attractive to advertisers. An event like KAM brings all the relevant stakeholders together- be it content creators, platform owners, or advertisers. It is collaborative forums such as this that will lead to greater storytelling and innovation in the sphere of kids’ entertainment.”

    Unreal Engine Epic Games evangelist Arvind Neelakantan also expressed his excitement for the virtual summit. “Unreal Engine is reimagining storytelling and revolutionizing production pipelines for episodic, feature-length, and short-form animations. We are excited to be at the summit to see how we can enable creators to transform their first idea into a final frame, all using Unreal,” he said.

    In its statement, Cosmos-Maya said, “The KAM Summit is an effort to take the Indian animation industry global and also celebrate our landmark achievements as an industry. As a leading industry player Cosmos-Maya is happy to be part of an industry-wide initiative like this and we expect it to be a great event. An opportunity to make any new professional collaborations would be the cherry on the cake.”

    YOTTA serves as the workstation and OTT service partner whereas Green Gold Animation is the summit partner. 

    In a statement, YOTTA Infrastructure said, “Technology has been powering content creators and digital platforms. At Yotta, we are democratizing technology by offering innovative solutions on a subscription model. This is the first time we are participating in the KAM Summit 2021, and looking forward to presenting our solutions for Creative content creators and OTT Players/Broadcasters.”

    Green Gold Animation stated, “Animation as a medium has been evolving to accommodate the changes or rather the growth in reach and access along with the technology of the industry. The digital platforms have opened up the world of content across the world. With storytelling itself no longer bound by regions and language, the animation is gaining acceptance across age groups with the myriad tales that appeal to human emotions and shared experiences that we all share during our lives. We look forward to sharing our bit of experience gained along our journey and be privy to the same from the various participants and speakers at KAM 2021.”

    ABAI president Biren Ghose who has been supporting the initiative also as an advisory board member shared, “ABAI is delighted to present the “go-to-market” strategy and the traction it has achieved for the Center Of Excellence that has provided high-end technology solutions; incubation and a subsidised set of infrastructure to the start-up community at Bengaluru. The finishing school is in the process of taking its talent development mission to high-tech areas in virtual production and game engine technologies and also to act as a hub for the virtualisation of the digital arts education programme. No industry association has been able to show multi-million-dollar support to the community like ABAI has done thanks to the Government of Karnataka and the KAVGC Policy.”

    Keeping the ongoing lockdowns and work from home stress in mind, this year’s KAM Summit will be held in two parts of the day; morning sessions will be from 10 am and evening sessions will be held from 5/6:00 pm.

    We are excited to bring to you this massive extravaganza and information-loaded KAM summit to make the animation industry propel to new heights.

    Click here for the complete KAM SUMMIT 2021 Agenda

    For additional information and for Summit Registration kindly visit the KAM SUMMIT 2021 

    Click here to know more about Ann Awards