'Folk-tale rich India should be good animation market'

kolkata: india, with its rich resource of folk tales, can build up a throbbing animation market with the help of modern tools of information technology, according to a prominent british animation expert. "your country, with so much diversity in culture, in language and vast repertoire of folk tales, should not lag behind in the challenging world of animation industry," laura knight, co-founder of liverpool-based jackdaw media, said on friday while conducting a workshop on animation. the aspiring animation filmmakers must use new tools like internet to make low-cost animation works rich in ideas and imagination," knight, also a senior lecturer of graphics and animation, stanffordshire university, said. elaborating on how indian animation professionals could make the projects, knight said "a 3-d studio max software would be sufficient to execute the work. i think there is enough possibility to do the work on one's pc and webcast it and even send through dvd". prospective animators could take the help of e-mail to send their work to a select audience, knight, who is a commercial producer with channel four, granada and tv television, said. the workshop was conducted by british council in association with the technology and research associates and west bengal government's film complex nandan. she said there were over 3000 websites related to uk-based animation firms and aspirant animators could get production opportunity in advertising agencies, tv, cable and internet application, computer games and special effects. in britain the underlying principle of every commissioned project was to provide the animators and artistes, who drew the sketches, with breathing space and opportunity to pursue creativity that "push the boundaries of art form in subject matter; creativity and technology," she said. when asked about the reason for initiating the workshop, being attended by people from city-based animation firms like netguru india, the chief of british council's eastern india division david evans said kolkata was the gateway to south asia and the meet would help the animation sector here.