Asianet will act as a facilitator for Toonz Animation, India‘s first digital ink and paint studio, in its efforts to track down creative 8-14 year olds, the Malayalam channel‘s COO Mohan Nair said on Tuesday. Asianet will co-sponsor the Toonz project of a month-long animation workshop for children at Toonz studio in Thiruvananthapuram in the southern Indian state of Kerala, in May 2001.

"The idea is to gift animation-literacy to creative children," the Financial Express quoted Bill Dennis, CEO, Toonz Animation India Private Ltd, as saying at a press conference in Thiruvananthapuram on Monday.

"In return, the young blood will pump in fresh animation content which will help Toonz in its race for the world‘s $35 billion animation market," Dennis said.

The month-long workshop, scheduled to be held at Toonz from May 1, 2001 to May 31, 2001, will teach children how to make animation films, identify and nurture the creative talents in children, promote animation as a vocation and create novel ideas and concepts. This include selection by competition, conducting the workshop, actual making of the film and promotion and distribution of the film.

"Asianet will be regularly carrying promotions inviting patrons of the channel to get kids to participate," Nair said. The completed films will be seen by an international audience through animation festivals in major centres around the world. As cosponsor, Asianet Communications will air the one-hour special throughout the year. Each individual film made in the workshop will include the children‘s original promo and the live footage of the making of the film. Dennis said that efforts will be made to broadcast the final product at the International Children‘s Day of Broadcasting in December. "The broadcast will be premiered exclusively on Asianet," Nair said.

"We‘re also looking at it as a way to increase options as far as career options go for youngsters in Kerala. There‘s a lot of talent out there but very few avenues," Nair said.

Pentamedia Graphics, IBM, SGI, Creek & River and COMPAQ are organising the biggest and the only annual symposium in the country for the entertainment industry on 8th and 9th March at Le Royal Meridien in Chennai, India.

This was announced on Thursday at a press conference held in south Mumbai. Conceived last year, the Entertainment Graphics Organization (EGO) is an annual forum for the global entertainment graphics fraternity to interact and review existing technology & trends.

"The computer animation industry has been steadily growing over the past few years," K Srinivasan, Director COO, PentaMedia Graphics, said. "From revenues of $ 850,000 in the 80s, the computer animation portion of the entertainment industry is expected to touch $ 40 billion by 2003. With this kind of growth prospects, EGO 2001 aims to provide participants a wealth of information on the latest happenings in the entertainment graphics arena. They would be able to learn and discover ground breaking technologies and put to use these technologies for their own endeavor," Srinivasan said.

"EGO 2001 is an excellent opportunity for Indian content creation organisations to interact with some of the world‘s best. It also offers them a platform to identify newer opportunities that they can address not only for the domestic market in India but the international market as well," Dr Prasad V Medury, Managing Director, SGI India, said.

The inaugural conference of the Entertainment Graphics Organization, EGO 2000, held last year, attracted almost 400 guests from the global motion picture, television, special effects and animation field. The delegates - from the USA, Canada, Europe, England, Japan and other Pacific Rim countries - included software developers, high-end computer animation producers who traveled to Kelabakkam to understand the latest status of the computer animation industry. Key presenters included Scott Ross, CEO, Digital Domain, Robi Roncarelli, Pixel Animation Directory, Kim Davidson, CEO, Side Effects Software, and Andrew Russell, BBC, among other eminent industry leaders.

EGO 2001 will have Robi Roncarelli and Scott Ross making presentations on the status of the global computer animation industry. Besides them, the symposium will have representatives from Side Effects Software, Aptech, Cable & Satellite Broadcasters, Razorfish, Inc., Disney, Rainbow, The William Morris Agency, 20th Century Fox Animation, Platinum studios, Hyperion Studio, BD Fox & Friends, Reliance Entertainment, Motion Picture of America, ESPN/STAR sports (India) and Television Asia.