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Greenfield Toons makes it to the top with Meena

SYED TASHFIN CHOWDHURY
YOUNGSTERS and children, who are avid fans of the cartoon character Meena, are in for a treat as five more episodes of the series are soon to be broadcast, according to sources from Greenfield Toons, one of the leading animation studios of the country. The current animators of the latest episodes have earned quite a reputation for their work.
"The first episode is soon to be broadcast globally this month. The others are currently in the pipeline," said Sanjeev Tamang, animation director of Greenfield Toons.
Greenfield Toons, a sister concern and animation wing of Decode Limited, acquired the United Nations Children's Fund project (earlier known as UNICEF), while competing with a
number of renowned local and foreign
animation houses.
"It was quite a rough competition but the selection finally occurred on the basis of previous productions in this line of work," said Tamang, while discussing about the bid for the projects.
Through this acquirement of the project, Greenfield now stands at par with some of the major animation houses like Hanna Barbara, UTV Toons and Ram Mohan Biography.
The three aforementioned houses were all responsible for the animation of earlier episodes in the popular Meena series. "Hanna Barbara, based in Phillipines, was responsible for the developing the
first few episodes. Later the project was handed over to UTV toons and Ram Mohan Biography in India," said Tamang. Around 12 episodes in the series were completed therefore and the other five, which are being developed, will soon add up to this list. The acquirement of the project was also due to Greenfield's dedication and hard work in some of its previous projects.
"Even though the house was initiated in 2000, it faced a problem with unskilled 2D (Two Dimensional) animators at the time," said Tamang.
The problem was soon solved when the management called in professionals from India, who trained these animators in the various aspects and areas of animation.
After an adequate training period, the house used its existing resources to develop its first 2D animated project called 'Ooga Booga'. Tamang informed StarTech that after this period the house primarily focused on 2D animation.
Soon after this, Greendfield received a Canadian project to develop 4 episodes of a cartoon character named 'Princess Sydney'. The episodes, each with duration of 52 minutes, are to be aired from this month in Canada and through the next one year.
"The four episodes are each based on separate special occasions like
Halloween, Easter, Christmas and Valentines," said Tamang about the Princess Sydney project.
After this project the animators of the house went through another period of training and this time from the professionals of Ram Mohan Biography of India. Greenfield Toons hired Sanjeev Tamang in 2003 to maintain and develop its international projects.
The animation house recently received another Canadian project. This project will be centred around the character "SuperLily", a toddler with super-human abilities. Around 156 episodes, each having duration of 11 minutes, are being developed by the house at present.
The animation house is currently working with around 120 staff of which 100 are artists and the rest are digital artists.
Despite its list of achievements, the house is yet to venture into producing animated motion pictures like Shrek, The Incredibles etc. "Production of such motion pictures would require highly skilled and immense manpower as there would be various technical difficulties," said Tamang.
Tamang explained that animation on Television, are fairly easier as most animated TV series require 812 frames per second. "Motion pictures on the other hand, require smooth movement and therefore
around 12 frame per second are used by animators," he explained.
While talking about other local animation houses, Tamang explained that despite their potential, the houses are not receiving adequate projects through which they could have gained skills and experience. "Most of them are basically catering their services to advertisements and are using flash as the major source of their animation," he said.
Tamang also pointed out that most investors are currently sliding away from opening up animation houses of such sorts as the average period to reach break-even are usually around 2 to 3 years. "Investors would prefer a more lucrative business than animation houses due to these reasons," he added.
He also pointed out that the lack of skilled animators and artists are also a major problem that most local animation houses are facing. "The private and public universities should initiate programme or courses related or based on animation so that this industry can flourish in the future," he said.
The Animation director also informed StarTech that the SouthAsia Enterprise Development Facility (SEDF) and Greendfield Toons have reached an understanding through which, the two organisations will try to initiate an animation academy in
Dhaka. SEDF plans to generate around 400 trained animators annually from this animation academy, once initiated. "The academy will hopefully be initiated by next year, " said Tamang.