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Editorial
ONLINE ENTERTAINMENT
Care to step aboard?
Digital entertainment. That’s the new buzzword doing the rounds of
Hollywood’s studios right now. Already, the traditional movie majors
have begun to lose their senior level talents to promising start-ups.
And several filmmakers, Oliver Stone, Jerry Bruckheimer, Kevin Wendle
and Brad Grey among them, have ventured out into producing live action
and animation for the Internet, themselves.
But what of the movies? What’s going to happen to the big screen
Hollywood fare as we’ve known it for years? That’s Hollywood’s
staple, and will remain thus. No threat there. At any rate, not at the
moment. Those in showbiz may have been wary of the Internet for years,
but the more enterprising among them have sensed there’s a goldmine
waiting to be struck in digital entertainment.
In the past six months alone, people have begun to realise that the Web
finally has both the technology and the audience for interesting digital
fare. Producers like Wendle say that before the awareness spread, they
used to be way-laid on the streets and restaurants by people with movie
scripts. Now, they’re being accosted by people with business plans
for start-ups.
Predictably, Los Angeles is the hub of the new software industry. All
in a matter of months, more than a 100 new digital entertainment companies
have mushroomed in the city, making it the online entertainment capital
of the world.
Start-ups have the investment capital to hire top talent. Another measure
of the industry’s growth is the infusion of venture capital. Why,
in the last 12 months alone, so much of it has flooded the city that start-ups
actually have more than they need, and can pick and choose.
And what do the start-ups offer? Film, for instance, offers users the
choice of over 800 movie titles (and the catalog is growing) which they
can watch at leisure; firstlook.com enables them to listen to brand new
music from the major artistes; Tonos, a site founded by Grammy-winner,
Kenny Edmonds, offers aspiring musicians the chance to ask the leading
musicians about their creative process; these are just three of the 100-odd
start-ups now on offer on-line. And what’s more, about 1200 new business
plans are being offered for fresh web-casting start-ups.
WHAT IT TAKES
The good news for India is, the chief requirements for smart digital entertainment
are creativity, computer skills and ideas, all of which we have in abundance.
Thanks to the venture capitalists, we now even have the money to get the
start-ups up and functional.
Already, several Indian players have begun to sense the opportunity in
online entertainment and web-casting and have already initiated the spadework.
There are, for instance, several companies like GV Films in the South,
that are acquiring the internet rights to movies. Having started early,
they’ve even been able to get the rights to most movies for a song.
They can’t any more, because the producers have been quick to realise
there’s a great deal of money to be had in selling the internet rights,
and aren’t willing to part with them cheap.
The global movie majors have already begun recognising India as a good
location for the production of animation films and the like. It won’t
be long before we win their eye with online entertainment, too.
However, we need to win their eye first. Last year, the total global market
for multimedia work for films and other visuals was pegged at US $ 16
billion (Rs 70,000 crore). But animation contracted out of Asia was worth
only Rs 2,150 crore, a figure expected to increase tenfold in three years.
And India’s market share was even less — about 10 per cent of
the Asian output.
We don’t need the Hollywood majors to tell us we have the recognised
skills and software potential. In view of India’s strong technical
human capital foundation and growing reputation, we need to prove we’re
game for the challenges of online entertainment, as well.
PentaMedia, Crest and Unilazer, care to step aboard?
Shaju George Alex