“If it works, Roadside Romeo would change the scenario for all of us,” said Pankaj Khandpur, Creative Director, Tata Elxsi - Visual Computing Labs to rounds of applause from delegates at the Animated Feature Forum (AFF) held recently in Mumbai. In the animation business for more than three decades, Khandpur was optimistic about the animation business in general and the Walt Disney-Yash Raj Film Roadside Romeo in particular. Tata Elxsi has been working on the film for the last two years. There was also Mahesh Samat, Managing Director, Walt Disney India who spoke of Roadside Romeo adding that it would hopefully lead to the animation industry in India finding it’s own idiom.

Big-time animators and representatives from animation houses were there in full force at the AFF, organised by Animation Xpress.

Speaking about AFF, Anand Gurnani, Managing Editor, Animation Xpress said, “Getting film folks and trade to attend the conference has been an exhilarating experience. This has been a modest beginning but the event has given us an assured positive outcome that there will be a movement towards bringing animation into the mainstream.”

The conference started with a keynote address by Mahesh Samat, Managing Director, Walt Disney India., followed by a panel discussion called ‘Director’s Cut’ the orators of which comprised Govind Nihalani, Kunal Kohli, Rohit Vaid, Arnab Chaudhari and Gitanjali Rao.

With an illustrious panel of speakers, the Director’s Cut session discussed the need of developing a brand identity for Indian animation, along with the experiences of live action directors venturing into animation.

The ‘Investment to Return on Investment’ session that followed featured investment and return on investment of animated feature films. Chaired by Turner’s Head of Theatrical and Licensing and Merchandising Jiggy George; the speakers in this session included iRock Entertainment CEO Siddharth Jain, Contiloe Pictures MD Abhimanyu Singh and BIG Animation CEO Ashish Kulkarni.

The next session ‘Development to Post’ was very interesting. The speakers of this session included Aditya Krishna, (VP - Development) UTV Motion Pictures, Production Head, Aman Kwatra 2nz; Arun Kumar, Head of VFX & Animation Operations CB Pixion and Pankaj Khandpur. As many as 300 animated films will be released by the middle of next year. Finally, it was time to discuss ‘Marketing and Innovation’, the speakers of which comprised of Saurabh Varma, CMO, Reliance Entertainment, publicist Dale Bhagwagar, Abhishek Nayyar, Percept Picture Company, Samir Chopra, Studio 18 and Smita Maroo, Shemaroo and Priyanka Sinha, Editor, Screen. The panel discussed existing marketing techniques and possible innovations in the field.