City animation institute wins excellence award
Published: 19th April 2013 08:11 AM | Last Updated: 19th April 2013 08:11 AM | A+A A-
Hyderabad seems to be emerging as an animation hot spot, what with Tollywood director Rajamouli’s movie Eega picking up a national award for special effects. And now, city-based Creative Mentors has been awarded the Best Excellence in Animation and Gaming Education by Brand Academy and Big Brands Research.
Considered to be one of Asia’s premiere awards, Suresh Kovvuri, managing director of Creative Mentors walked away with the prize, which was awarded in New Delhi last Saturday. The 32-year old tells us more.
A mechanical engineer by education, Suresh says he was interested in gaming since his childhood and always dreamt of setting up an animation school. With more than a decade’s worth of work experience in the industry, six years ago, he realised his dream with Creative Mentors.
“We have tie ups with many major colleges and universities including MG University in Meghalaya and by next month, we are opening our new college at Madhapur,” informed Suresh, who has not had any formal training himself.
Learning on the job, which he feels is the best way to do so, Suresh picked up the tricks of the trade from his time at Satyam Animation in Chennai, DQ at Hyderabad, Synergy Images at Bangalore and Crest Animation at Mumbai.
The animator’s repertoire includes work for Disney, Mike Young Production that produces children’s TV series, Nick--American satellite network and National Geographic Channel Germany.
Over the years, the engineer turned animator is of the opinion that the State has the largest pool of manpower but is unable to tap into the Rs 3,900 crore potential of the animation industry in the country.
“Given the long tradition of culture, the treasure trove of various folk arts and tales, abundant pool of animators with excellent technical skills, low cost operations, the vibrant film industry, experience in multi platform development and design and excellent technical education infrastructure, Hyderabad could very well be the next big animation capital of the world,” he states. With a city that hosts over 150 colleges offering the specialisation and over 30 animation studios and companies, he doesn’t see why not.
Creative Mentors managed to tip that potential in their favour when they were selected from over thousands of entries from across the country. With each city being awarded, Creative Mentors was one of the privileged few that made the cut.
“It means so much to me to win this award. The whole team put so much love into every frame of animation we produced, it’s amazing to have our efforts and work recognised,” shares a beaming Suresh.
The timing for them couldn’t have been better though. The team is currently working on a Bollywood 3D animation movie project Dots and the award could not have been a better morale booster.