As an immigrant, I have always believed that I need to plan forward with backup options in hand. That is precisely why I decided to research some animation roles back in my home country as well. Given that visa situations are always dicey, I thought it would be good to know about my available options.

In order to understand this better, I reached out to Vaibhav Kumaresh.

“Vaibhav Kumaresh is the man behind Simpoo Singh, the famous 30-second cartoon series featured on Channel V, which tickled millions of Indians.

Over the last two decades, he has contributed to some of arguably India’s favourite animated content in the field of TV commercials and channel promos.“

While talking to me about the Indian Industry and the challenges he faces, he said, “In my case, the biggest challenge is to create and distribute high-quality original Indian animated content – be it within India or abroad. And most importantly – do it in a financially successful and sustainable manner.”

I also wanted to know about the kind of software that is widely used in India, to align it with my own skills if need be. Vaibhav mentioned that they try to use any tool that helps bring their vision to reality. Their studio uses everything from hand-drawn animation, and physical stop motion to digital animation – both 2d and 3d. In the digital space, they currently use Adobe Photoshop, Animate, Aftereffects and Autodesk Maya.

Vaibhav also emphasized that the medium totally depends on the story one is telling. The potential of a medium lies in how effectively it is used to convey the message/ story. In the case of commercials specifically, unique mediums help break the clutter in the media.

In one of his interviews with YourStory, Vaibhav said,”Right now we don’t even have our own Indian animation industry. It’s the American or European animation industry that we mostly cater to. We need to tell our stories really well in order to get there.” Having said that, the Indian animation industry has grown by 24 per cent in 2021 and is still growing according to the FICCI EY March 2022 report.