Out of Toon at the Box Office: Indonesian Animators Struggle to Stay in the Picture1 min read
Reading Time: < 1 minuteComputer animation rules at the box office. In 2010, five of the top 10 highest-grossing movies were animated, including “Shrek Forever After,” “How to Train Your Dragon” and the year’s top money-maker, “Toy Story 3.” This year, animated films “Rio,” “Rango” and “Kung Fu Panda 2″ are all currently in the top 10.
Much of the intensive labor that goes into these elaborately animated Hollywood films gets outsourced to production houses abroad, with Taiwan and South Korea being the go-to sources for top animation talent. But animation companies in other Asian countries, including Malaysia and China, are also becoming more prominent, hoping to cash in on the growing demand for animation, not just in film, but also on TV and online.
So how does Indonesia’s animation sector stack up? Not very well, according to Ardian Elkana, founder and executive director of Castle Production, the country’s biggest animation company.
During a recent animation workshop at the @America cultural center in Pacific Place mall, Ardian said Indonesia was far behind the competition in Asia.
