SUPRITA MITTER

suprita.mitter@mid-day.com

ASSEMBLAGE is a start-upanimation company, set up in2014 and headquartered inMumbai, that boasts of anaward-winning team of over280 employees including technocrats, artists and man-agement professionals withseveral years of collective expe-rience in the industry. Withinjust a year of its inception, thecompany completed its featurefilm with 90 minutes of com-puter-generated images out oftheir facility in Mumbai.

“After being in the anima-tion industry for about 15years, I had a deep under-standing of the market, the keyplayers locally and interna-tionally and a solidunderstanding of the key chal-lenges that the industry wasfacing. We had reputable stu-dios in Los Angeles and otherparts of the world who trustedour capabilities and ability todeliver, wanting a reliableIndian partner,” says AKMadhavan, CEO, Assemblage

Produced by Flying BarkProductions (Australia),Assemblage and TelegaelTeoranta (Ireland), the moviewill also have a worldwiderealease post September 17,“The project came aboutbecause of my previous business relationships with the producers Jim Ballantineand Barbara Stephen,” shares Madhavan.

First introduced to audi-ences in the 1930s through aseries of children’s books,Blinky Bill is considered aniconic Australian children’sclassic. The story revolvesaround a small koala, Blinky,with a big imagination. He isan adventurer who dreams ofleaving the little town of GreenPatch and following his explor-er father’s footsteps. Blinky

embarks on a journey thattakes him beyond the bound-ary of Greenpatch, in the wildand dangerous Australianlandscape in his quest to findhis missing father.

The total budget of themovie is USD 12.5million andAssemblage not only partici-pated as a service provider butalso as co-producer of this film.The project was completedwithin 10 months.

Technical glitchTalking about the challengesfaced during the project,Madhavan tells us, “There areseveral challenges that arefaced in the production of afeature, especially as an entre-preneurial set up. Thechallenges are primarily technology and finance driven.Setting up the studio infra-structure in a cost-effective yetefficient way, with limited cap-ital at hand, is a feat by itself.This is something we achievedthrough the collective experi-ence of the team and some

creative thinking. We were alsobound by time restrictions.Film production schedules aretight and the client’s demandfor delivery are unwavering.Our challenge was to set up thestudio, its technical infrastruc-ture, hire the right talent, andstart delivering high-qualitycontent based on a tight pro-duction calendar.”

“In terms of opportunities,the scope and potential of ani-mation, in India is huge.Firstly, as a market, there is anevident growth in domestic consumption. The local audi-ences are now graduallyaccepting animation featurefilms as a viable alternativeform of entertainment,”informs Madhavan He furtherexplains that the rise of Indianfictional characters is an indi-cation in that direction but alsothat more importantly, Indianaudiences are watching globalanimation productions too andappreciating the quality of this different class of filmed entertainment.

India is bound to get betterwith its low-cost yet high-quality capabilities (state of theart hardware, software andhuman capital), convergenceof technology and creative sensibilities, it’s growing trackrecord of delivery, strengthen-ing relationships with globalproducers — India remains a valuable partner in such pro-ductions across the valuechain,” he concludes.

(From left) Arjun Madhavan, A K Madhavan, Milind Shinde and UpenDesai form the core team at Assemblage

31 the guidefriday, september 11, 2015, mumbai, web www.mid-day.com, twitter @mid_day

HASSAN M KAMAL

hassan.mkamal@mid-day.com

IF YOU are a start-up and wish to learn a few tricksfrom those who have alreadybeen around, TiE Smash-Upmay be a good place to beginwith. The event will take place on Saturday at IITBombay, Powai.

Currently in its fifth edi-tion, the meet will have CEOsfrom some of the most recentstart-ups, industry leaders,and more than 300 newstart-ups sharing their expe-rience of running a business,discussing ideas and variousissues plaguing the Indianstart-up industry, and in theprocess will offer a few tips onhow to run their business.

Naveen Raju, executivedirector, TiE Mumbai chap-ter, says that there are a lot ofstart-ups in the city, who aredoing things differently.“Some are new, while othershave been around for a coupleof years. The TiE Smash-Upaims to bring the experienced

to share their experiential andindustry knowledge with thenewcomers,” he informs.

So, there is a special paneldiscussion featuringTaskbob's founder AseemKhare, Shreekant Pawar,founder of Diabeto, andSameer Parwani of CouponDunia, who won theSmashUp Award himself,four years ago, investigatingwhat start-ups need to doright in the first crucial 365

days. The event will featureworkshops informing start-ups of the legal and financialaspects of running a business.The event will also featureKunal Shah, founder ofFreecharge, and other compa-ny founders including OML(Vijay Nair), DocEngage(Ahimanikya Satapathy) andHolachef (Saurabh Saxena)who will share their journey.One of the highlights wouldbe a speed-dating sessionwhere newcomers will pitchideas to potential investors inless than two minutes, in avery informal session. Theevent will also see a food trail,where food-based start-ups will be sharing samples oftheir products.

"There will be no suits, nopresentations, and mostimportantly, no VC talks orthe big boy talks that scare offnewcomers. It's about meet-ing people and sharingstories," informs Raju.

But why the need for suchinformal sessions? "We do lotof workshops all year, but thisis an event where new bloodstart-ups come out, and wedon't want to scare themaway," he reasons. Though,registration for the fifth edi-tion of TiE Smash-up is over, afew seats are available for on-the-spot registrations.

ON September 12, 8.30 am to7 pm

AT VMCC Auditorium, IITBombay, Powai.

LOG ON TO Tiesmashup.org

REGISTRATION FEE R1499onwards (R2499 for on thespot entries)

Over 300 youngentrepreneurs fromMumbai will shareideas and gainexperience of howto successfully run astart-up in the fifthedition of TiESmash-UP

Meet the creatorsof Blinky Bill

Mumbai-based animation company, Assemblage, hascompleted its first feature co-production for the Australian filmBlinky Bill The Movie. As the film releases on September 17, inAustralia, we take you behind the scenes

animation

sign up

❚ Founders’ agreement notprepared well

❚ Tax structure not planned

❚ Weak financial modelling

❚ Building a growth teambeyond the core team

❚ Not sharing vision with therest of theteam/organisation

5 common mistakesmade by start-ups

Let’s start things now!

today, you should

head to

A CHARITY CONCERT FOR CANCER: Sur Tarang,an evening of evergreen duets with dual VocalistSairam. TIME 6.30 pm. AT ShanmukhanandaHall, Sion (E) CALL 24078888

A still from Blinky Bill