Creativity is allowing you to make mistakes. Art knows which ones to keep – Arun Gowtham

Arun Gowtham is presently Vice President -Technical at ANTS Studio Private Limited. He has been earlier associated with various studios like Digital Art Media, Syncline FX Pvt Ltd, Crest Communications, Akash FX and i-Nurture(Toonskool) Education Solutions Private Limited as Country Head of Quality Assurance; Mr. Arun Gowtham had received his animation education at Gates Academy in Bangalore.He is also a graduate in Journalism and a post graduate in Public Administration.

CG Today : Mr. Gowtham, welcome to CGToday. It is delightful to have you with us today.

Arun : Thank you.

CG Today : You are the Vice President-Technical at ANTS Studio Private Limited. You are also managing and leading a team at Dream Media Fusion in parallel and associated with i-Nurture Education Solutions Private Limited. How are you able to plan and manage multiple organizations at higher verticals? Please do let us know about your time management strategy?

Arun : I am presently associated with Ants Studio Pvt Ltd as VP-Technical as well as parallel running my own entity Dream Media Fusion. I am able to do this successfully because the nature of business in both these organizations is different. In Ants it is only training and in DMF its only production.My concept is quiet simple just take up only that which can be executed.

CG Today : What are the current projects of the organizations you are leading at. Can you share with us?

Arun : The current projects under DMF include small time post production jobs for a kannada feature film. In Ants the responsibilities are huge as presently we are in the process of revamping the whole organization with the new management coming in.

CG Today : You have said that more and more foreign studios are outsourcing work to India, how abreast your company now to keep up with this demand?

Arun : We try and do a quality job as far as possible but sometimes the clients themselves want to compromise because of financial and time constraints,otherwise with our existing experience we can take up any foreign projects. Of course when you say any project, it involves the up-gradation of software, hardware and manpower as well, I think we have a long way to go now.

CG Today : It also seems that your career history is full of examples of how you were a key player in getting new studios “off the ground”, so to speak. What characteristics, in your opinion, are important in play the role of an entrepreneur?

Arun : This is a very interesting question in our industry.Being an entrepreneur in this industry basically requires two important things firstly passion for this industry and secondly a deep pocket. One needs to have a good amount of perseverance and should always be ready to learn and adopt new changes or developments in the technology.

CG Today : One attribute stands out in your bio and in your interviews, which is that you are very good at team management. Tell us your philosophy concerning team development.

Arun : Basically an artist can perform only when he/she is given sufficient freedom to work.I very strongly agree with this idea since it is a creative field.It is not a factory where the workers' performance is measured by his physical ability. Instead it is the mental capability. It is the creativity of the idea that makes an artist to stand out.Therefore I always give them their space to perform and satisfy our clients.

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