Anukul Kukade – Project Director at Maya Entertainment Limited

Anukul Kukade is a project director at Maya Entertainment Limited and has an industry experience in excess of 12 years. During this time, he has worked in various capacities including that of a senior graphics designer, 3D artist and HOD of lighting for international animated work. Mr Anukul has now added another feather in his cap and forayed into business development & marketing of animation content in the international and domestic sector.

CG Today : Mr. Anukul, thank you for agreeing to speak to us. Please accept our warm welcome.

Anukul : My Pleasure

CG Today : We will start you with the present. You have been working for Maya Entertainment for over 6 years now, which we must admit is quite some time, in one company. What is it about the environment at Maya that keeps you happy and focused?

Anukul : I guess it has got to do with my patience and a strong team who work around me, which in turn makes one’s life simple and effortless.

CG Today : Maya is one of the pioneers of the animation industry with an impressive record having worked for some big names like BBC, Mike Young Productions, Sony, Ragdoll and Rainbow. There are artists who have been recognized internationally at BAFTA and FICCI. As a project director is it easy or difficult to in such an illustrious company with such a talented bunch of people?

Anukul : Both, It was easy when I started with Maya in 2004, as I was a part of small team and more focused on delivering my own shots. But it becomes difficult as you climb the ladder, because you have to constantly prove yourself which itself is a challenge. In fact, this talented bunch of people has made me grow into what I am.

CG Today : Working for Client Media & Eros, Maya has contributed 60 minute character animation for Toonpur ka Superhero, which has received lot of positive reviews, with an impressive star cast comprising of Ajay and Kajol. There are other impressive projects like Jajantaram Mamantaram, based to some extent on Gulliver’s Travels. Which have been your favourite projects? Would you believe Maya is right up there with the best when it comes to 3D character animation?

Anukul : Firstly I do not want to take any credit for Toonpur and JJMMT reason being that there were different set of artists who worked on it.

But yes as far character animation goes am sure we are well placed in the industry.

CG Today : Ramayana The Epic is an in-house production and this 3D animated film included voice cast by some well known actors and actresses. As a project director, do you see any difference between an in-house animation project and a project for a specific client like Eros or Rainbow for example?

Anukul : Having the experience of outsourced work and the pipeline we used to follow made it kind of easy to setup our own internal way of working. It was definitely not a smooth sail as this kind of scale was never attempted earlier in the studio. A thorough postmortem has been done and documented for review, which we are going through while we start on a new project.

CG Today : You are currently the HOD of Lighting involved in an International animated TV series. Can you tell us a bit more about the series and also share your insight on how international exposure can help animators in the country?

Anukul : Yes to give you some insight of the last 2 years, we have completed 3 shows for Cebbies Channel

Noddy in Toyland
Everything’s Rosie (Season 1)

Recently we completed “The Octonauts” which is currently on AIR and # 1 show in the UK.

Getting outsourced work in INDIA is a good way because an artist can adapt to the kind of quality standard which is required, which will raise the Bar of our own industry.

CG Today : You have worked a little under 3 years at MileStone Interactive which is well known for mobile entertainment and interactive content including games for XBOX 360, PS2 and PS3. How do you think is the world of 3D animation films different from games, if at all they are different according to you?

Anukul : They go hand in hand believe me, it’s the technology which is different. For eg:- MAX PAYNE game with a strong story line which got adapted and a movie was made out of it. But technology has also changed over the past few years. Filmmakers are taking game engine to pre-visualize their entire movie way before it is shot on film, versus various types of animation software are taking on tools which the game engines use.

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