Zoetropeican was established at Singapore in the year 2012. It focused on content generation through Animation, Motion Graphics, and FX. The same year, the company formed a subsidiary of Zoetropeican in Mumbai, India. It aimed at exploring opportunities in India along with tapping its large pool of creativity. Thereafter, the studio started delivering content that involved branding and advertising. The following year, the company launched its Bangalore office, which is now the creative hub of the company with a compact team of creative professionals.
In the last few years, Zoetropeican has expanded its portfolio from animated content to live action content. The firm now provides a spectrum of services for both digital (Animation, VFX) and conventional media (Films/AVs, Print, Photo-shoots). Company’s digital platform has further embraced Digital Marketing, 360° filming along with VR/AR services. With its expanded portfolio of services/content, Zoetropeican continues providing services in Animation and Motion Graphics and successfully integrates them with other genres of creative services – eventually exploring innovative service frameworks.
The Go-Getter CEO
Shridhar Rajamani is the CEO of the company. Fondly called as Shri by his employees, peers and clients, he brings a tremendous level of enthusiasm and energy to the team and never hesitates to motivate his employees. He participates like a new kid on the block, sharing his ideas and encouraging people to bring out the best. Having telecommunication back-knowledge, he surprises people when he talks fluently about animation and creative industries. His ambition has always been to create a globally recognized brand which he completed by establishing Zoetropeican. The result of his wealth of experience from telecommunication on the firm is prominent. The firm enjoys well laid of processes and methodologies in delivering projects.
The establishment of the studio was never an easy task and the efforts put by Shridhar were humongous. He had to educate himself and drive the team of creative people. He always tries to frame the company in line with the technology advancements. Embracing changes in the industry he says, “You embrace ‘Change’ and Commit to it. The rest will automatically follow you”. Embracing these changes has helped the company in enjoying continuous brand presence and momentum. Shridhar took many initiatives in bringing animation professionals together globally. He created relationships between experts from Singapore, India, Thailand, and the Philippines. These associations assisted him in exploring creative diversities and exchange of ideas.
Shridhar shares his ‘never-say-die’ attitude asserting, “Explore the four Cs in you – Commitment, Competence, Communication and Creativity. You will get a good measure of success for sure”.
The Effective Working Pipeline
The firm provides end-to-end services for the animation industry. This includes designing, modelling, texturing, lighting, rigging, and animation to overall post-production. All these creative pipeline services are delivered through in-house resources. Be it an animated Film/AV for a brand/product or an explainer video or a Corporate video or a walkthrough or 3D Modelling of a luxury/precision collection – Zoetropeican has provided unique and classy services to many clients across the globe.
The Corporation keeps up with the trends by following a checklist. It keeps itself updated on software, plugins, and applications to be at par with industry developments. The firm participates in seminars, conferences, workshops, global competitions to understand the advancements. Furthermore, the company has connections with animation industry experts all around the globe.
Consistent Delivery and Commitment
Zoetropeican maintains quality policy guidelines through templates and frameworks defined as part of their ISO 9001:2008 initiative. The firm always sets a high-quality standard for its content. Sharing the commitment towards clients, the firm states, “Project quality on deliverables is always an evolving process. You learn a lot from your mistakes and try to correct them”. Given the diversity of the market, clients and expectations, the company follows one defined quality model. This model is crafted to customer satisfaction that defines the final quality benchmark.
Acknowledging Challenges and Rising Opportunities
According to the company, there are three major challenges that it faces. First, there is continuous drop in pricing and increase in resource expenses. Added to this, the client asks for high quality at low costs. This difference does not help any company in its profit margins. Second, the payments cycles are long in the industry. This always puts tremendous pressure on cash flow. Finally, the biggest competitions in the industry are the freelancers. They service at 1/5th of the cost compared to the studio. The company advises the clients to look out for the long-term results such as business continuity, brand continuity, and creative continuity and sticking to established companies.
On embracing the challenges and opportunities, the studio states, “Every opportunity we get to be involved with advancements in this industry, we have to embrace with complete acceptance, joy and commitment. You embrace change and sustain or you are left out”.
Customer Oriented Approach
The firm attracts client by showing its four main traits; Creative Design; Processes; Commitment and Cooperation. Zoetropeican strongly believes in customer satisfaction. This has always been its priority. The firm has sometimes gone out of its way, making sure that its customers were happy. The studio takes every feedback from clients seriously and tries to communicate promptly to address any issues.
Quick Glance at the Portfolio
Zoetropeican has worked for several types of clients, strengthening its portfolio. For a global consulting company, the studio delivered a 3D animated AV. It comprises the client’s research findings and recommendations to the Indian Government about economic progress. The economic terms and terminologies were in Greek and Latin. The creative team of the studio took it as a challenge and delivered high quality animated AV. The studio delivered an innovative concept about one of the prime project of a technology giant in 3D animation. It has further created animated films for a global manufacturer. The studio was widely appreciated on its 2D animated TVCs commercial for a mobile phone company. The TVC became very popular for its style of animation, concept, voice over, and music.
Good words for Beginning Studios
The studio has great advice for the beginning animation studios.
- This is not an industry that can make money overnight. It may be glamorous from outside but there are a lot of challenges and risks to survive and sustain. The passion and commitment should never be diluted.
- Complete the homework thoroughly and build an expenses matrix for the first two years. Focus on a preferred domain and build expertise on it so that it creates good business sense to match expense matrix.
- While working towards generating revenue, devote time to create IPs, as that will help in the end.
- Try to bring innovation, however small it may be and excite clients with those innovations. Most of the clients will be ready to spend on that.
Frames for the Future
Zoetropeican is looking towards the future excitingly. The studio acknowledges that this will also be challenging due to the decreasing cost, lack of talented resources and diversity of expectations and competition. The firm perceives more and more animated content in 3D and 4D in both films and games. These animated features will also be integrated with AR and VR.
