The Global Workroom

The subject of Indian and Chinese computer animation continually comes up, but the centers of animated creativity are really everywhere:

... What started as a cottage industry in Sydney has become a hub for animation around the world. The city has six major animation and visual effects studios, including Animal Logic ( Babe , The Matrix and Happy Feet ), Omnilab (Spike Jonze's upcoming Where The Wild Things Are ) and Rising Sun Pictures ( Wolverine ) ...

The lesson that I glean from stories of burgeoning animation industries on different continents is this:

It isn't, strictly speaking, about "cost." It's also about creativity and the depth of local talent; it's about animators, story artists and writers, designers and technicians having the chops to turn out world-class work.

This isn't to say that small and medium-sized job shops in low-cost parts of the world aren't going to pick off wire-removal contracts and win bids for low-end DVD features, but if you don't have trained employees capable of turning out higher end product that is salable in the global marketplace, having folks that will work for two dollars per hour isn't really going to help you very much.

Which explains why Australia is now cooking as an animation production center. The country sure as hell isn't a low-wage destination, so maybe it's the infrastructure and the talent pool.