BPO the future of Sri Lanka’s entertainment industry

If Sri Lankan television and film production is to compete in the international entertainment arena, it has to reach the next level in production-technology, says Sunil Ratnayake, founder Chairman of Teleview  Ltd.

In order for this to happen, says this successful entrepreneur and producer/director of numerous television productions, the Sri Lankan production industry must undergo a complete paradigm shift. What worked 30 years ago is obviously not going to work in the digital age, and it is time we realized this, he says.

The future, Ratnayake reckons, is in animation, a wide ranging industry that can be incorporated into various areas of expertise such as architecture, education, design, medicine and of course, movie-making, in disciplines such as 2D and 3D matt- painting, motion capture, digital set construction, rotoscoping, crowd simulation, wire and character removing, time sliced photography, visual pasting, digital editing and digital camera-tracking. Other areas include colour gradient and colour correction.

It’s not that Sri Lanka does not use the same technologies used by the rest of the world, especially in digital production; for example, he says, local producers are increasingly dependent on 3D animations and other digital special effects in their productions. However, we are still very much at an intermediary stage, he adds.

“We need to expand; but we cannot expand just for the sake of expanding.We need a market to support it; and, unfortunately, that market is not here in Sri Lanka,” he says.

In the Teleview Chairman’s opinion, both marketing and technology-development must go hand-in-hand, and the only way to reach the global market is to engage in back-office work for major international productions, via business process outsourcing (BPO), à la call-centers.

“We have successfully tried BPOs in the traditional communications and accountancy fields, but the time is now ripe to look at BPOs for big-budget international-level animation,” he says.

Sri Lanka should not be afraid to aim high, even if it means targeting Hollywood itself, because that is where the opportunities lie, he adds.

“It’s not completely impossible. We have a very literate population, with the ability to acquire skills easily, at the drop of a hat, and this could be a new avenue for the youth of this country to get into newer and more interesting fields than banking and accounting,” says Mr. Ratnayake.

Animation is considered the next generation BPO, says Ratnayake, adding that the current global animation BPO is estimated to be worth US$ 70 billion. In 2015, it is projected, this figure will rise to 136 billion.

True to its reputation as being a pioneering production house, Teleview, under the guidance of Sunil Ratnayake, has been instrumental in introducing 3D animation to the Sri Lankan television industry, among other things. The company got into the history books by creating the country’s first ever fully-animated (3D) TV commercial, the VanikRoadroller. Their innovative productions like Bhwatara, a science fiction tele serial about an extraterrestrial being lost in a remote village in central Sri Lanka, saw the magic of CGI (computer generated imagery) breathing that much needed extra bit of life to the local tele-scene.

TV commercials produced by the company, using its state-of-the-art technical knowhow have been recognised for the value they’ve added to their respective brands. Examples include the Mobitel‘Smart 5’ commercial that, for the first time in Sri Lanka, used crowd-simulation and other techniques to turn a small group of about 75 people into a crowd of thousands, and the Sampath Bank ‘Double S’ commercial that featured a group of ants, busily stacking away for the next season, an advertisement that is being aired to this day, years after it was first telecast.

Teleview, which recently reached its 25th year in the production business, has now come of age and is currently taking its first steps in a completely new direction. As its Chairman, SunilRatnayake has personally seen to it that the company gave back to the country.And it has done just that over the years – in the form academia. Many who have trained under him are now employed at various media institutions in a multitude of disciplines. And now, he believes, is the time to further train our youth in this exciting new field of BPOs for international productions.

“It’s time to put our best foot forward, and find the necessary finances and resources – the initial seed capital – needed for such projects, and also to import the right technology and conduct training in these areas,” he says.

Already, he points out, the government has seen the potential for this, and has started setting up television and film villages, similar to those already owned and managed by Teleview. But we cannot afford to stop here, he cautions, as we need to look in the direction of the digital arena, for that, he says, is where the real money is.

“If we can support high-end digital productions at lower costs, we can easily back the business – provided we have the right tools and the talent, which I strongly believe this country possesses in abundance,” he says.

And given their history and impeccable track record, both Ratnayake and Teleview are ideally positioned to take on this challenge. Ratnayake has studied 3D animation and its various intricacies at no less a place than the world famous Pinnacle Systems in Silicon Valley, California. He has also taken part in the prestigious National Association of Broadcasters Convention and Exhibition more than 10 times. Throughout its 25-year history, Teleview has transformed the Sri Lankan entertainment industry, and it is his firm belief that, we will be on par with the biggest players in the global entertainment arena sooner rather than later.