By Vincent Cabreza
Northern Luzon Bureau
First Posted 18:19:00 05/25/2008

BAGUIO CITY, Philippines--Animation used to be big business in the '80s until computers made it almost impossible for Filipino cartoonists and animators to compete with India and Korea.

But after a 20-year hiatus, investors are now building animation schools in different parts of the country to train computer-savvy Filipinos so they can again capture outsourced contracts from Hollywood and major American production outfits like Walt Disney or Warner Bros.

CSDA Graphics and Animation Inc., the first animation studio setup in this city last year, wrote its own programs for virtual motion capture and computer puppetry to compete for major projects, says Raul Boncan Jr., the firm's owner.

But what may truly bring major international animation outfits back to the Philippine doorstep is a business model that would soon guide most Filipino animators, Boncan says.

Almost every animation outfit in the country, from Luzon to Mindanao, has joined a "holy alliance" of experts who would share studio contracts, he says.

This is a form of domestic outsourcing, "or insourcing, if you will," Boncan says, and it may just redefine how business is done in the Philippines.

The business process outsourcing (BPO) trade has helped develop a profitable pool of independent Filipino contractors who service almost every imaginable work field from medicine to hotel bookings and accounting, he says.

But Boncan says most outfits in the animation industry rarely have the numbers to land huge multibillion-dollar contracts outsourced by American studios.

The first animated series featuring the "X-Men" was outsourced to the Philippines in 1992, and it drew high ratings.

Years later, India, China, Singapore and South Korea began competing with Filipinos, Boncan says.

These Asian animators are now credited for the latest popular cartoon series, like "Justice League."

The country, Boncan says, has about 8,000 animators willing to work, but they are often confronted by job offers that require a 25,000 workforce.

To solve this predicament, a network of animators that compose the Animation Council of the Philippines Inc. (ACPI) started farming out segments of their contracts to rival firms, he says.

This process assures big-time animation studios a steady pool of skilled workers, even if these smaller firms are located elsewhere in the country.

It also gives the smaller firms the credentials to land bigger contracts, Boncan says.

Overseas animation contracts are streaming back to the Philippines, he adds.

From a job volume worth $40 million in 2006, animation firms last year received outsourced contracts for short animation (sometimes referred to as flash animation), television commercials, gaming and corporate advertising worth $56 million, a 25-percent improvement, Boncan says.

If animation firms stick to this business-sharing model, Boncan says the likely outcome by 2010 would be a giant hive of contractors who will work as a single unit to produce the next "Lion King."

Boncan, 48, studied graphic arts in 1984 in San Francisco, and had spent his professional life producing corporate audiovisual presentations under his company, "Mediaboutique."

Boncan says he witnessed the death of the animation industry when 2D animation lost its market to computer imagery technology that has become popular today due to groundbreaking full-length films like "Antz" and "Shrek."

By 1986, Boncan had dabbled in computer animation, "but the processing time during the 1980s and the 1990s [was slower], which compelled animators to spend a whole day producing a two-second cartoon sequence."

It took another decade for computer animation technology to branch out into fields to which the Philippines can adapt to, Boncan says.

He migrated to the city last year to form the Cordillera School of Digital Arts (CSDA), after ACPI toured the country to advocate BPO animation as a valuable career for college graduates.

Boncan said ACPI had urged him to consider building schools first before venturing into studio work to help draw out new talents.

There are approximately 14 animation schools operating in the country. Most of these are in Metro Manila, he says, which is why CSDA began branching out to other parts of Luzon.

The CSDA studio is operated by his first batch of graduates.

It has landed contracts to produce sequences of a locally produced full-length feature called "Diwa."

Boncan says this is a project that makes full use of the business sharing model.

"Many of us consider the output a statement [about the future of the industry]," he says.

Boncan says the industry still considers as valuable resources some 300 Filipino animation veterans who dropped out of the market when 3D became the mainstream form of animation.

Many turned to painting, but a handful tried to get back into the saddle.

Jet Depositario, a Baguio-based animator who worked on the 1992 "X-Men the Animated Series," is now part of CSDA Graphics.

"I had to undergo a crash course in computer animation. I had to crawl up from my experience of just drawing 'Wolverine,'" Depositario says.