'Wow' was the on­ly word that echoed in my head at An­i­mae Caribe's Busi­ness of An­i­ma­tion Day, held in con­junc­tion with the Trinidad and To­ba­go Coali­tion of Ser­vices In­dus­tries.

The event, which took place at the Hy­att Re­gency Ho­tel on Thurs­day 1st No­vem­ber, was held among many oth­ers as a part of the 11th edi­tion of An­i­mae Caribe in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The fes­ti­val brings to­geth­er some of the world's lead­ing an­i­ma­tors, from Car­toon Net­work to Nick­elodeon, to im­part their knowl­edge to lo­cal an­i­ma­tors.

Apart from the in­ter­na­tion­al guest speak­ers, I was amazed to see many young Trinida­di­ans in the field of an­i­ma­tion, light­ing and even soft­ware de­vel­op­ment.

They have worked on many block­buster films that most of us are quite fa­mil­iar with.

Pro­duc­tions such as The Chron­i­cles of Nar­nia, Ran­go, Har­ry Pot­ter and even video games such as Max Payne, have all been touched by our very own an­i­ma­tors.

All of these in­di­vid­u­als have been in­volved in in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets and seem keen on im­part­ing knowl­edge to Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Shilpa Kir­palani, who is cur­rent­ly a dig­i­tal artist in Sin­ga­pore, ex­pressed that she has found her­self at the prover­bial cross­roads.

She is un­sure if she wants to con­tin­ue in the in­dus­try or fol­low her pas­sion of teach­ing oth­ers in the field of an­i­ma­tion.

"It's re­al­ly all about be­liev­ing in your­self," she stat­ed con­fi­dent­ly. She shared with the au­di­ence that her first job com­ing out of school was a se­nior ed­i­tor at Gayelle.

Shilpa has worked main­ly on live ac­tion films, such as The Last Air­ben­der, Trans­form­ers and even Star Trek.

Thad­deus Ma­haraj was one of the more dy­nam­ic speak­ers who pre­pared some very good ad­vice for the gen­e­sis of the lo­cal an­i­ma­tion in­dus­try for both stu­dents and cor­po­rate spon­sors.

He cur­rent­ly works with Rock­star Games as a Char­ac­ter Artist, de­sign­ing char­ac­ters for Max Payne 3.

Ma­haraj re­lat­ed to the au­di­ence that he played both the first and sec­ond in­stal­ment of the game and for him it was an ho­n­our to work on the third.

had­deus asked young in­di­vid­u­als to be open mind­ed, work hard, share knowl­edge and al­ways give back to the next gen­er­a­tion.

When it came to lo­cal spon­sors, Thad­deus was able to muster a round of ap­plause with the state­ment "Doh be cheap!"

De­spite spend­ing time abroad, Thad­deus em­pha­sized that it is im­por­tant to stick to your roots and re­main dy­nam­ic in the com­pet­i­tive field of an­i­ma­tion.

Both Shilpa and Thad­deus, like many young stu­dents who dream of be­ing an artist, bat­tled with par­ents who pre­ferred that they delve in­to busi­ness, lan­guages or sci­ence stud­ies.

Both have healthy back­grounds in these sub­ject ar­eas, how­ev­er, their pas­sion for the arts dom­i­nat­ed and they were able to rep­re­sent Trinidad and To­ba­go on the in­ter­na­tion­al fore­front of an­i­ma­tion.

Camille Selvon Abra­hams, Fes­ti­val Di­rec­tor of An­i­mae Caribe, has al­ways hoped to have a fo­rum such as this since the in­cep­tion of An­i­mae Caribe, how­ev­er with lim­it­ed in­ter­est and fund­ing it has nev­er been a re­al­i­ty un­til to­day. Many stake­hold­ers and oth­er an­i­ma­tors were able to get an in­sight on the chal­lenges fac­ing the an­i­ma­tion in­dus­try.

For more in­for­ma­tion on An­i­mae Caribe,

check out: www.an­i­mae­caribe.com