Sean Murch

The Vancouver animation business is thriving. Broadcast and production clients come from around the world to have their shows designed, storyboarded, laid out and animated here. The city currently houses over 10 classical animation studios working on a variety of feature, television, interactive, and commercial projects. Local producers are widely used by companies such as MTV, Nickelodeon, Disney, Nelvana, Fox, HBO, and Warner Bros.; and this past year, Disney Television opened its own studio in downtown Vancouver to produce, in conjunction with Disney Toronto, direct-to-video features.

Companies such as International Rocketship, Gord Stanfeild Animation, and Delany and Friends have been in business for well over a decade. Newer studios include Studio B, Barking Bullfrog, A.K.A, Bardel and Natterjack (where I am director of development). These companies have all enjoyed a great deal of success and international recognition over the past decade. Why then does it prove so difficult for local companies to get their own projects financed? Much like the local live-action film industry, the majority of production in Vancouver exists as contract work for larger, Los Angeles-based, companies.

Many studios have come to realize that while this "service work" is lucrative and often necessary for short-term survival, long-term growth will ultimately be determined by the ownership of rights. For Studio B's Blair Peters, creativity is also part of this equation. He notes that, "The scripts we have coming in on a service basis aren't always our cup of tea. Even though some of the projects we have now are good, like Tex Avery Theater, which is a great show--we're really able to make a cartoon the old way. Still, we have to rework and rewrite, make the gags funny and develop the look of the characters. We don't mind doing that, it's our job. But we don't own any of those characters. I think that's why Studio B wants to do their own stuff. We've got artists here who are good friends that we want to keep. To do that we have to involve them in development and also look at their ideas."

The same holds true for Natterjack. While the quality of the contract work we currently have is very high, it is also important to nurture the creativity of our designers and animators. One of the best ways to do this is to develop original projects we can call our own. Thus, we have recently begun development on three internally-designed shows, which has done much to lift the general mood of the studio. The trick, of course, is to find creative ways to finance such development until a full production budget can be raised.

Natterjack Animation's The Champ.

The Co-Production Way
One of the more popular methods of easing into original production is to do a co-production with a foreign studio. The supposition being that it is easier to raise half of the financing domestically, relying on a partner to raise the other half abroad. There are government incentives in place for this type of international cooperation, but local studios are often skeptical about the relative merits of such a move.

Peters, in talking about Studio B's tentative venture into this arena, recalled that, one of its clients "wanted to do a co-production on a show for which we did the first season. It wasn't doing well in the ratings, so it wasn't in our best interests to do that as a co-production. What I'd rather do is keep doing the service work, where you're guaranteed your income, then pool that and develop our own shows. At that point we would pursue possible co-production partners, broadcasters, and distributors. That's our mandate anyway. Talk to me in a few weeks, and I may have changed my mind."