Vancouver animators drawing plenty of jobs
More than 40 projects of all sizes underway across the province
Rose-Ann Tisserand’s daily preoccupations range from managing multimillion-dollar production budgets to wondering whether a hairy abominable creature should wear sandals.
Tisserand is among the animation entrepreneurs whose independent projects are benefiting from the industry’s explosive growth in Vancouver.
Service work is what the industry calls work for hire, and service work in this city is hopping. Australian powerhouse Animal Logic, which has a local office, will be creating its next three Lego movies here. Sony Pictures Imageworks will be filling its new 6,900-square-metre Vancouver studio with activity.
And in a grey area between service work and indigenous independent work, DreamWorks Animation and DHX Media have just announced they will co-produce 130 episodes of children’s animation in DHX’s Vancouver and Halifax studios.
“We’ve hit critical mass here in this sector,” said Robert Wong, Creative BC’s vice-president and acting film commissioner. “Creative juices are definitely being stirred.”
“B.C. companies are really flexing their muscles,” he added. “Within the next couple of years, we’re going to see a lot more domestically produced projects coming out of B.C. companies because of the creative, technical and financial capacity they have built over the years working with major U.S. and international partners.”
Tisserand, who has worked in animation for 14 years, has witnessed the local industry’s growth. “We’re getting better work, better work flows, better projects,” she said. “By better, I mean higher-profile content.”
“What that means for me as a small-business owner is it puts Vancouver on the map,” added Tisserand, who started boutique-sized Flying Kraken Creative Studios with her husband Greg Huculak six years ago.
“When I have my meetings, (we’re) already in a league that’s set apart by being in Vancouver.
“It opens the door a little bit. They are taking you more seriously already because everybody knows that something is happening here.”
Brenda Gilbert of Bron Animation agrees.
Her company, which has 100 employees and counting, does no service work but owns everything it produces. The Burnabybased company is less than a year from finishing Henchmen, its first feature-length animation, which follows the adventures of a misfit band of thirdclass henchmen in a world of super-villains, evil schemes and global domination. Gilbert and co-founder Aaron Gilbert started parent company Bron Media Corp. in 2010.
About half of the 3,000 people in animation in B.C. are employed by Canadian companies and about a quarter are working for B.C. companies.
“As big as Sony and Animal Logic are, they are actually outnumbered by the B.C. companies here,” Wong, of Creative BC, said.
According to tax credit certifications through Creative BC for the year ending March 2015, 44 animation projects were in progress in B.C. Many more projects were likely at an earlier or later stage of development.
“Within the next couple of years, we’ re going to see a lot more domestic ally produced projects coming out of B.C. companies because of the creative, technical and financial capacity they have built over the years working with major U.S. and international partners.
ROBERT WONG CREATIVE BC’S VICE-PRESIDENT AND ACTING FILM COMMISSIONER
While certification numbers didn’t grow during 2014, production activity value jumped 22 per cent to $215 million from $168 million. Five of the 44 projects were proprietary projects created by B.C. producers. Numbers are also reduced by events such as Italy-based Rainbow’s acquisition of Vancouver’s Bardel Entertainment this fall.
The most recent tax credit certification figures from April to date show three domestic productions and 27 service productions in progress, Wong said.
Many domestic producers are much more entrepreneurial than in the past, looking at private equity rather than relying on Telefilm or the Canada Media Fund for funding, Wong said.
At the same time, Vancouver-owned studios are expanding internationally, Wong said. Atomic was acquired by Thunderbird, another Vancouver company.
Nerd Corps was acquired by DHX Media, a Toronto-based company that started out with Vancouver roots.
Vancouver-based Rainmaker Entertainment has offered to purchase Toronto-based Shaftesbury Films.
Vancouver is seeing a “reverse brain drain,” said Tisserand, former Bardel Entertainment vicepresident of production.
Where Vancouver people used to head to Los Angeles, now senior people in Los Angeles are applying for jobs in Vancouver, Gilbert said. She now receives 25 to 30 queries from the U.S. per week for senior or supervisory positions. Half are from Canadians wanting to return home, and half are Americans wanting to move to Vancouver for work.
Tisserand’s company’s client list includes PBS Kids, Spin Master, Hulu and Disney XD.
“We’ve got enough service work that we have the cash flow to package up our stuff and take it out to market and sell it,” Tisserand said.
Tracey Mack of Urban Safari Entertainment does production and business affairs consulting while working on her first animated feature film, A Christmas Crisis. Her recent projects include the animated children’s series, The Adventures of Little Jake & Many Skies, and liveaction comedy web series, PARKED.
“Most commercial animation is comic or has comic elements,” Mack said. “So much of animation is all about timing.”
While Vancouver’s visibility helps open doors, a key for independent creators is to plan marketing and promotions from Day 1 of a project, said Mack, who has an MBA, taught entertainment business at Vancouver Film School, and was Bardel’s assistant vice-president of production.
“It’s not just about making great content. You also have to find an audience for that content,” she said, and that means daily social media posts and creating crowdfunding campaigns to build awareness and email lists.