It’ll be anything but slow at Canada’s animation houses this summer. In between wrangling for more lead time from the u.s. nets and scaring up talent to fill an ever-increasing number of positions, maybe there’ll be a moment or two to sit back and contemplate how things are shaking out for themselves in boom times such as these.

It would sound ideal to the resident bean-counters at any business. Service work is plentiful to the point of having to turn it away, but the animators themselves, even the ones who own the businesses, are left with one concern

‘We won’t even get a chance to work on our own stuff for months.’

Balancing independent work with service jobs has been a perennial issue, particularly within companies wanting to cultivate a small-studio environment for their talent, but it’s come to the point where choices have to be made. Are we taking on service projects to finance our own work, or are we simply a service studio?

But maybe it doesn’t have to be that black and white. In the true spirit of killing two birds with one stone, some companies have been trying like the dickens to impose their own creative wills on the projects they’ve been doing for others, hoping to build the credibility to make a go of development and coproductions. And it’s working.

Ottawa’s Funbag Animation Studios, although still doing a ‘helluva lot of service’ for mass syndication and the u.s. networks, according to co-owner Rick Morrison, is making a mark with projects developed in-house. Production will be underway ‘pretty soon’ on Toad Patrol, a kids’ series the company cocreated and developed with Edward Sarson Productions in Cambridge, Ont., to be produced at Funbag. Family Channel and Baton are on board in support of the first 13 episodes and Funbag owns 50% of the project.

Stateside, Nickelodeon’s interest has been piqued by King Weirdo, a series for eight- to 10-year-olds based on a kid who rules the wacko world under his bed. Funbag and Nickelodeon are developing the property in tandem.

Old Goat, a series for tweens about a cantankerous old goat living in the realm of Homo sapiens, has been optioned by Disney, and Funbag plans to start development with Disney’s input fairly soon. Morrison expects Disney will probably go to a pilot for testing, maybe even a seven-minute short.

‘It’s a great opportunity for us to get our foot into that door,’ says Morrison. ‘It’s somebody actually buying something and getting interested in something that’s ours. And not only that, it gets on a u.s. network, which is huge exposure, and we can milk that for what it’s worth forever.’

In-house development and production is definitely an area in which the company wants to channel its efforts. Discussions are ongoing with Toronto’s Portfolio Film and Television for a development and production arrangement, and seeds are planted with Sullivan Entertainment on a coproduction and codirection deal above and beyond a representation relationship.

‘We’re becoming independent producers,’ says Morrison. ‘We’re on the threshold of taking that step. In the last six months people have really become interested in our creative abilities. I think that’s our strongest trait right now, we’re kind of an idea factory.’

That said, however, service work won’t be ending anytime in the near future. Funbag is working on 36 episodes of the syndicated series Bruno the Kid for Film Roman, and will begin work on Ace Ventura for Nelvana in the next few months. For Universal, the company will be working on the fifth edition of The Land Before Time for direct-to-video.

‘I think the service (work) will always be an underlining force to pay the bills. You need that when your own productions are in downtime and you need those service relationships,’ says Morrison. ‘But you have to take a close look at the teams you have available to do your own production and the service. Obviously you want to build your own library, that’s the ultimate success and foundation of your studio.’

Vancouver’s Studio b is finding itself in a similar position. ‘A lot of people are coming to us to develop projects right now because everyone wants to get on the animation bandwagon,’ says co-owner Blair Peters.

‘We had a goal to get ourselves into this position, and we figured the only way to get here was to take on service jobs which benefited us. We worked on Eek! The Cat, Ace Ventura, and Felix the Cat was a breakthrough for us. We spent a lot of time on them and they were successful. People saw that stuff and realized we could do quality action/adventure stuff and wacky, cartoony things. We knew we could do it, and now they’re coming to us based on that success.’

Peters has just finished looking at the last storyboards for eight episodes of Mighty Ducks for Disney, a project on which he had the role of producer/director. This spring Studio b teamed with Universal to launch its first coproduction, a series based on the comic book The Savage Dragon. The studio’s also producing three episodes of Road Rovers for Warner Bros. and 15 episodes of The Mask for Film Roman.

Having forged a relationship with Toronto’s Little Big Wig Productions, Hewon Yang’s new company, Studio b is looking strategically to develop series for the u.k. and continue pitching and developing D’Myna Leagues and Banjo Boys, two series which were conceived in-house.

Peters believes the steady diet of quality work has honed his staff into a lean, mean production machine, more than eager to take on work of their own. ‘Now we’re going to cut down on the projects and work on the development a bit more. We’ve paid our dues so now we can pick projects, and our staff is confident and geared up.’

Michael Hefferon of Toronto’s Phoenix Animation Studios believes service work won’t be falling entirely by the wayside there either, although he admits it’s not always easy to strike a balance.

‘We have over 100 on staff right now, and trying to keep the continuity of work flow is difficult. Although being in development on our own projects lets us determine our own production slate to some extent, it’s all in the timing.’

Hefferon has recently been attempting to encourage growth of the creative end of Phoenix in addition to its existence as a production facility. ‘The best situation for us would be creating projects either jointly or independently and then using Phoenix as a vehicle to produce them. But the service work will still remain very important to us.’

On the development slate at Phoenix is The Dream Zone, a live-action/animated kids’ series born of a development and production arrangement with Sleepy Kids in the u.k. There’s no broadcaster on board yet.

upn has committed to the pilot for a half-hour primetime animated series called Night Cops. Produced by Phoenix and executive produced by Alan Thicke, the spoof on the reality-based series Cops will be distributed in the u.s. by Viacom. The adult-oriented series is projected to be in the $9 million range for 13 episodes, and it will feature live action filmed by Phoenix’s partner company Catalyst.

The rotoscoped live action will hopefully attract weekly guest stars, similar to The Simpsons. The pilot script has been written and negotiations are underway on whether it will go directly into series production.

Says Hefferon: ‘It’s a spoof and it’s actually really fun. The artwork and the style is very different from anything else out there, stemming from the whole process of manipulating live action into an animated environment and creating cel work from it.’

Another combination of animation and live action, with some animatronics thrown in, is in the works at Montreal’s Cinar. Described as a wild and zany ‘Monty Python-esque’ comedy/ drama for older kids, Dr. Zargle has been commissioned by itv in the u.k. Cinar is in cahoots with the u.k.’s King Rollo and HTV Group on the project. It will be producing five to seven minutes of animation for each of the 26 half-hours. Work on the first 13 is already underway.

Pitching has begun on the Animal Crackers series and Cinar is actively looking for a broadcaster. ‘We’ve had a lot interest,’ says vp of animation Cassandra Schafhausen. ‘People have been waiting on us to take it out to them.’ A coproduction deal is a possibility.

Montreal’s Desclez Productions is another company trying to steer itself into development, according to vp Norma Denys. ‘We now have a development group of 10 artists and we’ve equipped ourselves with some software tools. Our philosophy and our intent is to become more of a development house.’

Pilot production is underway on three projects for mip – Turtle Island, Iris the Happy Professor and Mirob, a five-minute 3D series for toddlers.

The latest buzz at Nelvana is surrounding Donkey Kong Country, a 3D animated Canada/ France coproduction based on the Nintendo video game. Nelvana will coproduce 26 episodes with Medialab (a subsidiary of France’s Canal+) in association with Canadian broadcaster Westcom Entertainment Group. Nelvana will distribute in North and South America, the u.k., Australia, New Zealand and Asia.

Medialab’s proprietary software and technology will allow 3D computer-generated characters to be animated and rendered in realtime. Production has started in Paris and Toronto and the series is scheduled for completion in the fall of 1997.

Nelvana is still in production on Little Bear, Scholastic’s The Magic School Bus, Eek! The Cat, Ace Ventura, Blazing Dragons, Gargoyles for abc, Wayne’s Heads for Warner Bros. and the Pippi Longstocking feature.

Lacewood Productions also has a Canada/France copro slated. The Ottawa-based house is partnering with Marathon in France to produce 26 episodes of Kassai and Luk, a children’s series based on African stories. No Canadian broadcasters are aboard yet, but president Sheldon Wiseman says he’s in negotiations.

The company is also producing two Teddy Bear specials for ctv and Disney, while three episodes of Legends of the Land, a series of Native legends for children, is in preproduction.

On its development slate is a coproduction with Dupuis of France called Vortech, a kids’ series based on a Hasbro toy line. The series is cofinanced by Mediatoon and Universal Studios and discussions are ongoing with broadcasters. The series will be syndicated in the u.s.

Toronto’s Canuck Creations is continuing work on the Space Jam feature for Warner Bros., keeping busy with animation, clean-up, layout, background painting and effects. Space Jam is expected to finish sometime in August and the company has work lined up on another u.s. feature after that. Allan Kennedy says while Canuck has a couple of its own shorts in the works, the feature is eating up most of his resources.

‘I’ve got about 40 people on this project, and I can’t take on what I used to take on, especially things like commercials. This is an a feature, not a b feature, and I don’t want to be jumping people off it. It’s too important for us.’

While Kennedy hopes the company will start carving a niche for itself in a-list feature work, he admits he’s cautious about letting the independent shorts languish too long. ‘In-house shorts are really important. They help build a following and give us a chance to try out new things. But there’s just too little time’

Even when creativity and energy abound, there’s still only 24 hours a day – a hard, cold fact animators curse daily.