This year may well go down as the high-tide mark in serial animation production in Montreal, with as many as eight or nine companies producing for television, theatrical distribution, cd-rom home release and the Internet.

And while much of the production ­ estimated to be worth $100 million to $150 million ­ is partnered with French companies under official coproduction treaties, animation series produced in Montreal are also seen in major markets around the world.

Locally produced series are broadcast in the u.s. on Nickelodeon and pbs, on Europe’s major tv networks including France 2, ITV, TF1, France 3 and Canal J, and, of course, in Canada, on networks and specialty services such as ytv, Canal Famille, Family Channel and ctv.

Animation producers, especially those dealing with France, have been adversely affected by additional costs resulting from changes to coproduction financing rules, but the outlook is largely upbeat, as is the hiring scene, with Canada’s first all-animation specialty network teletoon slated to hit the airwaves in September.

Playback has prepared a brief survey of new and continuing animation series, movies and collections in production in Montreal for the year ahead.

Thumbnail Theatre

Michael Mills Productions’ first departure from strictly commercial production fare is the new literature-inspired cd-rom series Thumbnail Theatre.

Produced by veteran Montreal animation director Michael Mills and published and distributed by Corel CD Home, the series’ initial entries are Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island.

Mills says he’s completing a pilot for a 13 half-hour tv series adaptation.

Adopting Mills’ trademark simple and fast-paced design style, the narrative offers up a witty, slightly off-the-wall take on the classic ‘Scottish play.’ Colorful animated characters scramble across the screen in a core nine-minute synopsis module.

Fully interactive, the production encompasses four to five hours of material including learning modules on the characters, the play’s supernatural elements such as the terrible sea hags and their evil invocation of impending doom, ‘Double, double toil and troubleŠMacbeth this way ridesŠ’ Other modules look at medieval Scotland, the rich history of Elizabethan theater and the great Bard himself.

In the second cd, Treasure Island, Captain Long John Silver, young Jim Hawkins, Black Dog and a mangy crew of rascally pirates introduce kids and their families to the life and times of the beloved British author, and to the historical legend and fact surrounding pirates.

‘It’s family entertainment, for adults as well, and has also been designed for a book (version) and complete multimedia packages,’ says Mills.

The veteran animator says the tv series will introduce audiences of all ages to classic literature through animation and wacky humor, thereby ‘stimulating interactivity within the family.’ The cd-rom production phase took more than a year, but the series has been in development for four years, says Mills.

Iris & Turtle

Desclez Productions vp Norma Denys says, ‘3D is here to stay,’ adding a five-minute pilot of the 3D series Mirob will be ready for the big spring mip-tv program market (April 11-16).

Desclez, a wholly owned subsidiary of Malofilm Communications, has some $30 million in animation production underway in ’97.

‘A lot of European and Asian buyers need five-minute fillers because they don’t structure their tv time the same way we do,’ says Denys. Mirob is ‘edutainment for toddlers,’ a short series about a robot who discovers new objects and how they are used.

Traditional cel animation series at Desclez this year include The Adventures of Professor Iris and Turtle Island, a 26 half-hour series about an island turtle, friends and attacking pirates. It will be ready for September, with presales to Ravensburger in Germany, Canal Famille in Canada and Canal J, France’s children’s specialty channel.

‘It’s fun, with a lot of slap-stick humor,’ says Denys. ‘Professor Iris is very different. It’s more like Indiana Jones for five- to 10-year-olds.’

Desclez is headed by president and writer Henri Desclez. The staff of 28 uses Alias and Softimage software for animation. Special effects are produced on a Discreet Logic Flame.

Movies & money

1997 is surfacing as a major year for Cine-Groupe, Jacques Pettigrew’s company with investment from Montreal-based Cinepix Film Properties. The value of the full slate is an estimated $52 million.

New series include 26 half-hours of Team s.o.s., a minority France/Canada coproduction with Films de la Perrine. In this series, natural disasters from floods to famine inspire 12-year-old Nenuphar and his donkey buddy to travel the world with emergency teams bringing friendship and relief.

Another series, Princess Sissi, is a Cine-Groupe coproduction with Saban International of Paris. Fifty-two action/adventure half-hours on the famous Austro-Hungarian princess are planned.

The Secret World of Santa Claus is an animated comedy about the wacky gifts kids want for Christmas. Marathon of France is the coproducer on this one.

Cine-Groupe is also producing the animated sequences for the new Telescene Film Group teen sitcom Student Bodies, syndicated by Twentieth Television in the u.s.

And it’s finalizing two additional major deals, a feature film deal with a French partner on Sinbad, The Movie, and a 13 half-hour series proposal for The Raggamuffins with partners Cambium Productions and One Entertainment.

The company intends to increase staff from 110 to 130, and double the number of freelancers to 80.

Internet combat games

In Quebec City, Megatoon, yet another wholly owned subsidiary of Malofilm Communications, has three animated games in production for ’97: Jersey Devil, a 3D game designed for Sony Play Station; the cd-rom game Mighty Machines, based on the Malofilm Productions tv series and aimed at the preschool to eight-year-old set; and the company’s first online strategic combat game, Kryodrones.

‘In terms of graphics, Jersey Devil is between six to 12 months ahead of anything else done in this format,’ says Francois Laramee, technical manager and r&d head.

‘Game publishers only want to see 3D,’ he says. ‘Animated series won’t work anymore. We need polygons. We need 3D models.’ sgi workstations and numerous pcs with Windows nt are used for production, with a tv series based on the title in development.

Mighty Machines includes an educational component. It uses traditional animation for most of the cd-rom but 3D for backgrounds.

Laramee says Kryodrones is ‘halfway between chess and Doom,’ and is an innovative online game about six companies vying for monopoly control of the Internet.

‘Obviously collecting revenue is the problem here,’ says Laramee. ‘We’ve funded production internally, like our other games, but we’re discussing a revenue package with game network providers.’

Megatoon has a staff of 30 and cumulative production budgets of $20 million this year.

High tides of Europe

Despite expanded ’97 rosters from established producers and new players, Mediatoon president David Patterson says the animation business in Montreal is holding at high tide. ‘Europe is not slackening, and this is the engine behind a lot of (Mediatoon titles).

‘And with the new channel in Canada (teletoon), I think it’s going to open out a lot of new opportunities as well.’

Mediatoon is a development, packaging and financing company owned jointly by Astral Communications and Editions Dupuis, with offices in Montreal, Paris and Charleroi in Belgium. Financing and broadcast partners on Mediatoon projects include Hearst Entertainment and Universal Cartoon Studios in the u.s., TF1, France 3 and CLT Multimedia in Europe, and Family Channel, Canal Famille and ytv in Canada.

It is currently involved in the production of seven animation series.

The ’97 slate includes Red Beard, coproduced by Carrere Television and Medver International (Verseau). This series features first-rate 3D cgi elements produced by Productions prh, a relatively new studio established by producer Roger Heroux, who recently acquired Tele-Metropole’s animation studio.

Also on tap is Carrot Top (Poil de Carotte), produced by Carrere and HB Animation (Heroux), a series about a small, red-topped boy of 10 growing up in rural France at the turn of the century, and Matthew and the Midnight Adventures, based on the Allen Morgan books and produced by Ottawa’s Lacewood Productions, Medver and Elma Productions, the same production team behind another series, Nanook.

Nanook is set in the Canadian high Arctic (circa 1930) and features exotic Arctic storms and northern lights special f/x.

Papyrus, a series based on the Lucien de Gieter story, follows the adventures of a young fisherman and his magic sword and is set in Egypt. Lacewood, Medver and Dupuis Audiovisuel are the producers.

The two additional Mediatoon series (produced in Canada by Sheldon Wiseman and Lacewood) are Flash Gordon, seen on ytv, Canal+ and France 3 and in syndication in the u.s., and Vor-Tech, the latest addition to the new a.t.v. action animation block created by Universal Cartoon Studios.

More of everything

Cinar Films, the city’s most successful animation series producer, has four returning series in production for ’97, and as many as a dozen new series and collections.

Cinar will produce 25 episodes of The Country Mouse and the City Mouse Adventures, the Maxine Fisher-based story of world-traveling Victorian mice. One episode was produced last year. The series is a coproduction with France Animation in association with Ravensburger Film+TV. Thirteen episodes of the ‘alien comedy drama’ Dr. Xargle will be coproduced with htv and King Rollo Films in the u.k. this year. It’s slated to air on itv in the spring.

Cinar has two series slated to debut this fall, in time for the launch of teletoon: Caillou, a collection of five-minute episodes teaching socialization skills to preschoolers, and Animal Crackers, a 26-episode series featuring the zany jungle fauna of newspaper comic strip writer Roger Bollen syndicated by The Tribune Media Service.

New animated shows for ’97 from Cinar’s FilmFair library include Paddington Bear and The Wombles.

The story of a lost, little Peruvian bear found on a deserted railway platform at Paddington Station, over 20 million Paddington books have been printed in over 20 languages. Author Michel Bond is working closely with the company on this series.

The Wombles, a well-known children’s fantasy and song collection about the most shy burrow-dwellers of Wimbledon Common, will be Cinar’s first adaptation of the FilmFair stop-animation classic, created by author Elizabeth Beresford.

Returning animation series production at Cinar in ’97 includes Arthur, 10 new episodes for a total of 40; The Busy World of Richard Scarry, 13 episodes for a total of 65; The Little Lulu Show, 13 new episodes for a total of 26, confirmed by broadcasters hbo in the u.s. and ctv in Canada; and Ivanh’e, 17 new animated action/adventure half-hours, with 11 more slated for ’98.