‘A high-quality animation property will always find a window,’ says Jacques Pettigrew of Montreal’s Cine-Groupe.

But how many, and where? And for how much, and who will own it? Will it be born of a computer or traditional ink and paint? For kids, or tweens or big people? Will it be in the theaters or on video, cable or network, Saturday morning or primetime?

To say the global animation market is in flux is an understatement. In fact, what that market entails depends on who you ask. Where once there were Saturday morning toons for the sugary cereal crowd and not much else, now there’s King of the Hill in primetime, cablers on both sides of the border dedicated solely to animated product, and box-office lineups around the block for the latest Disney offering. The expansion has created openings for companies coming to the toon boom from very different places.

A survey of Canadian animators bears this out.

While Nelvana and Cinar get bigger and broader, newer and smaller companies are entering the fray. In Vancouver, Enigma Animation Productions ­ founded in 1988 as a cad company which eventually spun off into doing effects work for the likes of mgm tv’s Poltergeist and Stargate ­ is now developing a 100% cgi series for the 10-14 age group called The Ringmaster. Budgeted at $3 million to $4 million for 13 half-hour episodes, Enigma’s Brian Fitzgerald says in order to make it happen the company would be striking some pretty creative deals with equipment suppliers.

For Enigma, Fitzgerald says being located in Vancouver was critical to the direction the company is taking. ‘It seems there’s a big mid-level market here, doing effects for the lower-budget series and tv movies, projects that might not be able to afford effects in l.a. or even some of the bigger companies in Vancouver. Having access to that experience with effects led us into computer animation.’

On the other end of expansion and growth, there’s maturation. While five years ago many Canadian animation companies were veritable service hothouses, the trend now is towards coproductions and original productions which the Canadians initiate and own, at least in part.

‘We went from being a high-end service company, doing what I tend to call piecemeal work, to becoming partners with a stake in ownership and distribution rights,’ says Charles Falzon, ceo of Catalyst, the parent company of Toronto’s Ph’enix Animation.

On Ph’enix’s front burner right now is a revamp of The Raccoons, but there’s a feature-length project in the works and the company recently acquired rights to the classic b-movie The Blob to exploit either as a feature or a series pilot.

The deal structures Ph’enix is putting together of late mirror those of many Canadian animation producers. The company is focusing on European coproductions that are targeted for the u.s. market. ‘It’s no secret that the Canadian financing contribution up-front is quite small,’ says Falzon. ‘Sometimes even having Canada and a u.s. partner online d’esn’t quite do it.’

In Ottawa, Funbag Animation’s Curtis Crawford is looking to reach a 50/50 split between service work and proprietary projects within two years. While the company is firmly set in ‘traditional’ animation, Funbag has spent over $500,000 in the last year on expansion, including computerizing its color system as well as ink and paint.

Crawford predicts an upcoming cgi boom in Ottawa: ‘Because there’s such an assembly of high-tech companies around here, I think all that talent will eventually get utilized.’

Meanwhile, Funbag’s doing more work for Nickelodeon’s Kablam! shorts series and Toad Patrol begins production in July. The company is in talks with ytv on a series called Tool Town, where the traditional hand tools face off with their racier power tool counterparts.

Montreal’s Cactus Animation is also staying rooted in traditional animation for now, says president Andre Belanger. The company is more than busy with projects stemming from its relationship with France’s Ellipse, and less of the company’s resources are being directed towards service deals.

‘When we have the time, when we have the space for some extra artists, we consider it,’ says Belanger, ‘but our own work keeps everyone going.’

Vancouver’s Studio b is putting a big push on to establish itself as a development entity, having landed high-profile service work in the past for the likes of Disney and Warner Bros. Getting into proprietary production is ‘a huge growth area’ for the company, according to partner Blair Peters. Having forged a relationship with u.k. distrib Itel, Peters says Studio b is getting its feet wet overseas.

‘They [Itel] like a lot of our projects, and there are four projects on my desk right now that they’d like us to work on as a coproducer. They think we can bring a necessary North American slant to things they are developing in Europe.’

Studio b is also developing a feature of its own called Galaxy Girl from a script by Vancouver’s Victor Nicol, and through a development deal with Live Entertainment the company is busy designing for Romeo and Juliet, an animated feature with dogs and cats playing the classic roles.

Peters took Studio b’s series Canvas Cat and Bongo Bat to mip-tv in April and found interest from France’s Canal+ and ProSeiben of Germany through the already existing relationship those broadcasters have with Itel. Peters hopes the series will be able to find a Canadian home on ytv or teletoon.

Features are bubbling in the development soup at nearly every animation house, with Nelvana and Cine-Groupe expecting to do at least one animated feature a year from here on in. However, even Nelvana’s Michael Hirsh admits that the life (and revenue) for feature-length toons is primarily in video. ‘That’s what’s expected from any feature project that’s not from Disney.’

Sheldon Wiseman of Ottawa’s Lacewood Animation, admitting that he’s ‘cautious’ and likes to let other companies break the new ground, agrees video is the only outlet for most of the long-form product. ‘Look at Dreamworks, Fox and Disney. An outfit like this one cannot compete with the large American studios on that playing field.’

Lacewood, for now, is sticking to where they’ve found success, and that means preschool. Early this month Katie & Orbie began running daily on the Disney Channel in the u.s. and Lacewood is now producing 26 new episodes in addition to developing more kiddie properties.

As to the older skew, Cine-Groupe is finding international success with Link, a series for 14-29s that the company cofinanced with Beta Taurus and France’s TeleImage. ctv has the rights for Canada, and Pettigrew expects a u.s. window because, as he puts it, ‘There’s not too many other projects like Link out on the market.’ By the same token, Cine-Groupe is developing a PG13 feature called Heavy Metal with a German partner and Columbia TriStar already has American rights.

‘There is a market there,’ says Pettigrew. ‘I think teenagers today want something more than zooming in and out and shaky images. They want content, and much more thought g’es into an animated project because it takes so long.’

Another growing niche, according to Studio b’s Peters, is toons with strong female leads. His company, in addition to Galaxy Girl, is working on Calamity Jane, a Western action/adventure series with a female hero for the WB Network. Jennifer Jason Leigh is the voice of Jane. Studio b is also developing a series called What About Mimi? with another young female protagonist. With the runaway success of properties like Sailor Moon, producers are increasingly targeting young girls.

‘If you look around, a lot more people are doing strong female characters. Disney’s doing Pepper-Ann, mtv’s doing Daria, Nelvana tapped into Pippi Longstocking.’

And as the product niches spin and spin, animation houses are happy to see more windows of opportunity for all that color and creativity, particularly in Canada with teletoon.

Vancouver’s Bardel Animation is one of those companies eager for another outlet on this side of the border. Currently the company is developing a Canada/Hungary copro called The Adventures of Brer Rabbit, Pig William with ytv and Cambium, and Dark Dog with King Rollo and Tony Garth Animation in the u.k.

‘Having that Canadian window is crucial in that it triggers everything else,’ says Jesse Fawcett, Bardel’s director of new business and development.

There’s also interest in teletoon from Cine-Groupe, as Pettigrew expects the broadcaster will buy both French and English rights. ‘Hopefully that will shake up everyone else,’ he says, ‘because their prices are far too low.’

Meanwhile, hanging on to rights is a concern for Canadians seeking a showcase in the u.s., with outlets like Nickelodeon looking for nearly everything on the back end. ‘The only way to get around that,’ says Studio b’s Peters, ‘is to bring them something polished which they really, really want. If they spend any development money on it at all, they want to own it.’