While Canada continues to act as a mecca for film and tv production, the sophistication and size of the post and effects industry has grown commensurately, offering an ever more comprehensive complement of gear and services.

The industry has grown in volume to an estimated quarter billion dollar business in 1997 and in profile – foreign producers now come seeking the talents of Canadian shops without the benefit of shooting in close proximity. The industry has evolved beyond back-end, fix-it-in-post expertise and Canadian shops have become major players in high-profile, front-end work, with imaging experts assuming a larger role in the production as well as the post process.

On the following pages, some of the bright lights of the Canadian post, animation and effects industry discuss some recent projects, where they came from and why.

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Chip, a quirky little 3D animated character made up of computer parts, wheels around various rapidly transforming environments, getting himself out of entanglements by modifying his design in a new spot for Comdisco from TOPIX Computer Graphics and Animation.

He becomes a lawnmower when he runs into tall grass, sports a surfboard and a pair of shades when a wave comes at him, and faced with a snapping monster, sprouts a propeller and flies away in the 30-second spot for the u.s. equipment, leasing, remarketing and network services firm through Saatchi & Saatchi of Rochester, n.y.

After working with topix in the past on spots for Kodak and the Lupus Foundation, Saatchi returned to the Toronto-based animation and design studio with some boards, a script, a demo music track and a very vague idea of what they were looking for.

The creative was left relatively open, allowing art director Mark Cutler and director of animation Frank Falcone the opportunity to experiment and take Comdisco’s very straightforward and simple print campaign, also based on different characters made of computer parts, to another level.

The task was to come up with different scenarios that would have Chip adapting to the changing environments around him, which represent the different business environments Comdisco is involved in.

The creative team decided to synthesize the different techniques and looks of both 2D and 3D characters and produce a retro spot with a ’60s feel through the use of simple lines and backgrounds.

After designing what would be Comdisco’s new mascot, Chip, Falcone animated sequences in Softimage, using 3D elements to give it a graphic style. Next, Marco Polsinelli put the elements together in Flame where some additional effects were incorporated.

According to topix producer Anne Deslauriers, what sets this spot apart from others is that it does not look like it was done using 3D software because the finished product doesn’t look 3D. ‘It doesn’t have round objects and you can’t see all the sides of something, but the movement and the character animation is very 3D,’ she says. ‘How Chip moves is very fluid but the look of it is flat.’

Plenty of thought went into the bold oranges, reds, greens and blues of the spot, which were treated with many layers in Flame, eliminating the shiny feel typically associated with 3D.

While the topix team isn’t often called on to combine the two styles of animation, they have tried it out on a couple of occasions over the last year, giving them a leg up before jumping into this latest experimental spot, which Cutler says worked really well, ‘it just required a little more coordination between the 2D and 3D departments.’

Between designing the characters, modeling, animating, rendering, compositing and sending weekly tapes of the work in progress to the agency and client, the whole process spanned three months. topix is now at work on it again, revising the ending for a new spot.

*Also in this report:

Post/SFX showcase:

Collideascope injects hip B2

Gajdecki: body parts R us B4

Big Bang graduates from Dog’s World to Lost World B4

Lost Boy’s extraterrestrial experience B6

Spin in the series race B7

Animation shops to watch:

Bardel gets Dreamworks nod B10

Dynomight’s Net direction B11

Sargent York kids’ 3-pack B12

Canuck evolves from studio flicks to in-house picks B13

Red Giant spawns series B14

Canadian prodcos plotting boffo toonflick projects B15

Animation House, Lightbox both hit 15 B16, B21

B.C. post shops winning more of the U.S. visual effects B18