Montreal’s Big Bang Animation has been making considerable noise in the effects market over the past year with a full slate of series work. The new year promises continued effort to gear up for series as well as feature film work.

Big Bang is currently working on four tv series and by the end of summer ’99, says Big Bang president and executive producer Mario Rachiele, the shop will have produced over 750 special effects shots in just over 12 months.

The shop is at work on the 26-part, half-hour series Big Wolf on Campus, which chronicles the adventures of a sometimes hirsute high school athlete. The show is produced by Montreal’s Telescene Film Group for Fox Family Channel and is set to be completed in April 1999.

Also in the shop is 26 half-hour episodes of Telescene’s Misguided Angels, with Fox Family as broadcaster and completion scheduled for April ’99.

Set for delivery next month is Family: The Joe Bonanno Story, a six-hour miniseries giving an autobiographical account of the storied mobster’s rise from the old country through all the Mafia machinations from the ’30s to the ’60s and including some juicy tidbits on the mob’s alleged role in the assassination of jfk. The show is coproduced by Showtime and Montreal’s La Fete Productions, with Kevin Tierney producing and Michel Poulette directing.

On the series development side, Big Bang recently produced a pilot for a fully 3D animated show called Peter Piper and the Plane People for La Fete. Production is expected to begin on 52 15-minute episodes based on the pilot in mid-’99.

Regarding its own involvement in proprietary projects, Rachiele says the company is moving toward developing its own shows and is in very early development on some potential properties.

With a full slate, Big Bang has expanded, adding four workstations, a huge nt server and a complement of software including Discreet Logic Flint for compositing.

The shop also added three more digital artists to its 16-person roster: compositing artists Nicolas Cotta and Charles Marchand and visual effects supervisor Benoit Briere joined late last year. Last year, it also added storyboard artists, which Rachiele says provides greater efficiencies in handling a full slate of special-effects production.