When Ron Stefaniuk was in high school, he wanted his life to be interesting. Now, years later with his own creature fx shop, Stefaniuk FX Studio, his life is almost too interesting. Most recently, Stefaniuk was in South Africa on two spots for visa and two for Nestea through Mark Bisson’s Mad Films and Leo Burnett.

‘It’s one thing to be going halfway around the world. It’s another to be going halfway around the world to put on scuba gear and puppeteer animatronic penguins when you’re strapped to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean,’ Stefaniuk says, looking exhausted.

‘You’re working 20-hour days for the last week that you’re building to go to Africa. The last day runs 40 hours. You get on a plane and travel for 19 hours. I don’t sleep on planes. You get there and arrive to a production meeting and then shoot for a week and a half. Then, you get back on the plane for two days, come back to the shop for another four days and [then repeat the process].

‘I don’t know about many things, but I’m not in a big hurry to do a commercial about airlines, for the moment,’ laughs the creature master.

Stefaniuk started in the business as a production and set designer, and a magician. His creature business really took off when he got the job building the strange monsters for the ytv series Goosebumps five or six years ago.

Now, Stefaniuk is excited that he gets a lot of calls to create his signature creatures, which range from super-scary to wild and cute.

Stefaniuk has always related well to the character-driven puppets perfected at the Henson creature shop. However, after creating a flock of realistic sheep heads for a Trimark investment spot, the demand for photo-realistic animals has increased.

‘[Photo realistic] is about a million times harder than doing an alien or a three-headed chipmunk, because who’s to say what a three-headed chipmunk would look like? Everybody knows what a penguin looks like,’ Stefaniuk explains. ‘So, strangely enough – without setting out to do it – we’ve actually paved a more difficult path for ourselves.’

The visa spots (penguins and an elephant-trunk) and the Nestea spots (Sasquatch and a mermaid) made use of both the character-based and realistic styles Stefaniuk employs. All the spots were directed by Mad’s Kevin Donovan.

Despite the beautiful location, effective crew and familiar production team, the time in South Africa was perilous for the mild-mannered puppeteer.

‘There’s nothing like trying to dry off a seven-foot, hairy Sasquatch creature 27 times. And then you get strapped to the bottom of the ocean wearing scuba gear when you’ve only gone scuba diving once in your life. We found out, the day we got out of the water, that the number one breeding ground for great white sharks (Seal Island) is five miles from where we were shooting. And I’ve had a shark phobia since ’76. A lot of sharks eat sea lions, and guys that look like sea lions with penguins stuck to their arm,’ Stefaniuk says.

Apparently, the elephant trunk Stefaniuk used on land also excited the real elephants, which trumpeted and started coming toward him. ‘Puppeteers aren’t known for their bravery,’ Stefaniuk admits.

There was no fear involved for Stefaniuk when dealing with the live penguins that also participated in the shoot. To the wobbly little birds, he was master.

‘I was standing over them going, ‘I am your penguin Lord! Follow me. And bring me herring twice a day!”

With few penguins in Toronto, Stefaniuk’s minions are far away. The creature creator is kept company by a showroom with many of his creations hanging menacingly from the ceiling and lining the walls – everything from fetuses to insects to blowfish. The showroom is located in Stefaniuk’s 9,000-square-foot Toronto studio where he and his family also reside.

Stefaniuk would like to do more feature films. He longs for more lead-time that would allow him and his freelance crew to add sleep to their busy schedule. Stefaniuk is also the puppeteer, puppet maker and production designer for the Comedy Network series, Internet Slutts. In the meantime, he continues to do spot work.