Sheldon Wiseman, president and executive producer of Ottawa’s Amberwood Productions, reports his animation company is ‘growing cautiously and our volume is increasing,’ and that he is looking at expansion to include 3D capabilities.

‘We’ve got a dinosaur project in development that would be all 3D,’ he says. ‘Although we’ve historically done 2D, we are experimenting with 3D and will probably end up doing some 3D projects.’

He insists, however, that down the road 3D will not necessarily replace 2D.

‘3D enables you to do a certain kind of project with a certain look you can’t achieve on 2D, and therefore it’s attractive,’ he says. ‘There’s still a very large market for a traditional 2D look, because it’s got a different, cartoony style to it.’

Actor Leslie Nielsen, who purchased the rights to Katie and Orbie, the animated series on Family Channel that Amberwood produces and which he narrates, finds the show’s 2D look perfectly effective for its target audience.

‘The animation doesn’t run wild in movement,’ Nielsen says. ‘It’s almost a stop-frame kind of animation. It stays still for a second or two, giving the child an opportunity to really see what they’re looking at, and to mull over what they’ve just seen.’

Amberwood uses numerous freelancers on its productions. The 2D animation is still done pencil-to-paper, although the cels are no longer photographed by camera, but rather are scanned into a computer and then digitally painted. Although Amberwood has computer capabilities, and performs design, sheet timing, and key animation onsite, it subcontracts layout and animation work to local company Boomstone Entertainment, and ink-and-paint work to Pip Animation Services (see pip, this page).

Between Katie and Orbie and the animated Hoze Houndz series, also narrated by Nielsen, Amberwood employs about 150 people, of whom 35 are core staff. The number of freelancers, including writers, composers and ink-and-paint artists expands and contracts according to the workload, but so far Amberwood has not had problems finding the right people.

‘The Ottawa animation community is quite buoyant and large,’ he says. ‘It’s a community that has evolved over 60 years, and it’s partly a reflection of a lifestyle people can have here. And the work cycles with other studios in town appear to be such that the people we are used to working with are available to us when we need them.’

Amberwood uses animators from Vancouver, Toronto, and other parts of Ontario. Wiseman admits there are some logistical problems associated with the company’s Ottawa locale: ‘You’re a flight removed from your broadcasters, your bankers, and the government agencies, all of which are in Toronto.’

He adds, however, that the Internet has bridged geographic remove in some cases. ‘As we use offsite people, even here in Ottawa, data we have to look at can be transmitted to us and then utilized by the artists here or vice versa. It’s been an incredible instrument in terms of expediting the production process.’

Surprisingly, Nielsen has never been to Wiseman’s Ottawa office, but continues to contribute substantial voiceover work to Amberwood productions, including the animated series Pumper Pups, which airs on Treehouse tv, and which Wiseman expects will go into a second cycle of production in the spring. Nielsen records the v/os wherever he might be.

‘There are sound studios anywhere, so you can be caught on the fly,’ he says. ‘I’ve been doing my work everywhere but California.’

Through it all, the actor, who was raised in the Northwest Territories, still feels strongly rooted in Canada.

‘What sticks with you is where you’ve had your firsts – your first snowball, your first kiss, your first bread-and-butter-and-ketchup sandwich – and about 90% of them take place before you’re 18,’ he says. ‘Happily that’s what sticks to me with coming from Canada, and in my mind I run through all the reasons I’m so pleased that’s where it all began for me.’ *

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