Big Studios, formerly Big Animation, has amassed an impressive array of design credits for U.S. networks and shows including ABC News, ABC’s Wide World of Sports, Good Morning America, HBO Boxing, ESPN and MTV. The Toronto 2D and 3D studio also contributed typography, compositing and F/X to a live-action opener for Monday Night Football that won an Emmy in 1996. The segment, which takes "over the top" to new levels, starts as a mock war feature and somehow segues into Hank Williams Jr. singing an MNF theme song.

Chuck Harvey explains how his partner Jocelyne Meinert got Big off the ground.

"A number of years ago she did some work for ABC and they liked it so much they just kept calling back," he recalls. "Her relationship with ABC and her creative really launched the company."

Harvey says Big Studios grows on the strength of referrals, as with the one that landed them the redesign of TVG, an interactive horseracing network out of Los Angeles. He stresses that it’s not the exchange rate that accounts for the shop’s American success.

"We don’t really want to be the poor Canadian cousin," he says. "We are an international company and price ourselves to compete with people south of the border. But we do understand in Canada budgets aren’t as large, and we do take on Canadian work." *

-www.bigstudios.com