Commercial clients’ love affair with animation has only intensified since computers nosed their way into storyboards, adding heightened reality to the fantastical scenarios originally made possible via cel animation.

Cel animation has not been abandoned by the spot cognoscenti’s embrace of things virtual ­ turns out the genre is expanding and there’s room for all forms.

Chris Delaney, executive producer at Vancouver-based Delaney & Friends, credits animation’s popularity-q as a form of communication for advertising to the fact that it transfers so well into many languages, transcends most demographics, and is less content-specific. ‘No matter what age, nationality or language, an animated commercial speaks to just about anybody in a broader way than a live-action spot which inevitably has to depict an actual situation ­ and once you do that you limit yourself.’

And word of Canada’s commercial toon expertise is also intensifying its market transcendency.

Exemplifying the international scope of the animation industry in Canada, Howard Huxham of Productions Pascal Blais says the Montreal studio was recently asked to quote on jobs for Venezuela and Russia. Right now 25% of Pascal Blais’ business comes from outside Canada and according to Huxham he gets asked on average five times a year to quote on a job in an area where he has never been asked to quote before.

At Vancouver’s International Rocketship and TOPIX Computer Graphics and Animation in Toronto, the bulk of the business, around 75%, comes from the u.s., with the occasional call from Mexico. topix is also doing a spot out of India.

In the case of Rocketship, a traditional animation shop, their creative technique ­ an inimitably irreverent, and ultimately Yank-friendly style ­ probably has a lot to do with drawing the crowd.

In addition to Canuck creativity, topix’s singular tech prowess recommends it. topix relies heavily on its computers to take 2D cel characters and incorporate them into a 3D world. Working with this technique for around five years, topix president Chris Wallace says they are the first and the only ones, besides Disney, to do this.

‘We’ve honed this procedure to be able to work with traditional animation houses and we’ve done about six commercials that way, some for Mexico,’ says Wallace.

Although interest in this technique has come in spurts, overall it has been successful. The digital studio is expanding its 3D department to twice its present size and relocating to a new space at McCaul and Queen Streets in downtown Toronto.

According to Jo-Ann Cook, executive producer at Toronto’s Animation House, the u.s. market is a tough one to break into, ‘but once you are in they will come back.’

Although most of the business at Animation House comes from Canada they recently completed a spot for Tokyo and in the past have produced commercials for Germany, France and Mexico.

The bulk of Delaney’s work comes from Western Canada, with 10% to 20% originating from outside the country.

On the home front, Delaney says the industry in Western Canada has changed significantly in the last three years and as agencies went through a period of adjustment so did the spot animation business.

‘There were a lot of big clients with big agencies and now it seems to have broken down to about three or four major agencies in Vancouver and a lot of smaller boutique-type agencies,’ says Delaney. ‘The nature of the type of advertising has changed and clients are looking for ways to spread their dollar out more.’

And as the industry itself evolves so d’es the genre, as nationally and internationally a new type of client emerges looking to animation to promote their product. While in the past animation was used mostly to appeal to children, today (post Simpsons) there is no longer a stigma surrounding it and it is used for anything.

Says Huxham: ‘There is always going to be cereal stuff with little characters, but more and more companies such as banks and breweries that would not in the past have used animation to sell their product are now (using animation) ­ because animation has evolved into a very sophisticated form of communication.’

On the production front, when the animation demands go beyond traditional cel, the one-stop-shop scenario is shifting to a more contract-out approach similar to the feature film side, wherein a special effects director brokers the work out to numerous shops.

Wallace sees the industry evolving to be departmentalized so that service bureaus will do the work that the smaller companies, who can’t afford to be specialists, are not equipped to handle, leaving them free to concentrate on the performance and the directing. ‘All the pieces of the puzzle are being turned into service bureaus so we can go out and contract a modeling shop or a motion-capture shop.’

Huxham says the technique side of animation is going to dictate the direction that animation is going rather than the artists’ ability to animate, as the trend in commercial animation is leaning towards digital imagery generated by computers, which will lead to more experimentationŠ

And while the last few years have seen Canadian animation houses turn to the latest computer tech in order to achieve and enhance certain looks, traditional animation has not disappeared in the commercial production industry.

Animation House has had a good year in the traditional camp with business remaining steady, and although they are experimenting with new technologies their bread and butter is still traditional animation.

Huxham says the computer side was booming two years ago, but today it is no longer the look of computer animation that agencies are going for. ‘Computers are being used as a tool to achieve certain shots that otherwise may not have been achievable.’

Vancouver saw a big switch over to the computer a few years ago, and now the trend on the West Coast seems to be moving back and forth as people once again are settling into more traditional styles.

‘The computer work is really great for certain concepts and ideas,’ says Delaney. ‘I think that agencies have gotten over the excitement of using computers and are starting to use it where it’s effective and are asking for the traditional where it’s more effective.’

Animator Wade Konowalchuk at Michael Mills in Montreal ­ not a virtual fan ­ says although computer animation technology is always improving there is no way a computer will ever be able to produce what a person slaving over a desk can.