You have to almost see it,’ says Schott

‘Interior Mansion – Drawing Room

‘The walls are hung with various exotic and macabre souvenirs of the hunt – wildly painted African spears and shields, stuffed and mounted trophy heads, a large elephant tusk over the mantel, and a rack which sports a variety of firearms.

‘Scrogg stands off to one side, while Rupert is interrogated by the nasty sir jasper – a weaselly type with a pencil thin moustache and hawkish nose, dressed in a khaki `great white hunter’ outfit.’

– scene-setter from ‘Rupert and Little Yum,’ one episode in Nelvana’s Rupert series, written by James Henderson, adapted by Dale Schott.

he talents listed on Dale Schott’s c.v. include animator, overseas animation supervisor, storyboard artist, director, writer and story editor. But the latter two credits get the most prominence atop the minimalist resume, fully 25% larger than all the rest.

The succinct work history, and Schott’s spare, unassuming manner bespeak a more bookish, less creative soul than he has proven himself to be in 15-plus years in the animation business.

A 1979 graduate of the classical animation program at Sheridan College in Oakville, Ont., Schott pursued his vocation in glitz-free Canada. He reckons his career path to writing was somewhat unorthodox. Certainly his first job was. Just out of school, he was working as an animator, but ‘instead of drawing on paper, we were drawing straight onto cels with Rapidograph pens.’ He doubts that project ever reached the airwaves.

His goal was to be an animator and he did work as one for a time, mixing in storyboarding and directing and moving among a few studios during the 1980s. Early on, he recalls pitching in as a ‘junior’ animator on a couple of Nelvana projects, including the feature Rock & Rule and a special entitled Take me Up to the Ballgame.

But the nature of the business was changing in Canada. ‘Animation took a downturn, in general, in the early ’80s,’ says Schott. ‘This was the first time work started being shipped, wholesale, overseas to be in-betweened, inked and painted. It looked like (the Canadian industry) was drying up. Nelvana had a lot to do with reviving the low-budget feature when it did the first Care Bears movie (produced in 1984).’

Changing trends translated to less actual animation work for Schott and more of other things. With the arrival of Inspector Gadget at Nelvana, Schott saw his first storyboard work, ‘the beginning of (my) working with story.’

But it would be a few more years before writing would assume a prominent spot on his c.v. Meantime, he was an animation supervisor at home and in Japan, and directed on tv series (for Nelvana, Hinton Animation and Disney Television) and on one feature. Schott turned to writing on Nelvana’s second season of Babar.

He was ready, because ‘I came up through storyboard, where you really get a sense of story structure. Not just on the script page, but a visual sense of the story, which is very important in animation.

‘One of the things that’s unique to animation is that all the editing is done before the thing’s put on film. One of your main tasks as a director is to make sure the show you’re producing is going to be pretty close to what you shoot. Directing is a good training ground for writing because you analyze the story and try to figure out where to cut.

‘For animation, you write a lot more description. Everything has to be drawn – set, backgrounds, et cetera. The set can dictate the business – what the character does. In animation, we have to describe every action. As you’re writing you have to almost see it shot for shot to see how it’s going to work,’ he says.

Naturally, the increase in international coproductions has affected writers. ‘There are bigger cultural gaps,’ Schott says, ‘between Canada and Europe than Canada and l.a. There’s a different set of frustrations’ – cultural and language differences, knowing what other cultures consider funny, how they tell stories. Europeans ‘are not so interested in continuity, they’re more esoteric and freer. There’s a reason foreign films look like they do.’

Then there are broadcaster interpretations. Schott recalls that in one story written by a colleague, a bad guy was supposed to dangle someone by an ankle. Wrongo. The German broadcaster called it ‘fascist-oid treatment of foreigners.’

Schott was aware of the 1980s toys-to-television controversy, but it hasn’t made him a cynic, even though Nelvana has merchandise licensing programs in place for two shows he’s written, Babar and Rupert.

‘The projects I’ve worked on have all had a certain amount of integrity apart from the merchandise. I’m proud of the work I’ve done on Babar and Rupert.

‘There’s a whole movement afoot criticizing the quality of animation, the whole method of production for Saturday morningÉ.It’s not fair to compare that to Warner Bros.’ shorts of Bugs and Daffy created in the ’40s. That was a different environment – for theaters and adults. When we all got out of school, we thought we’d be working on stuff like that. But in North America, animation is for kids.’

Schott says it’s been ‘boom time’ for many years for experienced animation personnel and there’s plenty of opportunity for writers. But he says it’s ‘a bit tough to break in,’ with the more successful writers having had some animation experience.