Animation Artist

Anyone strolling through the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank will see metal street signs that direct visitors to the various departments that comprise an animation studio: animation here, layout there, etc. Those signs are a charming sight, a reminder of the time when cartoon operations were self-contained villages of artists, all working side-by-side to create wonders. But as directional guides, they are as obsolete as Route 66.

Original content, like Baer Animation's "Popsi Power Show," is one way for boutique shops to survive.

While one might think that the major animation studios, including those set up during the "toon boom" of the 90s-DreamWorks Animation, Warner Bros. Feature Animation, even the now-defunct Fox Animation Studio in Phoenix-produce their work within the confines of one studio plant, that is rarely the case. Indeed, one of animation's best-kept secrets is that even the biggest of the majors rely on help from small studios in places like Ireland, England, Australia, Canada, and Powell, Ohio.

Powell, Ohio?

Animation talent, of course, can grow anywhere, though it is usually transported and harvested to major production centers. That's what makes regional companies like Character Builders, a small classical animation studio located just outside Columbus, Ohio, all the more intriguing.

Employing a small staff of feature-quality animation artists, Character Builders has contracted for animation work on such past features as Space Jam, Anastasia, and more recently, the studio performed all pre-production work (storyboarding, character design, layout and animatic production) for Disney's direct-to-video sequel, The Little Mermaid II, and the upcoming animated sequel to 101 Dalmatians.

"We may not have Glen Keane [a longtime Disney artist who many consider the Olivier of animation], but we have the very next group," says Leslie Hough, executive producer for Character Builders. "We have people who are that good, they're just not as visible."

In addition to its core staff of about 20-roughly the norm for a small studio Character Builders draws from a list of freelance talent from all over the country.

"We have a guy in Cleveland, a guy in Indiana, we have a couple guys in Utah, and a guy in Manhattan," Hough says. "We usually bring them to the studio for a couple weeks to let them see what we're doing and then they can take the work home. For one reason or another, usually personal, they prefer not to live in Los Angeles, but they are good enough to get work."

Vancouver's Bardel Animation creates its own content and services studio projects.

Whereas in the past, feature film sequences were farmed out to such service companies mainly as so-called "overflow" work, increasingly, these satellite studios are now being sought to aid specific functions within the animation process. Vancouver-based Bardel Animation Ltd., for instance, has been working with DreamWorks Animation since 1997, providing in-betweening and final line or "clean-up" animation, meaning that Bardel takes rough "acting" drawings from the studio and refines the lines, adding details, and making sure the character remains true to the studio's initial design. Bardel has performed such work for all of DreamWorks traditionally animated features, starting with The Prince of Egypt, and continuing through the upcoming Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron.

Such precision work obviously requires not only A-list talent, but also close cooperation and synergy with lead animators.

"We try to keep as much of the communication artist-to-artist," says Bardel president Barry Ward. "We send our key people to L.A. to work with the studio's people, and they come back up here and lead our separate unit of artists underneath them. Those people are the ones who deal directly with lead animators or lead keys on any given character."

While Ward says that "for feature work, it's still rare for (major studios) to actually send out animation," things are different in the realm of direct-to-video films. For Joseph, King of Dreams, DreamWorks' video follow-up to Prince of Egypt, the studio entrusted Bardel with the entire production from layout to final effects. Ironically, that job caused the smaller studio itself to farm out some of the work-in this case, to Toronto's Canuck Creations, Inc. Canuck Creations, meanwhile, had previously worked on American features like Quest for Camelot, The King and I, and the German animated film, Abrefaxe.

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