Cinema Canada (Aug 1976)

way to get commercials,” he explains. ‘“‘We do, oh, some now and then but what I like doing best is stuff, I'd say, for children.” Stuff, he adds, “that expresses some sort of idea that has some importance to somebody.” For example, he made a film two years ago for Eastman Kodak in Rochester, N.Y., on how cameras work, for children. It wasn’t high-budget, but it was fun to do: “I’d rather do that than sell soup or soap suds.”’ McKay, a graduate of the Ontario College of Art, began working with Norman McLaren at the Film Board when the animation department was first set up in Ottawa. Seven years later he and George Dunning formed Graphic Associates in Toronto. It lasted five years, after which Dunning went to London, and McKay formed Film Design. At Film Design, he decided to keep the company small. ‘The bigger you get, the more you start to take work you don’t want to do. And after a while you’re used to taking, you know, horrible work. And then you're in it for the money and that’s it. Oh, I don’t pretend to be any angel, or anything. I just decided, I suppose, to maintain a low profile.” Artwork for a Sesame Street spot by Ken Stephenson: Videoart Productions 28/Cinema Canada photo Sandy McKay Miguel Corvera and Jim McKay consult while shooting animated film on camera Where Can You Sell and How? “In Canada the government is obliged to have all its work done by the Film Board, and if you do get a government film to do you can be pretty damn sure that the Film Board ts not interested in it. They put it out to tender and you know full well that it’s a bitch.” Dennis Pike “It’s very hard for the Canadian industry to expand, because they (the NFB) do all the government jobs, which is very unfair. They don’t put out too many tenders, and the tenders they put out... aren’t good ones.”’ Manolo Corvera ——S EES SSS > One result of the scarcity of animated industrial films in Toronto, according to Pike, is the almost exclusive concentration on TV commercials (with bits and pieces for OECA during down times), which means that most animation houses in town would find it hard to take on a project like the Indian Legend series for Encyclopaedia Britannica. Another result is that, unlike in, say, London, where animators have extended periods to work on industrial films, senior Toronto animators have little time, in the midst of short, intensive productions, to train assistants. The Sheridan College animation program fulfills this need only partially, although the consensus among professionals is that the quality of the program is improving. How to absorb the graduates into the industry is an other problem. Many in the industry suggest they try elsewhere, such as the United States. OECA ———— SEES eee “With the overhead that we have, the kind of people that we have doing the work, we can’t very often sell animation at. very low prices, try as we might.”’ Mike Smith (MS Art) On doing work for OECA: ‘‘Anybody that has to live on that work sooner or later ts going to go broke.”’ Vladimir Goetzelman Goetzelman says he guesses the average OECA budget is $600 to $700 a minute. “It’s just sweatshop work. It’s not leading anywhere.”’ One of Cinera’s first projects as a company was a low-budget series for OECA on mathematics, which was -well received. ‘“Now, I don’t think we could even touch their work,” says Goetzelman. ‘“We’re always at least 500 bucks over budget whenever we quote.” He contrasts the OECA budget to work Cinera has done for the Children’s Television Workshop in the U.S. (Sesame Street, Electric Company). The budgets are $4,000 a minute. “They’re not fat, but one can work within those budgets.”’ Maggie Stratton, assistant to the director of school programs at OECA, has a different estimate on average costs from Goetzelman’s. “It’s always very expensive. It can vary anywhere from $1500 to $4000 a minute.” “In general, the amount of animation that we’ve used,” she adds, ‘is extremely limited, because we simply cannot afford to pay those prices. And it’s kind of a vicious circle. We can’t afford to pay the price and the animation house cannot afford to bring the price down, because it has to survive.” Children of Quebec Around 1974, the effects of a Quebec law banning animation in commercials aimed at children under 13 devastated commercial animation in Toronto. The Quebec law made advertisers across Canada turn to live-action rather than make two commercials, one for Quebec, one for elsewhere, in commercials directed at children.