So Grad to Be of Service

Wander through one of the big animation studios in Southern California--at DreamWorks SKG, say, or Warner Bros.--and you might start to wonder: What’s with all the hockey stuff?

The answer is . . . Canadians, hordes of them. Unlikely as it may seem, animators and graphic artists and computer programmers from north of the border have carved out a major position in this fast-growing corner of the entertainment industry--accounting for as much as a quarter of all its creative professionals, according to some estimates.

“They call us the Canadian mafia,” says Dan Philips, a dual citizen who spent 25 years in British Columbia before coming to work at DreamWorks as a special-effects expert.

This presence is a result of a long commitment to animation by Canada’s government-funded National Film Board, which, in turn, has helped Sheridan College outside Toronto develop into one of the world’s leading centers of film animation studies.

Sheridan alumni now work at all the major animation and special-effects houses, often using software developed by Montreal-based Softimage (now owned by Microsoft) and Toronto-based Alias (now, together with Santa Barbara-born Wavefront, a subsidiary of Silicon Graphics).

Hollywood recruiters make annual pilgrimages to Sheridan to find talent, which, despite the best efforts of Valencia-based CalArts and a few other Southern California schools, is often in short supply locally.

Sheridan would like to expand its programs, and college President Sheldon Levy was in California last month to try to persuade Hollywood to help foot the bill. The school recently received an $8.8-million grant from the Ontario government to buy new equipment and enlarge its facilities, but more money is needed.

Levy--accompanied by Robin King, director of Sheridan’s School of Animation and Communications Design, and Ian Bacque of the Ontario ministry for economic development and trade--had meetings with executives at Disney, Silicon Graphics and Industrial Light & Magic, and lunched with 35 Sheridan graduates who are now at ILM.

“The meetings were very, very positive,” Levy says. While raising money was the primary objective, Sheridan officials also want industry to participate in shaping the expanded program. This is the best way, they say, to make sure the college meets the needs of the increasingly technology-driven special-effects and 3-D animation fields.