Vancouver Animation Domination

Image by: Lindsay Siu | Aaron White

Vancouver’s 
animation sector is fighting for the one thing that will end its dependence on 
foreign masters: 
a hit all its own
.

Aaron White’s guinea pigs somehow manage to be superbly ugly and adorable all at once. Drawn with only a dozen lines or so, they’re little more than oblong fur lumps with ghastly big eyes and spindly limbs. And to say these would-be cartoon heroes almost look like they’ve been hand-crayoned by a preschooler is not a criticism; in fact, that’s what makes them perfect.


• Blog: Can Vancouver's animation industry avoid a perpetual case of the China Syndrome?

As White explains it, the pint-sized heroes of Rosenpigs – his concept for an absurdist cartoon series currently in development at Vancouver animation studio Bardel Entertainment Inc. – are sent back and forth through time, creating havoc along the way. 


“Every week they can go back and cause historical calamities, or prevent them, or just kind of cause a ruckus with the space-time continuum,” says the 27-year-old, who, like his creations, embodies a contrast between childishness and maturity, sporting both a neat beard and cartoon characters on his T-shirt as he chats about his project at a hip café on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive.

The Vancouver animation industry

The subject matter might seem silly, but from a business standpoint a project like this is terribly serious. The Vancouver animation industry has long been dependent on work flowing northward from Hollywood to stay alive. But the sector has fostered several mature studios over the years, employing hundreds of skilled animators, and many feel that it’s now time to start loosening that chain and begin creating content good enough to compete on the world stage. And who knows? Maybe White’s Sphinx-defacing, Hindenburg-crashing rodents will play a part in that awakening.


White is an alumnus of the prestigious animation program at Sheridan College in Oakville, Ontario. After graduating in 2005, he spent five years working as both an animator and compositor for Bardel and another local outfit, Studio B Productions Inc., pitching the Rosenpigs concept – a TV series based on his final project at Sheridan – at each studio. In October 2007, Bardel optioned White’s idea, paying him for the right to develop the project – and, if it attracts enough interest, eventually produce and market it. (White won’t disclose how much he was paid, saying the recognition and experience is worth more to him than the fee.) Currently, an in-house team of Bardel writers and artists is writing scripts, designing a look, making plans for online content and so on. If the studio can bring in a diverse group of distributors, broadcasters and government sponsors to support the project (players such as Canadian cartoon broadcasters YTV or Teletoon and development funds such as Telefilm Canada’s Canada Media Fund), a Rosenpigs TV series will be born, satisfying the yearnings of nine-year-olds everywhere for funny-looking animals, minimalist art and theoretical physics.

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