Animation club looks at all aspects of 'the art of storytelling'

Originally published by The Brampton Guardian, Friday, January 24th, 2003, written by Katherine Sealey, Staff Writer

A lot of people may be surprised to discover that Disney’s plucky heroine Belle is a actually a bearded father of three from Brampton. “That’s what’s great about animation,” said Dave Quesnelle, the professional animator who brought Belle to life for Beauty and the Beast’s Enchanted Christmas.

“Animation lets you do anything and be anything. So whereas an actor in always going to look like a person in a doorknob suit, as an animator, you can actually be these things.”

Now, Quesnelle, who is also a professor of animation at Sheridan College, is sharing his knowledge as the leader of Visual Arts Brampton’s Animex club, which looks at the tools and techniques required to produce good animation.

The program is now entering it’s second year and the new session will run Monday nights from Feb. 3 until Nov. 10.

Admission is first-come, first-served and students in the previous session ranged in age from 12 to late 50s, with an near-even split of male and female.

“This animation club is for everyone, no matter what age or gender or skill,” said Quesnelle, who will be assisted by fellow animator Corey Corivari. “It’s a place to ask questions, whether you’re looking into animation as a career, or maybe your kids are out of the house now and its something you’ve always wanted to try but don’t want to devote your life to it, or spend a lot of money going to school.”

Quesnelle said he wished there had been a similar program around when he was starting out.

“I grew up in Penetanguishene, where there was nothing of that kind of thing,” he said. “I’m a progeny of television, I grew up in front of a TV.”

Knowing that he wanted to pursue a career in entertainment, Quesnelle spent time as a film projectionist and as a makeup artist, working with rubber prosthesis, before turning to the world of animation. After training at Sheridan College in the ‘80s, Quesnelle joined Nelvana studios, working on the Care Bears, The Ewoks, My Pet Monster and Babar. His work caught the eye of director Don Bluth, who invited Quesnelle to Ireland to help animate such films as The Land Before Time and All Dogs Go To Heaven.

From there, Quesnelle did another stint at Nelvana— where he met his wife, Patty, a fellow animator— and designed games for computer company. Then, the industry’s biggest animation house, Disney, came calling, offering Quesnelle a spot in their new Toronto studio, and the chance to work on such films as Pocahontas: Journey to a New World, Little Mermaid Return to the Sea and Peter Pan: Return to Neverland.

“The original Peter Pan is one of my favourite films of all time,” he said. “To be asked to work on the sequel was a real thrill.”

A film like that can take three to five years to create, he said, and requires all the skills in an animator’s arsenal.

“Animation is the art of storytelling, not just about drawing pictures,” he said. “You need to study still-life, drawing, anatomy, perspective, cinematography, architecture, all sorts of things. You even have to study things like how to draw a door, because sometime you might be asked to make a door talk and you have to know what that would look like.”

In the Animex program, with the aid of Quesnelle and other guest speakers from the industry, students will explore character design, backgrounds, storyboarding, story development, layout, life drawing, perspective, staging, design, storytelling, film analysis, film making, acting for animation, action analysis, drawing and timing for animation, lip synch, sound and music, EFX special effects, 3D animation and portfolio development.

“Someone once asked Alfred Hitchcock ‘How can you become a great director?,” said Quesnelle. “He told them ‘Get into animation’. As an animator, you have to know every aspect of filmmaking, because nothing is there unless you create it. There are 24 drawings in a second, which means we have to break everything down into little pieces. It would drive an actor crazy to think how many times they blink during one line of dialogue, but an animator needs to know.”

He also noted that, although animation can often be a lonely process, learning to work with others is essential.

“On a big film, you might have 10 or 20 people animating the same character,” he said. “You have to share your secrets because, if you each do your job right, it ends up looking like just one person did everything. That’s teamwork.”

In addition to classical animation, the Animex club will also be looking at innovations in the industry, including the use of computers which has not only expanded what the big studios can do, but also opened up the market to independent artists.

“I’m jealous of kids today,” he said. “You can get on a computer, create something and send it out on the Internet for the whole world to see. We used to shoot our films on a borrowed Super 8 camera, and no one would ever see it except maybe your family and a couple of friends.”

Quesenelle noted though that no matter how many bells and whistles you add to the mix, it’s still the same principles at heart.

“Animation evolved right back from cave paintings when they would draw animals in motion, gazelles and horses running, and that’s animation, using pictures to tell a story, to transmit a feeling.,” said Quesnelle. “Great storytelling is what makes you cry when Bambi’s mother dies. It’s just a cartoon, but the emotions are real. It’s not about how straight you can draw this line or how well you draw an eye. The skill is in making it all seem honest and true.”

Quesnelle’s passion for the art is such that he is donating his time to the club.

“My problem is I can’t get away from animation,” he said, with a laugh. “I animate for a living, and then I do it again when I get home for fun, and now I’m going out to teach others how to do it.”

Programs like Animex, he said, are increasingly important as schools struggle to maintain funding for their arts program.

“It’s to the point where students are coming into Sheridan’s animation program with zero drawing experience,” said Quesnelle, a father of three, ages 4, 2 and two months. “The government seems to think that art is unimportant, but look around. Everything you see was created by an artist.” The cost for the course is $250.

To register or for more information, call 905-453-9142 or visit www.visualartsbrampton.com.

The Visual Arts Brampton studio is located at 1 Bartley Bull Pkwy.

• The Animex Club

• Dave Quesnelle

• Sheridan College

Series and features that Dave mentions in the article:

• Babar
• Beauty and the Beast: Enchanted Christmas
• Care Bears
• Little Mermaid Return to the Sea
• My Pet Monster
• Pocahontas: Journey to a New World
• Peter Pan: Return to Neverland
• The Ewoks