Ottawa animation studios hope 2023 'downturn' won't be drawn out

Ottawa animation studios — many of whom benefited from a boom during the height of COVID-19 restrictions — have seen projects slow down over the course of the last year.

While they benefited from streaming services and broadcasters seeking fresh content because health restrictions halted and slowed live-action productions, those commissions have slowed and labour disruptions have contributed to delayed or cancelled projects.

Ottawa's Big Jump Entertainment was called on to do animated replacement episodes of black-ish and One Day at a Time. In the case of the animated episodes of live-action shows, actors also worked from home recording their performances on their phones.

"There was a glut of subscriptions and a glut of content and I think, unfortunately, now you see the cutbacks in greenlights because of the glut," said Rick Morrison, Big Jump's president.

The writers' and actors' guild strikes also delayed shows that were in the pipeline for 2023 by several months, leading to layoffs across the industry, he said.

Ottawa's Jam Filled Entertainment said conditions changed quickly.

"To have so much volume go through us and then almost come to an abrupt stop. We didn't even get that yellow [light] to slow down much," said Kyle Mac Dougall, president and co-founder of Jam Filled.  

"I think '24 is going to be a tight year for everyone."

Jam Filled productions like The Loud House, A Tale Dark & Grimm and Inside Job were released during the pandemic. The three productions appeared on the recently-released Netflix engagement report, which showed viewers watched the works for tens of millions of hours between January and June 2023.

The studio works with other streamers and broadcasters, including CBC, but Mac Dougall says they have to shift as they change their strategies.

"What they realized was they didn't have to do as much to maintain the subscription growth they were hoping for," he said. 

Investing in intellectual property

Big Jump did produce a feature, Glisten and the Merry Mission, which was commissioned by Build-a-Bear Entertainment.

The film was released in theatres in November, but many of the 40 people who worked on it had to be laid off because there weren't more work-for-hire contracts following, Morrison said. 

The company is focusing on its own intellectual property, which it controls more directly while also being responsible for financing, to make up for the gap in "service production" where it's hired by another company.

"It lights a little fire to get that going so you're not so reliant on the service side because the service side has dried up quite considerably," Morrison said.

Reflecting on a recent trip to Los Angeles, Morrison said studios are likely going to see fewer projects and tighter budgets in the first part of the new year as they look to be hired. 

"It's the slowest time I've ever seen in the industry," he said.

Morrison said production incentives and the exchange rate may help Canadian studios compete for contracts.

'Deal-making' down, festival says

Kelly Neall, managing director of the Ottawa International Animation Festival, said the industry as a whole faces a "natural downturn" after a period where "things were almost falsely elevated during the pandemic."

"[There was] not the same amount of buying, acquisition and deal-making as we usually see at the festival," Neall said.

She said some festival activity bucked expectations: studios still showed up to recruit students, while international producers from South Korea and Ireland sought out co-production deals.

Mac Dougall said Jam Filled will build on relationships it made during the pandemic, as well as reaching out to new and recent grads who haven't gone through a downturn before.

"It's making sure that we're helping them get further along to put them in a position. so when the jobs do open up again they're ready to go," he said.

Neall said it will be an important time for people to experiment and find new venues for the stories they want to tell, including TikTok and YouTube. 

"One of the things we're going to see is people ... having some fun with the medium as there's a lull in the industry. It's a good time for people to explore their own work," Neall said. 

Morrison said Big Jump is currently working on a collaboration with a Canadian science centre to adapt short films for their dome screen.

"Sooner or later, content is going to have to be king again," he said.