Animation: (Norman) McLaren's child.

The roots of animation in Canada lie, like so many things do, in Great Britain. John Grierson and Norman McLaren, both from Scotland, transformed filmmaking in Canada in the early 1940s. Grierson, the founder of the NFB, always claimed that his finest discovery was McLaren, whom he pursuaded to come to Canada to make animated films. Arriving in Ottawa in 1941, McLaren was immediately put to work creating propaganda pieces for the war effort. Within a year, he was asked to create an animation unit for the Board. The crack team he assembled included Jim McKay, George Dunning and Rene Jodoin.

McLaren's interest was in formal experiments, particularly drawing directly on celluloid. His animated works were not character or plot driven; in conscious opposition to Hollywood cartoons, they were abstract, operating on rhythmic, melodic and colour principles. His style and philosophy influenced Canadian animation both at the Board and in the private sector, which began to grow with the establishment of Dunning's and McKay's Graphic Associates in Toronto in 1949.

It was with Colin Low's The Romance of Transportation in Canada, made in 1952, that a sense of character and incident entered animation at the NFB. McLaren's successor as head of the Animation Unit, Low helped foster a new generation of artists who entered the Board in the late 1950s: among them were Derek Lamb, Kaj Pindal, Arthur Lipsett and Gerald Potterton, McLaren gave informal animation classes to these youngsters, but the films they produced were quite different from his stylized works. Shorts like Pindal's What on Earth! and Potterton's My Financial Career were humorous and told tales in a manner that communicated directly to Canadian and international audiences.

In the 1960s, Wolf Koening replaced his collaborator Low as the head of the Animation Unit, and more importantly, Rene Jodoin was made executive producer of a new French animation department. Jodoin formed his unit into one that produced either abstract pieces or told simple stories with limited dialogue. Foreign talent such as Co Hoedeman and Bretislav Pojar were brought in to augment a talented crew that included quebecois pin screen wizard Jacques Drouin and experimentalist Pierre Hebert. By contrast, the English unit, spearheaded by Derek Lamb, contributed well-plotted, often sardonic pieces, by such talents as Caroline Leaf, John Weldon and Eugene Fedorenko. Many of these films were multi-awared winners (including two Oscars), as was the work of Frederic Back (who also won two Oscars), the Belgian-born animator who spent his career in McLaren-like freedom at Radio-Canada.

The 1970s saw the growth of private animation houses as commercial work in television became plentiful. Such companies as Nelvana in Toronto, Cinar in Montreal, International Rocketship in Vancouver, and Crawley Films and Lacewood Productions in Ottawa became important players in the North American market place. Community colleges established credit courses and graduates, especially from Sheridan College in Oakville, continued the high standards set by the NFB. More recently, Canadian animators have infiltrated Disney and Industrial Light and Magic, contributing to the success of such mega-hits as Aladdin, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Jurassic Park, The Mask, Terminator 2: Judgment Day and many others, often with the use of ground-breaking software programs created by Alias, Corel and SoftImage.

With the NFB winning its 10th Oscar, for Bob's Birthday in 1994, and Alias being nominated for an Academy award for its experimental short The End this year, Canadian animators continue a proud tradition of producing some of the best work in the world.