Cartoon Conrad Productions
Pop quiz: what do Alvin and the Chipmunks, Garfield and Friends, and The Simpsons Movie have in common?
They’re multi-million dollar cartoons turned into movies.
They’re box office hits that have been seen around the world.
And, they’re projects in which Nova Scotia animators Cartoon Conrad have been involved.
Cartoon Conrad is an animation company based in Sackville, Nova Scotia. The company produces animation in Flash, working mostly on broadcast (television), online gaming and training videos. Cartoon Conrad’s work has been used in commercials, music videos, kids’ cartoons, and promotional materials for movies, screen savers, and wall papers.
Anywhere you see animation, Cartoon Conrad can produce it.
“All walks of business come to us, and we bring their stories to life,” explains Luke Conrad, owner of the business.
Cartoon Conrad has splashed life into stories on recognizable networks like Teletoon, CBC and Fox Kids. The company’s latest project involved providing animation and storyboard material for CBC’s Razzberry Jazzberry Jam, a preschool show illustrating and nurturing a love for music.
Since the time they sat in front of the television in diapers to enjoy a preschool show like Razzberry Jazzberry Jam, Conrad and his colleagues Adam King and Michaela McIntosh have been dreaming about spending their lives drawing and creating stories.
They’re part of that elite group of people who started dreaming about their futures as children and actually followed through. How many of us said as children: I want to be an astronaut, or I want to be a ballerina but, today, find ourselves on a much different path?
Conrad, King and McIntosh said I want to be a cartoonist – and that’s exactly what they became.
“I’ve been drawing for as long as I can remember,” explains Conrad. “For a long time, I thought I wanted to do comic books, but I always knew I’d be involved in cartoons.”
King adds, “I remember when I was five years old, drawing pictures of the Ninja Turtles and writing stories about their adventures. I always knew I’d do something creative in my career.”
Much like her colleagues, McIntosh has been drawing for as long as she can remember. “I always dreamed of being in this business; I’ve been in film now for 12 years, and I still love every minute of it.”
Even though they’ve been planning for a long time, the road to success has not been easy for Conrad and his colleagues.
“Cartoon Conrad started with the love of the craft,” explains Conrad. “It’s a passion driven-industry, after all.”
But from there, it wasn’t so clear-cut.
“When we started, we were simply trying to keep ourselves afloat, taking any and every job we could,” Conrad explains. “It was a challenge just to pay the bills and survive. But after a few years of really hard work, we got our big break.”
Cartoon Conrad’s big break came in the form of a Teletoon show called DoodleZ.
“DoodleZ was a real door-opener. From there, we scored Razzberry Jazzberry Jam, and since then, the transition toward bigger projects has been a really smooth one,” says Conrad.
But the team doesn’t just produce animation for children (although they constitute the majority of Cartoon Conrad’s target audience).
They’ve produced materials for adults, too. They recently developed a training video for new-hire nurses in Nova Scotia’s health system. They provided animation direction for Remax’s brand and logo. And they also completed training videos for McGraw-Hill.
They’ve accomplished so much great work in such a short time frame, in fact, that they’ve been awarded for their accomplishments. Last year, they were finalists in Ernst & Young’s impressive Entrepreneur of the Year award and they received The Chronicle Herald’s impressive Top 20 Twenty-Somethings of 2009 award.
Other than that, Conrad and his team are pretty quiet in the community about their successes and their business in general. So they think it’s unlikely that their Nova Scotian neighbours are aware that Cartoon Conrad’s world-renowned animation is being produced in our own backyards.
Cartoon Conrad doesn’t promote itself publicly. “We’ve always been content to do our work from the sidelines,” says Conrad. “And, we get our work through broadcasters and online.” So they haven’t needed to nurture a public persona.
Even though that’s the case, Conrad says he would like to reach out to his fellow Nova Scotians, to let them know Cartoon Conrad is here. “It would be nice to let people know this kind of talent and creative space exists in Nova Scotia,” he says.
Although Cartoon Conrad is not the centre of attention in Nova Scotia, Luke Conrad believes the province is a great place to run an animation business.
“Nova Scotians are very supportive of film,” he says. “We have one of the best film labour tax credits in Canada. And it’s a very creative city – very supportive of the arts.”
He adds Cartoon Conrad already has some pretty fierce competition in Nova Scotia. But according to Conrad, that’s a good thing.
“Competition is good for the business,” he says. “We want the artists here. We want Nova Scotia to continue to develop as a hub of creativity.
“What I’d really like to see,” he adds, “Is some of the vets from Toronto and Vancouver making their way to Halifax. We have a lot of young and vibrant artists in the industry, but it would be great to get some more seasoned talent, blazing the path, in our province.”
And as the industry moves forward, so will Conrad’s business. But he says he’ll be taking a very cautious approach with Cartoon Conrad.
“It’s always an ongoing battle in this business,” he says. “There will always be ups and downs in the contract industry.
“So we’ll be taking it one step at a time,” he adds.
And Conrad will be stepping in tune with the steady beat of the musical hit show, Razzberry Jazzberry Jam, which he’s been busy animating for CBC (and hopefully developing some more cutting edge shows and promotional materials in the future, too).
