Business of the Month:
Before meething Ron Lamarre, who introduced me to Rantdog, I really had no experience or idea what was involved in the world of animation. It is so amazing the amount of work that goes into each and every project. It was very cool to see the personalities behind the characters that they build, with little bits of themselves going into every one of those characters.
The thing that I absolutely loved about Rantdog, was that the crew is a group of down to earth, nerdy, real people with a twisted sense of humor, which really makes for awesome comics and animations. It is a small crew consisting of Norm (Steve) Fassbender, Kate Halowach, Agent (Kate) Cooper, and of course, Ron Lamarre. Don't be deceived by the small crew though, the experience and talent that congregates in that office is incredible. They have mastered the ways of mixing fact with BS in a beautiful way, while still having some seriousness thrown in. They touch on a lot of pop culture and Edmonton based things and toss in a couple worldly or political views... not to mention adding a humorous take on adulty things that tend to either be normally dull or embarrassing.
One particularly touching project was working with Emmanuel Jal, a former child soldier of Sudan, who turned into an international recording artist, speaker, actor and peace activist who also wrote a book called War Child. They animated the first chapter of his book which gets into the child's perspective of the development of it's seed of hate. It was hard to watch but amazingly animated and the perspective was perfect.
"The casting was done out of the Edmonton Mennonite Center, and included real victims of war."
But then you have that followed up with their comics like Rantdog, Voodoo Sex Talk and Zombies of the Tarsands. These bring out the naughty and nice but radical side. Sometimes it's a little raunchy but tastefully... or not. Sometimes its touching (inappropriately) and it even can get a little politcal(ly incorrect). Needless to say, if you have not taken the time to read them or watch their cartoons, you are missing out.
One cool fact that was interesting to learn is that Rantdog Animation Studios is the only animation studio currently in Edmonton! How crazy is that!! So, I can only imagine that the majority of Edmonton is completely unaware of what is right here for them. They are hardworking, reasonable people that offer their animation services to anyone that needs it and are able to work with budgets too!
So Rantdog, what is your muse?
"The people of Edmonton! We all have a story to tell and anything can be put into a comic!"