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www.oakvillebeaver.com The Oakville Beaver Weekend, Saturday June 24, 2006 - 3 The Oakville Beaver Weekend, Saturday June 24, 2006 - 3 The Wild man from Oakville By Krissie Rutherford OAKVILLE BEAVER STAFF I t took more than two and a half years and a team of 450 at C.O.R.E. Digital Pictures to bring The Wild to life. The Disney blockbuster was in the works at the Toronto-based digital effects and animation company from the storyboard beginnings in March 2003 to December 2005, when the polished product was ready to hit the big screen. And if you ask Oakville's Bob Munroe, president and co-founder of C.O.R.E. and supervising producer of The Wild, the hard work and countless hours creating the more than 80 characters and fine-tuning every last detail in the movie were "absolutely worth it." "It was worth the headaches, the heartaches, the tears, the laughter, the sense of accomplishment, the sense of dread," said Munroe, 44. "It was a challenging endeavour on every level. The emotions went up one side and down the other, but at the end of the day, it was completely, 100 per cent worth it." The Wild follows the adventure of a group of New York City zoo animals, including a koala, lion, giraffe, anaconda and squirrel, who venture out into the wilderness to rescue a friend. "I've seen everything from storyboard drawings to very, very rudimentary, rough blocky animation all the way to the final product," said Munroe. "To see it on the screen, completed, is a breathtaking experience. I was blown away." The Wild is a significant step for Canada because it's the first Disney animated theatrical release created by a Canadian company. Having that on its resume, Munroe says, puts C.O.R.E. "on an international map," among the best in the business. "We were always a mid-range, middle of the pack company doing visual effects," he said of the company, which he founded in 1994 along with fellow Sheridan College Digital Animation grads, John Mariella and Kyle Menzies and Star Trek's William Shatner. "By doing The Wild, we put ourselves in the echelon of the top six companies in the world that can do this, and that's a pretty extraordinary jump. People say it's one of the most complex computer generated movies they've ever seen, and the technology and the creative aspect that we brought to it is fairly extraordinary. "I think doing a movie like The Wild will pull you out from the middle of the pack CATHERINE O'HARA / SPECIAL TO THE BEAVER THE WILD MAN: C.O.R.E. president and co-founder Bob Munroe says The Wild has put his company in the same class with the best animation production companies in the world. and put you firmly at the top." It's the top of an industry he never dreamed he'd get into. Munroe enrolled in Sheridan's Digital Animation program because he "fell in love with a woman from Oakville." A native of London, Ontario, he grew up in Florida before attending the University of Western Ontario for Fine Arts. That's where he met Torrie. "A friend of mine told me about this brand new program that had just started at Sheridan, and I said, `Where is Sheridan College?' He said, `Oakville,' so I said, `Perfect, I'll apply.'" Munroe went to Sheridan, "fell in love with computer animation," graduated in 1985, proposed to Torrie and has been living in Oakville ever since. When he first founded C.O.R.E. ­ unofficially known as the Company of Righteous Effects ­ it was a four-person operation in a small Toronto office. That was 1994. Now, his old office is the size of his waiting room. The company has four divisions ­ C.O.R.E. Digital Pictures, C.O.R.E. Toons, C.O.R.E. Film Productions and C.O.R.E. Featured Animation ­ and for a big project like The Wild, employed upwards of 450 people. "We certainly hoped that C.O.R.E. was going to have a future and that it wouldn't be just a short term thing," said Munroe. "The size of it is certainly what took us by surprise." C.O.R.E. has been responsible for the digital effects and animation of more than 24 TV series, 24 TV movies and 55 feature films, including Hollywood blockbusters like Nutty Professor II: The Klumps, Blade II, X-Men and Dr. Doolittle. The company was at about 40 employees ,but jumped to 120 when it was given the task of creating the animated television series, Angela Anaconda. While Munroe calls tripling the number of C.O.R.E. employees almost overnight to staff the series "scary," that doesn't come close to his feelings when C.O.R.E. hired its first employee. "All of a sudden, we had to issue somebody a paycheque. If we didn't issue ourselves a paycheque that was one thing, but if we didn't issue somebody else that we hired to receive a paycheque, that's serious," he said, smiling. "To this day, the most terrifying moment in the business was the hiring of our first employee." Being a Canadian company hasn't hurt C.O.R.E. in terms of being hired to take on big projects, but Munroe says it was difficult at first to convince people working in the animation business that they can stay in Canada to create large-scale projects. "The difficulty is attracting the top talent and saying, `Hey, we are doing this in Canada, you don't have to go to L.A. to apply your trade, you can stay here and do it,'" he said. "This was always a struggle before we did The Wild for Disney." Since The Wild, things have been different. "I think we have succeeded in helping to reverse that brain drain and give people a reason to stay in Canada rather than to go down to Los Angeles," said Munroe. "We're going to continue to grow as a company. Our mandate is to develop and own our own productions. That's what the future holds for C.O.R.E." · Wood & Vinyl Shutters, Supplied & Installed · High Quality at Affordable Prices · Customer Satisfaction Guaranteed · Serving Oakville with Shop at Home Service Authorized Vinylbilt Dealer www.shuttersetc.ca Shop at Home Service FREE