From 2003 to 2013, Sudbury was home to March Entertainment, an animation studio that employed up to 100 animators, artists and technologists producing movies and TV shows for the Canadian and international audiences. Among them was Chilly Beach, a quintessentially Canadian production about polar bears and hockey that attracted between 400,000 and 450,000 viewers to its 5:30 pm time slot on CBC for three years.
Led by Dan Hawes, March Entertainment was an important experiment in economic diversification for a city that has always relied primarily on the mining industry. Dan moved to the Sudbury area with his family at the age of six or seven and left at the age of 18. He earned a degree in Management Information Systems at the University of Ottawa, worked for Nortel for seven years and started several different companies in Ottawa and Toronto, but always had a passion for animation.
Chilly Beach had its origins in 1995 as a diversion or hobby, but attracted more and more devotees on the Internet and got the attention of the CBC in 2003. A Sudbury location for the March Entertainment animation studio was made possible when the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation established the Emerging Technologies Fund to help fund production costs for the first season of 26 Chilly Beach episodes.
March Entertainment had some success hustling for other production opportunities when the CBC ceased airing Chilly Beach after three years, but the dream of a Sudbury animation industry finally came crashing down in 2013.
In this interview, Dan sheds light on some of the reasons for March Entertainment’s demise and what he could have done differently to ensure the long-term sustainability of an animation industry for Northern Ontario.
Northerners engaged in similar ambitious diversification efforts are sure to learn some valuable lessons from Dan’s experience.