Canterbury grad's work coming to screen near you

Posted Feb 2, 2012 By Eddie Rwema

EMC Entertainment - When Benjamin Su was chosen for a visual arts program at Canterbury High school, little did he know it would be a starting point to a successful animation career.

And when Disney's animated classic Brave is released this coming summer, the Canterbury community should be proud one of their own graduate contributed to this project.

Brave is based on an Irish fairy tale and stars Emma Thompson.

Born in Taiwan, Su and his family moved to Canada when he was 10 and briefly settled in Regina. Coming from a tropical homeland, adjusting to the weather in Regina was tough.

"It was quite a challenging adjustment to go from tropical island to -45 C winter," said Su.

From his childhood Su's dream was to be an animator.

"I've been drawing for as long as I can remember and was greatly influenced by the Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show and all the Disney feature films growing up," he said. "I was also into comic books and made many of my own books and cartoons as a child. I have always loved creating characters with different personalities and bringing them to life on paper."

Through out high school and college, Su said he was involved with creating cartoons for the school papers.

He joined Canterbury High School in the mid '90s when his family relocated to Ottawa.

Going to Canterbury High School was a life changer for him, Su said.

"Being surrounded by so many talented artists who were equally passionate about drawing was both an inspiration and encouragement," he said.

Su admits Ottawa will always hold a very special place in his heart.

"My passion for animation started here and I also met my wife in Ottawa," he said.

Su added that it was at Canterbury that he found out about Sheridan College's animation program and was able to build as decent portfolio with the guidance of the teachers.

"My school counselor also got me a three months co-op program at a 2-D animation studio and that experience really opened my eyes as to what I was getting into," he said.

Su landed his first full time job right after graduating from Sheridan's computer animation class back in 2003.

Then C.O.R.E Animation Studios' in Toronto was making Canada's first theatre released computer animated feature film and it was going to be a $180 million budget Disney movie.

"I was hired on near the beginning of the production and it gave me the opportunity to wear many different hats on the movie," he said. "I was able to do 3-D design and modeling on some of the main characters of the movie. I eventually moved on to doing some character animation and was promoted to be a lead crowd animator."

His dream had always been to work for Pixar, but he knew it was difficult to get in.

"I was working in Los Angeles at Sony Animation Studios and my contract was coming to an end when I decided to apply to Pixar," he said.

"Fortunately I was hired to work on Toy Story 3 as my first project and I was part of a very special team selected to work on the climax sequence of the movie."

The first Toy Story was one of his inspirations to get into computer animation and a chance to work on the trilogy felt like his career came to a full circle. His first movie went on to be successful and won an Academy Award.