Al Guest
Encyclopedia
Al Guest is a Canadian
animation producer.
He was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and started his career there when he dropped out of the University of Manitoba
to pursue a career in films. A writer and fine artist, he has exhibited his paintings at many galleries in Winnipeg and Toronto. He is most known for his film work - especially animation - which he has written, produced, and directed in 10 studios on 3 continents.
he established both an animation studio and a live action production company and, in the early 1960s was called on by Sydney Banks
, legendary Canadian broadcast and film pioneer, to help create the Director's Guild of Canada (DGC). Banks, the founding President, talked Guest into becoming its first secretary and contributing the distinctive "director's chair" logo still in use by the DGC.
Together with his partner, animator Jean Mathieson
, Guest has produced more than 4,000 television commercials, theatrical shorts, television series and sponsored films, winning more than 100 awards.
Although known primarily for animation, they have also produced and directed live action commercials with their company in London, England as well as live action TV shows in the U.S.
Among their live productions produced in Canada
were 130 episodes of The Bonnie Prudden Show (U.S. syndication) and 195 episodes of The Ed Allen Show (U.S. syndication).
Among their animated productions produced in Canada were: 78 episodes of The Undersea Adventures of Captain Nemo
, (CBS
) 52 episodes of Rocket Robin Hood
(CBC & international syndication), 20 episodes of The Toothbrush Family
(CBS
), 20 episodes of The Sunrunners (Ontario
Education Channel)and 26 episodes of The Hilarious House of Frightenstein
(U.S. syndication) and the Inuit
special Ukaliq.
, Any Which Way You Can
, Body Heat
, and One from the Heart
, for which they also produced the logo animation for Francis Ford Coppola
's Zoetrope Studios.
While training the staff, Al Guest and Jean Mathieson wrote, produced and directed all the studio's output including the following one-hour specials based on classic books: Oliver Twist
(BBC
), Ghost Stories From The Pickwick Papers (Syndication), The Phantom of the Opera
(HBO), Ben-Hur (Syndication), Les Miserables
(HBO), A Tale of Two Cities
(Syndication), The Canterville Ghost
(Syndication), Around the World in Eighty Days
(Syndication), The Call of the Wild
(with Global Television Network
, Canada), and Brer Rabbit Tales (Syndication).
to their Dublin studio every six weeks for four years, they sold the studio to an English company and moved to Palm Springs
. There they were commissioned by Syd Banks, to write a live action motion picture screenplay based on the life of Emily Brontë, Emily's Story - Wuthering Heights, to be produced by Denis Heroux, the producer of The Black Robe
and Atlantic City.
Their animation activity did not stop however, and they wrote, directed and produced Brer Rabbit's Xmas Carol, The Outrageous Adventures of Brer Rabbit, and Mighty Bigfoot, for which they also designed all the characters.
These productions were all made with studios in Manila
and Guangzhou, China, which necessitated numerous trips to the studios by Guest & Mathieson to maintain their "hands-on" production style. The animated commercials they produced during this period were all done in L.A. on their computers.
). Although certified as professors at Mount San Antonio College, they left teaching after a year to produce and direct a trailer section of their script - Emily's Story - Wuthering Heights, as a combination live-action & CGI
production.
A live action horror film they wrote - House of Darkness was produced in Montreal.
An occasional consultant in Videogames, Al Guest now devotes most of his time to writing Crime and Mafia novels.
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
animation producer.
He was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and started his career there when he dropped out of the University of Manitoba
University of Manitoba
The University of Manitoba , in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, is the largest university in the province of Manitoba. It is Manitoba's most comprehensive and only research-intensive post-secondary educational institution. It was founded in 1877, making it Western Canada’s first university. It placed...
to pursue a career in films. A writer and fine artist, he has exhibited his paintings at many galleries in Winnipeg and Toronto. He is most known for his film work - especially animation - which he has written, produced, and directed in 10 studios on 3 continents.
Toronto
In TorontoToronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
he established both an animation studio and a live action production company and, in the early 1960s was called on by Sydney Banks
Sydney Banks
Sydney Banks was a pioneer Canadian broadcaster and producer.- Early Days :Sydney Banks was born in Toronto, Canada on January 6, 1917. His parents were English, and Syd and his mother returned to England in 1919, to Cumbria, but they returned to Canada in the late 1920s...
, legendary Canadian broadcast and film pioneer, to help create the Director's Guild of Canada (DGC). Banks, the founding President, talked Guest into becoming its first secretary and contributing the distinctive "director's chair" logo still in use by the DGC.
Together with his partner, animator Jean Mathieson
Jean Mathieson
Jean Mathieson is listed in Colombo's Canadian References as Canada’s first independent, commercial, non National Film Board, woman animator. She switched from the University of Toronto to The Ontario College of Art where in four years she earned her A.O.C.A. After graduation she trained as an...
, Guest has produced more than 4,000 television commercials, theatrical shorts, television series and sponsored films, winning more than 100 awards.
Although known primarily for animation, they have also produced and directed live action commercials with their company in London, England as well as live action TV shows in the U.S.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Among their live productions produced in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
were 130 episodes of The Bonnie Prudden Show (U.S. syndication) and 195 episodes of The Ed Allen Show (U.S. syndication).
Among their animated productions produced in Canada were: 78 episodes of The Undersea Adventures of Captain Nemo
The Undersea Adventures of Captain Nemo
The Undersea Adventures of Captain Nemo was a series of five minute cartoons produced in Canada in the mid-1970s. They told the story of Captain Mark Nemo and his young assistants, Christine and Robbie, in their nuclear powered submarine, the Nautilus....
, (CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
) 52 episodes of Rocket Robin Hood
Rocket Robin Hood
Rocket Robin Hood is a Canadian animated television series, placing the characters and conflicts of the classic Robin Hood legend in a futuristic, outer space setting, produced by Krantz Films, Inc...
(CBC & international syndication), 20 episodes of The Toothbrush Family
The Toothbrush Family
The Toothbrush Family is a 1977 Australian animated television series featuring a group of anthropomorphic toiletry products.Originally conceived by Marcia Hatfield of Australia as her son refused to brush his teeth, the Toothbrush Family expanded to include two international television shows,...
(CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
), 20 episodes of The Sunrunners (Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
Education Channel)and 26 episodes of The Hilarious House of Frightenstein
The Hilarious House of Frightenstein
The Hilarious House of Frightenstein was a Canadian children's television series produced by Hamilton, Ontario's independent station CHCH-TV in 1971. It was syndicated to television stations across Canada and the United States and occasionally still appears today in some television markets...
(U.S. syndication) and the Inuit
Inuit
The Inuit are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic regions of Canada , Denmark , Russia and the United States . Inuit means “the people” in the Inuktitut language...
special Ukaliq.
Hollywood
Subsequently they moved to Hollywood, California where they designed and built a complete motion-control system and produced special effects for numerous commercials and the films AlligatorAlligator
An alligator is a crocodilian in the genus Alligator of the family Alligatoridae. There are two extant alligator species: the American alligator and the Chinese alligator ....
, Any Which Way You Can
Any Which Way You Can
* Beers To You** Written by Steve Dorff , John Durrill , Sandy Pinkard and Snuff Garrett ** Sung by Ray Charles and Clint Eastwood* Any Which Way You Can...
, Body Heat
Body Heat
Body Heat is a 1981 American neo-noir film written and directed by Lawrence Kasdan. It stars William Hurt, Kathleen Turner, Richard Crenna, Ted Danson, J.A. Preston, and Mickey Rourke. The film is inspired by Double Indemnity....
, and One from the Heart
One from the Heart
One from the Heart is a 1982 musical film directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The characters themselves do not actually sing but the powerful score dominates the movie. It is set entirely in Las Vegas, on the Las Vegas Strip and the desert surrounding the city...
, for which they also produced the logo animation for Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He is widely acclaimed as one of Hollywood's most innovative and influential film directors...
's Zoetrope Studios.
Dublin
On the recommendation and financing of their New York distributor, Don Taffner. they went to Dublin, Ireland and partnered in setting up a major animation facility, Emerald City Productions, from scratch in a country that had no animation history. Providing the design and specifications for a complete reconstruction of the premises, supervising all purchasing and installation of the equipment as well as designing the furniture, they set about to recruit and train the entire staff, from animators and background artists to camera operators and editors.While training the staff, Al Guest and Jean Mathieson wrote, produced and directed all the studio's output including the following one-hour specials based on classic books: Oliver Twist
Oliver Twist
Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy's Progress is the second novel by English author Charles Dickens, published by Richard Bentley in 1838. The story is about an orphan Oliver Twist, who endures a miserable existence in a workhouse and then is placed with an undertaker. He escapes and travels to...
(BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
), Ghost Stories From The Pickwick Papers (Syndication), The Phantom of the Opera
The Phantom of the Opera
Le Fantôme de l'Opéra is a novel by French writer Gaston Leroux. It was first published as a serialisation in "Le Gaulois" from September 23, 1909 to January 8, 1910...
(HBO), Ben-Hur (Syndication), Les Miserables
Les Misérables
Les Misérables , translated variously from the French as The Miserable Ones, The Wretched, The Poor Ones, The Wretched Poor, or The Victims), is an 1862 French novel by author Victor Hugo and is widely considered one of the greatest novels of the nineteenth century...
(HBO), A Tale of Two Cities
A Tale of Two Cities
A Tale of Two Cities is a novel by Charles Dickens, set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. With well over 200 million copies sold, it ranks among the most famous works in the history of fictional literature....
(Syndication), The Canterville Ghost
The Canterville Ghost
"The Canterville Ghost" is a popular short story by Oscar Wilde, widely adapted for the screen and stage. It was the first of Wilde's stories to be published, appearing in the magazine The Court and Society Review in February 1887. It was later included in a collection of short stories entitled...
(Syndication), Around the World in Eighty Days
Around the World in Eighty Days
Around the World in Eighty Days is a classic adventure novel by the French writer Jules Verne, first published in 1873. In the story, Phileas Fogg of London and his newly employed French valet Passepartout attempt to circumnavigate the world in 80 days on a £20,000 wager set by his friends at the...
(Syndication), The Call of the Wild
The Call of the Wild
The Call of the Wild is a novel by American writer Jack London. The plot concerns a previously domesticated dog named Buck, whose primordial instincts return after a series of events leads to his serving as a sled dog in the Yukon during the 19th-century Klondike Gold Rush, in which sled dogs...
(with Global Television Network
Global Television Network
Global Television Network is an English language privately owned television network in Canada, owned by Calgary-based Shaw Communications, as part of its Shaw Media division...
, Canada), and Brer Rabbit Tales (Syndication).
Manila, Hong Kong & Guangzhou
After commuting from L.A.Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
to their Dublin studio every six weeks for four years, they sold the studio to an English company and moved to Palm Springs
Palm Springs, California
Palm Springs is a desert city in Riverside County, California, within the Coachella Valley. It is located approximately 37 miles east of San Bernardino, 111 miles east of Los Angeles and 136 miles northeast of San Diego...
. There they were commissioned by Syd Banks, to write a live action motion picture screenplay based on the life of Emily Brontë, Emily's Story - Wuthering Heights, to be produced by Denis Heroux, the producer of The Black Robe
The Black Robe
The Black Robe is an 1881 epistolary novel by famed English writer, Wilkie Collins. The book relates the misadventures of Lewis Romayne, and is also noted for a perceived anti-Catholic bias.-Plot summary:...
and Atlantic City.
Their animation activity did not stop however, and they wrote, directed and produced Brer Rabbit's Xmas Carol, The Outrageous Adventures of Brer Rabbit, and Mighty Bigfoot, for which they also designed all the characters.
These productions were all made with studios in Manila
Manila
Manila is the capital of the Philippines. It is one of the sixteen cities forming Metro Manila.Manila is located on the eastern shores of Manila Bay and is bordered by Navotas and Caloocan to the north, Quezon City to the northeast, San Juan and Mandaluyong to the east, Makati on the southeast,...
and Guangzhou, China, which necessitated numerous trips to the studios by Guest & Mathieson to maintain their "hands-on" production style. The animated commercials they produced during this period were all done in L.A. on their computers.
Los Angeles
In 1998 they were appointed to the faculty of Mount San Antonio College in the new Digital Animation Production course where they taught courses in Animation Principles - Beginning and Advanced, Inbetweening, Storyboard, Layout, Animation script writing, Drawing the Figure in Motion, and CGI Environment (MayaMaya (software)
Autodesk Maya , commonly shortened to Maya, is 3D computer graphics software that runs on Microsoft Windows, Mac OS and Linux, originally developed by Alias Systems Corporation and currently owned and developed by Autodesk, Inc. It is used to create interactive 3D applications, including video...
). Although certified as professors at Mount San Antonio College, they left teaching after a year to produce and direct a trailer section of their script - Emily's Story - Wuthering Heights, as a combination live-action & CGI
Computer-generated imagery
Computer-generated imagery is the application of the field of computer graphics or, more specifically, 3D computer graphics to special effects in art, video games, films, television programs, commercials, simulators and simulation generally, and printed media...
production.
Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou & Suzhou
In 2000, Guest & Mathieson spent 13 months directing and producing Flutemaster. A ground-breaking animated series originating in California and produced in China, it was a hit running Prime Time on the Chinese network CCTV, where, as one of the most popular programs ever aired, it reached an audience of 140 million viewers during its broadcast in 2004. Guest and Mathieson designed characters, the logo, and art directed the "look" of the series and its promotion. They also trained Chinese concept, storyboard, and background artists in contemporary American animation style, procedures and technical standards.Back to Hollywood
They have completed a 2D series Going Buggs based on their movie Planet of the Buggs, which was created and directed by their son William S. Mathieson, as well as finishing a completely CG pilot - Oh No, Domingo!.A live action horror film they wrote - House of Darkness was produced in Montreal.
An occasional consultant in Videogames, Al Guest now devotes most of his time to writing Crime and Mafia novels.