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 animator in Canada’s fledgling animation industry. Subsequently she partnered with Al Guest and continued to pioneer as the first woman in Canadian animation combining writer, director, and producer.
Profiled in Chatelaine magazine when she worked as lead animator on Rocket Robin Hood, she went on to work at the CBC doing animation for Lorne Michaels and Hart Pomerantz as well as Wayne and Shuster. While at the CBC she did a stint at the National Research Council in Ottawa, pioneering CG animation on their mainframe computer - then the largest computer in Canada. In 1977 she was the presenter of the Animation Award at the Canadian Film Awards. Together with her partner Al Guest, she helped found The Canadian Animation Producers Association with Al Guest the first president and Jean Mathieson the founding secretary. The pair 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 and 195 episodes of The Ed Allen Show. Among their animated productions produced in Canada were: 78 episodes of The Undersea Adventures of Captain Nemo, 52 episodes of Rocket Robin Hood, 20 episodes of The Toothbrush Family, 20 episodes of The Sunrunners and 26 episodes of The Hilarious House of Frightenstein and the Inuit special Ukaliq. Their music video "A Routine Day" made for the band "Klaatu" is considered the first animated music video.
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 Alligator, 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.
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, Ghost Stories From The Pickwick Papers, The Phantom of the Opera, , Les Miserables, A Tale of Two Cities, The Canterville Ghost, Around the World in Eighty Days, The Call of the Wild, and Brer Rabbit Tales.
After commuting from L.A. 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.
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. 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.
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. While in Beijing they were invited to the Beijing Broadcasting Institute where they gave an address. Their concept of making the main character a skateboarder resulted in the show being sold around the world as "Skateboy".
Back to Hollywood
After completing a 2D series Going Buggs based on their movie Planet of the Buggs, which was created and directed by their son William S. Mathieson, they created a CGI pilot - Oh No, Domingo! doing the production overseas. At the same time, a live action horror film they wrote - House of Darkness - was completed in Montreal. The rock band "KLAATU" recently released a DVD of songs animated by Guest and Mathieson along with personal interviews where they both discuss the rotoscope animation technique they used. Jean Mathieson now works in the Videogame industry where she is credited as Jean Guest on ', Secret Agent Clank, ', DreamWorks Super Star Kartz, , and "". Al Guest and Jean Mathieson continue to write and develop new projects together.
