Doctors and research scientists began meeting in a conference room at the Foothills Hospital to watch cartoons. Discussions about forming an Animation society and seeking non-profit status began with founding members Greg Lucier, Rita Egiizi and John Edstrom.
Quickdraw Animation Society was officially born. Grants were written and sporadically received. Screenings and workshops took place on borrowed equipment. The newly established board of directors begins looking for a permanent space
QAS finds it's first permanent home in 1988 and receives its first operational funding. Animation equipment is slowly getting collected for production purposes
Animation classes and workshops begin at Quickdraw. Different animation techniques are explored
John Weldon ( Special Delivery) and Jimmy Picker ( Sundae in New York) both Academy Award winning animators hold workshops with Quickdraw Animation Society at the Alberta College of Art and Design
Quickdraw's first piece of professional animation equipment- a standard video pencil tester is purchased.
Quickdraw hires their first part-time paid staff member, an administrator to help in grant-writing and programming development.
Children's animation classes and camps begin at Quickdraw. Getting children to work in such a time-intensive, production based art form was unheard of, but the Quick-kids program took off with a great success, still running today with hundreds of amazing films being produced by local kids.
Cameraless Animation, the technique in which visuals are drawn or scratched directly onto 16 or 35 mm film is explored by many Quickdraw members, including Richard Reeves the iconic Canadian animator of the award-winning cameraless film "Linear Dreams"
Quickdraw makes their first animation stand with a 16mm Bolex camera, a plastic sewer pipe and yellow nylon rope. Many early Quickdraw films were shot on this stand, including works by Ron Slamp, Kevin Kurytnik, Don Best and Gary Tallin.
