Rick Dolishny has over 20 years’ experience working in the animation, broadcast and live-event business. Through a variety of successful grant applications including the Canada Council, plus countless commissioned works, Rick has earned the trust of multi-national corporations and the respect of grass roots artists through a combination of awards, accolades, and repeat business.
Innovation, technology and joy drives everything Rick creates. As a Digital Project Manager, he’s a natural collaborator and team leader, and is most excited to see a project reach its goal by taking on a life of its own through improvisation, failure and iteration.
His diversified client list includes RBC, CIBC, McCarthy Tétrault, Bell Media, Shaw and countless others. As president of the Toronto Animated Image Society (2001-2002) he facilitated the growth of the organization and improved public outreach through a variety of open-houses and increased online presence in addition to building up the organizations first office space.
He also gets a great thrill sharing his knowledge to make small business owners lives better online, by assisting with SEO and SEM efforts, ecommerce, and results-driven direct marketing campaigns.
In his spare time, he’s a volunteer at the Peterborough New Canadians Centre and also volunteers with Dreamcatcher Mentoring, which facilitates dialogue with far-north students considering furthering their education through college, university or co-op placement.
Since working with the Walt Disney Company at the beginning of his career, he’s fascinated with technology and live events. Until Virtual Reality (VR), this hybrid of improvisational performance had not existed outside of the realm of video games. Now, VR brings interactive viewer-driven storytelling to the mainstream public.
ardeeXYZ is a VR animation studio based just east of Toronto which was created to produce interactive content for brands and events, while also producing original narrative content that showcases cutting-edge technology and creativity. Our podcast The Animators Guide to Virtual Reality is trending on iTunes and brings in talented people from non-traditional fields to discuss how their craft may be used to produce a VR experience.
Short Version
Rick Dolishny is an educator, supporter, and producer of independent Canadian animation with an emphasis on innovative or ground-breaking work. In 2016 he brought together leaders in advertising, filmmaking and gaming to create ardeeXYZ, a Virtual Reality brand animation company that produces fun and exciting short interactive animated films. In addition to a number of commissioned and non-commissioned works in development, the first shipped product is the “Animators’ Guide to Virtual Reality” podcast currently appearing on the New and Notable page on iTunes. The podcast engages artists working in lighting, sound, layout and of course animation to think outside the box and create a new storyteller’s vocabulary.