#CapU Alumni

[copperbora]

Rest in Peace, Don Perro - Canadian Animation Legend

I just learned that my animation teacher from Capilano University, Don Perro, has passed away. He was a kind, soft spoken man who liked to talk about his champion agility sheltie & his time working on shows like Ren & Stimpy and The Raccoons. Don was the beating heart of Cap U's animation program. I wasn't a great student of Don's; my then-undiagnosed social anxiety & neurodivergencies kept me from ever entering the Vancouver animation industry after I graduated in 2010. Instead of creating a final film for Grad Show, I published a damned book - a literary book, not even an illustrated one.

Despite this, he still watched my career; we were friends on Facebook. He was a good dude, & I'm really sorry that I was often so nervous around him (I was afraid of him due to my social anxiety,) not to mention kind of defiant as I once rebelliously wrote a lengthy tutorial about how animals move - particularly why wrist/fetlock joints are still important with quadruped characters - on his whiteboard for his 1st year students when I was a 2nd year.

I'll always remember how in my 1st year he spent about an hour getting us all settled & working one day, only for a 2nd Year to come charging in exclaiming that there was free leftover food in the conference room down the hallway; my entire class bolted for that food like a pack of starving feral dogs! (This is probably one of my favourite recollections of Don, and my 1st year of animation school in general.) The man had had to have had some serious patience to tolerate spending every day with a bunch of intensely nerdy, hyperactive, sleep-deprived, extremely food motivated students every day.

My heart goes out to Don's family, friends, & the rest of the Canadian animation community for his loss. 💔