[1] Between 1944 and 1950, he co-created ten films, including the award-winning Cadet Rousselle,[2] and developed his skills at animating articulated, painted, metal cut-outs.
[3] In 1948, Dunning traveled to Paris and spent a year working for UNESCO under the mentorship of the Czech animator Berthold Bartosch and furthering his experiments with painting on glass.
He returned to Canada in 1949, and he and colleague Colin Low took a leave of absence to work on an adaptation of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (the production was too ambitious and the film was abandoned).
Dunning decided to start his own production company; he had met John Coates, a London producer who was the nephew of film mogul J. Arthur Rank.
[8] By 1961, TVC was producing about one hundred commercials a year, but Dunning also made many personal short films noted for their surrealistic atmosphere and Kafkaesque themes.
To meet the deadline, Dunning quadrupled his staff and, aided by Coates and art director Heinz Edelmann, supervised as many as 200 artists.
He quarreled with his client, Al Brodax at King Features Syndicate, and the Beatles weren't interested in being involved, only agreeing at the last minute to take part in a live-action epilogue.