Sim Video has come a long way from its startup as a one-camera, two-person video rental company, operating out of a second-floor apartment at Parliament and Dundas Streets in Toronto’s east end.

In April, the company that was established by Rob and Peggy Sim 12 years ago with one Ikegami camera that they bought for $50,000, moved into its own building.

Formerly a photo studio located on Wellington Street a couple of blocks west of Toronto’s SkyDome, the small red-brick building is now the Toronto headquarters of Sim Video.

Not only does Sim Video have its own building, but the company has also significantly expanded its facilities and services in the move, with new equipment and, for the first time, in-house editing systems.

From its one-camera origin, Sim Video now has about $2 million worth of video rental equipment and three edit suites that are outfitted with the latest in Video Cube and Avid off-line editing technology.

Sim Video has a second office in Vancouver, staffed by two full-time employees. There, the company is introducing a newly adapted 24-frame-per-second video camera for rental to the film industry.

Over the past 14 years there’s hardly a country in the world that hasn’t hosted a shoot involving some piece of Sim Video equipment. During this past January alone, the company had equipment on shoots in Thailand, Costa Rica, Miami, Hong Kong, Africa, and Norway, to shoot the Winter Olympics.

The story of Sim Video’s growth since it opened in 1982 reads like a textbook case of a small business that succeeded through hard work and a steady focus on what it did well.

In the beginning, Sim Video’s clients were mostly freelancers, who used the Ikegami primarily for corporate work and a little bit of broadcast. A three-quarter package rented out for about $750 a day.

Rob Sim, who studied film at university but had spent several years after graduation building then chartering a boat in Europe, was keen to get started in the production business. He had taken the money he’d made from selling the boat to buy his first video camera.

That pattern continued as the company grew. Most of the money the Sims made from their business was reinvested in it.

Soon after starting, the Sims bought a house in Etobicoke in Toronto’s west end and for the next six years operated their business out of their basement.

‘It worked well for us because we could keep our overhead down and that meant that we had more to put back into the company,’ says Sim.

By 1986, the company had three or four Betacams, and Sim remained hands-on, servicing all of his own equipment as well as often going on site as a technical advisor.

When he wasn’t maintaining equipment, Sim was reading everything he could get his hands on about the state-of the-art product he should buy next.

‘Our goal was to always buy the latest and the best,’ he says.

The philosophy has paid off. Many of the customers he had when he started 12 years ago are still using Sim Video today, and his current client roster has expanded to a database of some 2,000 names.

‘We built the company with a lot of hard work,’ recalls Sim. ‘It wasn’t uncommon to work 18-hour days, seven days a week. I did all the servicing and prepping of the equipment. I can remember many nights at midnight when, if it was a matter of going over the equipment for an hour or going to bed, the going to bed option never won out.

‘The philosophy we had then is the same as it is now: every piece of equipment had to be checked every time it went out. That policy continues, without fail.’

In 1989, the Sims had had enough of working out of their own home. The company took out space on Jefferson Avenue, in a complex that has other broadcast and production interests such as specialty television service ytv.

By then, Sim Video was up to about a dozen cameras. But the change meant Rob had to face the logistical problem of not being around to service clients on a 24-hour-a-day basis. So he installed a sophisticated keyboard system that allows 24-hour access to the facility.

Sim continues to go out on shoots as a technical director and advisor.

‘I love the variety,’ says Sim. ‘I read everything I can find about new technologies, and I enjoy evaluating new equipment – I still do most of that myself – but I also get a thrill going to a shoot and helping to co-ordinate crews and to recommend equipment.

‘Almost every shoot requires some kind of technical advice, whether in the equipment, the lensing, the lighting, the types of tapes or the prompting systems.

‘With so much variety in equipment today, it’s very rare that two people would rent the same system. So my role has changed in that I do more customization of packages.

‘Also, people are doing more things on video, so there are more questions about what the variety of equipment is capable of doing,’ says Sim. He points out that his shop now carries seven models of ccd broadcast Betacams.

‘The real challenge of the ’90s,’ says Sim, ‘is to integrate the computer and video and make it work.

The new Sim Video facility will carry a full complement of camera equipment, as well as the three new editing suites.

The edit suites have a Video Cube, mostly for corporate work, and an Avid system for film and television work.

Sim Video has also expanded its range of cameras with about 20 in total, offering three ranges of Betacams: UVW Betacams, PVW Betacams as well broadcast Betacams.

Rob points out that a key element of the success of his company has been the quality of Sim Video staff who are able to guide clients through their needs and provide the right advice.