It’s spring and post-production minds are busting out all over with a typically all-encompassing range of projects; the weird, the wonderful and the invisible.

Some of the industry’s best and brightest shared the gritty details of recent post-production and effects efforts and they appear to have all the bases covered. The time-tested classics were there – aliens, explosions, adrenaline-addled acts of derring-do, rendered in new and inventive ways – as well as the classics-to-be – caged musicians, peripatetic tattoos and, naturellement, talking dogs.

Also in this report:

Krech transports tattoo, factory p. 16

First pal/widescreen series goes to the dogs at Supersuite p. 17

TOPIX’s retros scenes are for kids p. 18

Airwalk extravaganza at Rainmaker p. 18

A chilling number of poltergeist effects at Northwest p. 20

All-CG aliens land at John Gajdecki p. 21

Buzz lands Yo-Yo Ma in jail p. 22

Eyes strives for best of both worlds p. 24

Network: Ole! p. 25

Space Cases, a youth-oriented science fiction series produced by Cinar in association with Nickelodeon, is the latest live-action foray for the Montreal-based company, known for its animation. The series, which has turned out to be a post-intensive affair, is posted at Cinar’s in-house post facility, Cinar Studios.

‘Everyone thought it would be less effects-driven when it started out,’ says post-production director Peter Alves. ‘But it’s now more of an effects-driven show by necessity.’

The series entails roughly three minutes of cgi per episode, with upwards of 40% of the post budget dedicated to effects, and Alves says while post-production is scheduled to be turned around in roughly four or five weeks per episode, it’s always a challenge to meet the crunch of delivery for a new show.

The show, which began airing on Nickelodeon in early March, features five underachieving youngsters from various places in the cosmos who go on an unwitting seven-year space journey.

Effects supervisor Yves Beland says the effects team utilizes 2D along with 3D animation software to turn around space scenes in a realistic yet time-effective way. For a typical asteroid field scene, Beland says numerous layers of effects are built with Matador paint and Softimage Eddie compositing software while the spaceship is created in 3D.

‘It’s like doing a painting,’ says Beland. ‘We do the star field in 2D, creating a background of stars, then add three or four layers of asteroids, then composite in the ship, then add three or four more layers of asteroids moving at different speeds to create a smooth movement.’

The particular talents of some of the young travelers also must be accommodated in post, including cg waves created from the supersonic scream of the Saturn-born crew member and a resident of Uranus who can generate and expel electricity.

Executive producers on Space Cases are Micheline Charest, Ronald Weinberg and Susan Dietz. Star Trek writer David Gerrold, who penned the classic ‘The Trouble With Tribbles,’ is executive story consultant. Celebrity guests will include seasoned space cases Mark Hamill and George Takei (Lt. Sulu).

Complete sound post, all effects editing, dialogue editing and foley recording are also done at Cinar.