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

TOPIX’s retros scenes are for kids p. 18

Airwalk extravaganza at Rainmaker p. 18

CGI ante up at Cinar Studios p. 19

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

Move over Eddie. Lassie, go home. New dog stars Henry Doberman and Thomas Shepherd are not mere accoutrements or straight dogs, they are the central characters in Dogs World, a pilot being posted at Montreal’s Supersuite.

Supersuite gm Francois Garcia says the pilot will be the first in the province delivered in pal standard and in 16:9 aspect ratio, or wide-screen format.

Garcia says a significant investment was made to equip Supersuite for pal format projects, including the purchase of two Sony DVW A500 digital betacam machines, but says there are little to no additional costs to pal producers. The timing of Supersuite’s investment has been good, says Garcia, as more requests are being made for pal service.

Dogs World, a coproduction of Montreal-based Punch! International and d&d of Germany, is slated to be a live-action series of 12 half-hour episodes, which is a parody of the dog-eat-dog formats of evening soaps like Dallas and Dynasty, but with more bitches.

Dogs World was shot on 16mm film in January in Montreal. Plans are to broadcast the show in English and French, and negotiations are underway with broadcasters in Canada, the u.s., Germany and France. Anthropomorphizing effects will be handled by Montreal’s Buzz.