While reports from each sector of the industry vary in terms of overall levels of production, Canadian purveyors of cinematographers’ tools are reportedly jumping.

The suppliers feeding the demands of commercial feature and tv production are offering uniform reports of empty shelves and warehouses as varying cycles of production provide a steady demand for cameras, lighting, film, grip and service. While suppliers continue to face slim margins, they are still satisfying the perpetual hunger from all production sectors for the latest gadgetry, with many expanding facilities as well as inventory to meet the demands of producers.

William F. White has made a significant commitment to upgrading its camera inventory and service and may be exploring digital tape formats with its expansion into new facilities in November.

White has just invested about $5 million in new custom camera gear, including the acquisition of the coveted Arriflex 435 ES 35mm camera. White’s national camera department manager Chris Holmes says the supplier has ordered six Arri 435 cameras and has thus far received two. The cameras, he says, are proving extremely popular.

Holmes says for every new product, demand starts slow and then ‘goes nuts.’ He says it usually takes a couple of scenes from a long-form project to set a trend for commercials.

‘They haven’t hit the ground since we got them,’ says Holmes of the new cameras. ‘We could easily use four more.’ The cameras provide electronic variable shutter speed and allow up to 150 frames per second.

White has also acquired three Arri 535 Bs and two Movie Cam compacts.

Acquiring the latest and greatest is a costly but necessary endeavor, says Holmes. The Arri 435 cameras cost over $200,000 each, with lenses accounting for an additional $10,000. Complete camera packages for a 35mm sync sound camera fully dressed with lenses and filters can run about $700,000.

White’s chief Bill White says the camera market has been good and the future looks bright. ‘The market looks healthy for the foreseeable future,’ he says, ‘that’s why we’re making these investments.’

White, established in 1963, services the Canadian market with camera lighting and grip through offices in Toronto, Montreal, Calgary, Vancouver and Halifax. While the Vancouver and Halifax offices have thus far not featured local camera services, the company will open a camera department in Halifax by the end of the year.

Holmes cites the increase in production in Nova Scotia as impetus for the expansion. ‘It should have been done a while ago. There is more and more commercial production and tv series, not just big u.s. features. They need support,’ he says. Holmes says production levels are good all around in terms of geography and types of projects.

Commercial production has been White’s most consistent market, but Holmes says the biggest increase in volume has come from long-form projects, particularly mows and tv series work. Toronto remains the hub for sending out inventory, but Holmes says Montreal has been a viable market and Calgary has provided an ‘amazing’ level of production, particularly from Paramount Productions’ and Petsly Productions’ Viper series, a big-camera show.

White’s Nov. 1 move to its new 70,000-square-foot facility at Queensway and Islington in Toronto represents a tripling of space and will allow for further expansion into new camera technology.

Holmes says the company plans to get into digital Betacam but will not leap immediately into a format that he says in many ways does not measure up to film. Holmes says White emphasizes custom camera packages and a foray into digital Betacam would reflect that approach.

‘We would like to convert digital Betacam to our way of doing things,’ he says. ‘A lot of the digital Betacams are crude in terms of operating options. We would like to buy them and convert them for our customers who usually shoot on film.’

Holmes acknowledges the fierce level of competition in equipment supply as well as the tightening of margins and says a key factor in maintaining business is service.

Toronto commercial production house The Partners’ Film Company has also beefed up its own camera supply with the addition of two of the Arri 435, and Ross McLean says the demand for the new toys among Partners’ staff is keen, leaving last year’s Arri 3 model a distant second choice.

Head of Clairmont Cameras Terry Clairmont says this year has marked a record period, with Clairmont’s offices ‘incredibly busy.’

Clairmont, which opened in l.a. 25 years ago and in Vancouver nine years ago, opened a 16,250-square-foot Toronto office in mid June. The facility has 25 Arri 435 cameras on back order as well as other standing orders with manufacturers including one for two Movie Cams per month. Clairmont says the company has gone from floating 58 camera packages last year to 76 this year between the Canadian and u.s. offices.

In terms of video technology, Sim Video has facilitated some of the first forays into digital video tv production. Sim started in 1982 with one Ikegami camera, and now, with about 25 cameras, is the largest video camera rental facility and largest Avid editing systems renter in Canada.

The facility has about eight different models of Betacam and services various sectors of production from corporate to high-end commercial and episodic digital Betacam projects.

The cbc series The Newsroom, set to air in September, was shot with Sim’s Sony DVW 700 digital Betacam, its digital camera of choice. Company head Rob Sim says the network is happy with the look of the six episodes shot thus far and is talking about shooting another six half-hours this fall.

Sim attests to the quality of digital Betacam compared to 16mm film, the most common format for tv projects. ‘It’s been a long battle for us to gain acceptance for digital Betacam,’ says Sim. ‘We’ve put the format up against 16mm, and to some extent 35mm, and people are starting to see the benefits in terms of quality and cost savings.’

Sim says the cost savings compared to shooting on 16mm film are ‘huge.’ Taking estimates from producers, he says a project shot with digital Betacam may realize a savings of between 50% and 65%.

Sim is also a strong proponent of video quality, and says in terms of image quality and resolution, digital Betacam is truly competitive with 16mm film. With a number of digital formats released recently, Sim says he is looking at all of them closely, but asserts that digital Betacam is the highest quality format yet available.

Rental margins for video camera suppliers differ from those of film, says Sim, with the obsolescence factor higher for video formats, and film cameras and equipment having the advantage of being amortized over longer periods. Video opportunities lie in the increasing integration of video and computer technology.

Digital video disc will open many doors, says Sim, adding that while videotape is not likely to disappear in the near future, the company is looking toward tapeless formats. Systems like Avid’s CamCutter represent the tapeless formats of the future, but Sim says the cost of recording and storing information on a hard drive is still prohibitively expensive versus videotape.

Sim says the overall level of production in Canada has been healthy, particularly for the second half of ’96. In addition to u.s. projects in Toronto and Vancouver, Sim says he has seen an upswing in episodic tv, with his company facilitating production for series like The Big Comfy Couch and Groundling Marsh. ‘In the last year or two there has been a shortage of multi-camera studio shoots, but we’re starting to see some of that come back,’ he says.

PS Production Services similarly reports a busy year. ps, with offices in Halifax, Vancouver, Toronto, and Vietnam, and affiliates in Regina, Winnipeg and Ottawa (PS/General Assembly), offers about 30 camera packages as well as lighting and grip.

ps’ John Feeney says the 24-year-old company has historically grown about 25% to 30% per year and much of the company’s work comes from indigenous tv and feature production, with foreign production also on the increase. ps has also researched and developed, and this year implemented, its csa-approved cable and distribution system. It is currently supplying the shoot for Atlantis’ Sinbad series taking place in South Africa.

PPI Camera, a subsidiary of Vancouver’s Peterson Productions, services Canada and the world with offices in Toronto and Vancouver, with the full array of camera, lighting, grip and sound equipment and specializes in those ‘impossible shots,’ with 16mm and 35mm stunt and pov cameras with custom crash housings and helmet mounts.

Peterson is undertaking a $100,000 renovation of its facilities, with 8,000 square feet housing Peterson and PPI Camera and featuring an upgraded screening room and equipment and camera room.

Vancouver’s Shooters Production Services, a division of Stay Tuned Communications, which includes Final Post Production, Image Engine Design and Airwaves Sound Design, has recently invested in a new multi-camera mobile unit for Vancouver’s broadcast market.

Stay Tuned head Don Thomson says the mobile is dedicated to multi-camera tv projects like variety shows and sporting events, with its first gig at the Molson Indy in Vancouver at the end of August already lined up.

The mobile unit, which represents about a $500,000 investment, is a four-camera configuration with a route switcher and digital effects and a Betacam and digital Betacam recording unit.

Thomson says the mobile unit was created to address the particular needs of the West Coast market, providing high-end services to a local market with local budgets.

Shooters, which opened in 1988, also has a Sony DVW 700 digital Betacam, two D600 digital Betacams and four new Sony D30s, which will be delivered in September.

Thomson says much of Shooters’ work is derived from independent producers with broadcast documentary or variety series work as well as video-originated commercial work.

Thomson acknowledges the resistance to video in the advertising world, but says the format is gaining acceptance. Last year, the company was involved in a campaign for O&M Chicago for Nutrasweet, which was shot on digital Betacam.

Specializing further, Toronto’s Aqua Images earlier this year acquired underwater digital capability with a Sony vh 6mm digital camera and custom underwater housings for Sony 400, 600, 700 and DV Pro cameras.

Film stock manufacturers have kept fans of the format happy and adapted to the challenges from video with new technologies. Kodak’s Vision 320T and 500T, launched this spring, offer improved sharpness and grain. Fuji’s Super F series is optimized for film-to-video transfer while retaining qualities for a high-quality, printable negative.

While much film stock ends up in a video format, Taylor Ogston, Fuji national sales manager for motion picture products, says it has become increasingly important for some producers to retain a film negative for increased international sale options.