– Crunchy CORE job

CORE Digital Pictures just improved its chances of surviving a nuclear disaster as the Toronto facility enters the cockroach for a new Miramax feature. Mimic is based on the adventures of an unpleasantly metamorphic roach creature and core recently grabbed the entire effects job with some innovative tests. Stay tuned for more Mimic.

– Altered Image

Ottawa-based production facility Image Projection is projecting a new image after being acquired in early October by a group of industry professionals who bring a wide range of experience to the 17-year-old shop.

Image was purchased by Mark Poirier, a lighting expert formerly of production equipment supplier Erebus Productions, director Stewart Dudley, musician, engineer and producer Pat McGowan, and graphics and interactive entertainment specialist Mark Taylor.

The company is making a lateral shift into the multimedia world, says McGowan, bringing a filmmaking perspective to new media projects like cd-rom development and Web page work. Image provides Betacam facilities, nonlinear on- and offline editing, and Windows nt-based graphics.

– ITS reinvention

Terence Rainey has been appointed new president of the International Teleproduction Society. The appointment coincides with its’ restructuring initiatives, which include moving headquarters from New York to Washington, d.c.

Rainey, who assumes responsibility for the day-to-day operations of the organization and implementing the policies of the its board, recently served as vp industry affairs/cfo of the Competitive Telecommunications Association, based in Washington.

He says his initial mandate will be the its reorganization and regaining the financial stability of the association.

– Sweet swelling

Toronto-based The Edit Sweet has responded to consistent bookings of its first Avid suite with upgrades and additions.

The facility upgraded its first Avid 8000 online suite to the PCI Bus platform with new 6.1 software and avr 75 resolution, and has added another Avid 8000 and Avid 400 offline suite. The three suites are housed in the newly, thoughtfully renovated facilities in The Edit Sweet compound.

– Sheridan show

Those talented students and faculty members of Sheridan College’s classical and computer animation programs put on a show at TeleCon ’96, the Canadian Business Telecommunications Alliance’s national Telecommunications Conference and Trade Exposition, which ran Oct. 8-10 in Toronto.

The Animation Showcase featured a video theater displaying work from illustrious Sheridan alums, a classical-versus-computer animation station, and a demonstration of teleconferencing software, where animators collaborated over a network on a cg project.

Partners in the showcase included Silicon Graphics, Nelvana, Warp 10 Technologies and CyberArts, a visual arts and digital imaging high school program established this year at two Toronto high schools.

– Miranda alliance

Montreal-based Miranda Technologies has formed an agreement with Advanced Audio Visual Systems of Paris for the codevelopment and worldwide distribution of the digital video and audio product lines of each.

aavs will sell the Miranda Imaging series of digital video products and serial digital video coders and monitoring interfaces.

The deal also entails the development of digital audio products by aavs and the transfer of aavs products to Miranda’s Imaging series format.

– The mountain comes to the reporter

As if journalists didn’t have it easy enough, News Theatre, a new downtown Toronto broadcast facility, is offering news gatherers interactive access to press conferences without leaving the comfort of their newsrooms.

News Theatre, run by president Jack Fleischmann, former ctv news executive producer, and vp Rick Muller, is a 10,000-square-foot, full-service multimedia and corporate presentation facility designed to allow broadcast of news events into newsrooms.

A broadcast quality feed is delivered via microwave technology to newsrooms in Toronto and by satellite to sites around the world. With a toll-free number, reporters’ questions are integrated into the conference in realtime.

– Vivid Group gets Kinki

Tokyo Broadcasting Systems will launch a new primetime quiz show this month which incorporates the Mandala Virtual Reality system from Toronto-based Vivid Group. The Mandala gesture recognition technology allows participants to view themselves on video screens and interact with animation that surrounds their live video image.

tbs contracted Vivid to create virtual reality applications as part of the new show, called Kinki Kids and The Strategy of the Seven Wise Warriors.

– NFB honored

The National Film Board, the ‘eyes of Canada,’ will receive the 1996 International Documentary Preservation and Scholorship Award at the IDA Awards in Santa Monica on Nov. 1. The nfb is being honored for preserving an irreplaceable, historically and culturally significant film library.

Footage in the board’s stock-shot library, consisting of more than 20 million feet of 16mm and 35mm film, some dating back to 1895, is restored and enhanced with digital film technology and used to establish period settings in contemporary films.

Recently, scenes from archival footage 15 generations removed from the original negative were digitally enhanced for Marquise Lepage’s The Lost Garden. The film was scanned and digitized for image enhancement on a Kodak Cineon system, with dirt removed and improvement made in sharpness, contrast and grain.

– Infomercial OASIS

Toronto-based Channel 500 has developed the first Canadian computer system which allows companies selling products on tv instant access to sales and inquiry information by infomercial time, market, product or tv station. The On-line Access Sales Information System (oasis) was developed by Channel 500 using direct-response media buying software from Pennsylvania-based Media Solutions.