While Canada continues to act as a mecca for film and tv production, the sophistication and size of the post and effects industry has grown commensurately, offering an ever more comprehensive complement of gear and services.

The industry has grown in volume to an estimated quarter billion dollar business in 1997 and in profile – foreign producers now come seeking the talents of Canadian shops without the benefit of shooting in close proximity. The industry has evolved beyond back-end, fix-it-in-post expertise and Canadian shops have become major players in high-profile, front-end work, with imaging experts assuming a larger role in the production as well as the post process.

On the following pages, some of the bright lights of the Canadian post, animation and effects industry discuss some recent projects, where they came from and why.

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Toronto’s Spin Productions, long a player in the commercial post and effects game, is currently involved in the special effects work on Fast Track, a high-budget series being produced for Showtime by Alliance.

Spin was first approached by Sean Ryerson, Fast Track producer at Alliance, to deliver some ‘invisible’ effects for the series; to deliver the backdrops and escalate the action of the story, which is based on the high-speed drama of stock car racing.

The series is executive produced and written by Larry Gelbart and Gary Markowitz.

Spin, known for its commercial effects work, has been making moves to position itself in the area of visual effects service work for tv series and mows. The Fast Track job was a result of that marketing effort and some past work with Alliance.

The client had to create a race environment as the backdrop for the show, but sending crews out to cover a season of real racing to acquire the footage was not realistic, the biggest obstacle being one of copyright. That rather significant limitation meant using visual effects to create much of the race footage required for the series.

The overall look the producers were striving for, naturally, was realism; the effects had to merge seamlessly into the show’s style of photography, which used extensive wide-lens shots.

For 22 episodes, Spin produces an average of seven to 10 shots per show.

The race material was assembled by combining elements from races that were gathered in the field, with controlled race elements shot in a closed environment on the premises of the Downsview Military Base in the north end of Toronto. As well, green-screen elements were shot for in-car close-ups of the drivers.

Spin was brought in at the early stages of the pilot script and had meetings with pilot director TJ Scott and the show’s producers to discuss the effects approach that would be taken.

Spin provided on-set consultation during cinematography for some of the more specialized footage, such as car crashes or matte painting shots.

‘We initially consulted on our requirements for the green-screen footage, however, the production team became quite aware of our requirements and now produce these shots unsupervised,’ says Spin president Norm Stangl.

In some shots, the producers required night lighting, for which only daylight shots existed. Spin created the night shots using the daylight shots as a foundation.

None of the stands had the necessary crowds in the seats as would be required for race day, so Spin had to create and assemble the race fans for these shots. These scenes were developed using the thinly peopled stands as a base and cloning, painting, color-correcting and rotoscoping techniques.

Through cloning and color correction – swinging color to be significantly different than the base shot – audiences grew. The color swings helped break patterns of repetition; a sure tip-off to the existence of digital spectators. Footage of people walking in the stands helped to sustain the believability.

As well, the press box in the original footage didn’t have the magnitude the producers wanted. Spin generated a significant extension of the press box to make it 10 times the size of the original shot.

The post/fx house was heavily involved in the beginning phase of production, at which time several meetings took place to discuss the intended look of each episode. As the series progresses, much of the work is done unsupervised, with Doug Wilkinson from Alliance coming in for approval screenings.

The Spin Fast Track team consists of effects producer Lisa Batke and technical director Stangl, with the visual effects team consisting of Gudrun Heinze, Tina McGill, Marjorie Knight and Paul Cormak.

Post-production supervisor is Wilkinson and production manager is Manny Danelon of Alliance.

Fast Track is not the first long-form project undertaken by Spin; the company worked on The Avro Arrow and the Once a Thief pilot for Alliance. Stangl says Spin is tracking the long-form market and as the company moves further into this area, the plan is to service the client base with its own support team and equipment setup.

*Also in this report:

Post/SFX showcase:

Collideascope injects hip B2

Gajdecki: body parts R us B4

Big Bang graduates from Dog’s World to Lost World B4

Lost Boy’s extraterrestrial experience B6

Animation shops to watch:

Bardel gets Dreamworks nod B10

Dynomight’s Net direction B11

Sargent York kids’ 3-pack B12

Canuck evolves from studio flicks to in-house picks B13

Red Giant spawns series B14

Canadian prodcos plotting boffo toonflick projects B15

Animation House, Lightbox both hit 15 B16, B21

B.C. post shops winning more of the U.S. visual effects B18