Alberta post-production veteran Colin Minor has stepped down as head of Edmonton’s Studio Post, passing the reins over to Malcolm Knox, who has been the shop’s general manager since July.

Studio Post, located inside Allarcom Studios, is the Prairies’ largest post facility, employing a staff of over 25.

The full-service shop offers film processing, transfer and color correction, nonlinear offline editing on Lightworks and digital online editing. The facility also has graphics and computer animation capabilities with 2D paint and Wavefront 3D.

Since Knox’s arrival, the shop has worked on a number of television series and films including Disney’s Honey I Shrunk The Kids series, for which it handled processing and transferring of dailies to l.a. via a fiber link. The facility also did full video post on Alliance/Alberta Filmworks’ North of 60, and processed the dailies and handled post on Incredible Stories out of Saskatchewan’s Minds Eye.

The shop also handles commercial work for such clients as General Motors, Ford, Alberta and Saskatchewan telephone companies and has done a ton of toy spots. As well, it does documentary work for the National Film Board and last year handled post on more than a dozen music videos.

Knox attributes the success of Studio Post, which was purchased by Allarcom in 1982, to its diversity. ‘Our success is largely due to our diversified client base, our diversified workload and a very experienced staff who have been here for years and have established relationships with our clients,’ he says. ‘We have a very low staff turnover rate.

‘To some extent we are like the country doctor who has to be able to do everything rather than the heart surgeon who specializes in one thing.’

Aside from servicing the Alberta production community, the shop also has a constant flow of business from Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

Due to the current Alberta tax credit situation, Knox says the production community is ‘dragging the province kicking and screaming’ towards a decision and paying close attention to the potential for increased indigenous drama production.

In anticipation of what may be, Knox is taking a speculative look around the Studio Post lab and considering the potential for larger and faster processors. Given the quantity of commercial work coming through the shop, Knox will take some time at nab to investigate faster compositing systems such as the Flame. He is also considering adding post audio capabilities to Studio Post.

Although the shop may be the largest facility of its kind in the area, plenty of competition still exists and Knox assures that post-production is an exciting business in Alberta.

‘To some extent the operation is a secret, not intentionally, it’s just that it has not had the highest profile. But we have a very loyal client base who have come to expect a high level of service and quality from us and we are putting all of our effort into how we can make that better for them,’ says Knox.

‘We have a regional facility which lends itself to other regions of the country who are experiencing increased production activity. Diversification keeps us busy.’