Montreal’s digital visual effects producers are facing some growing pains after years of relatively stable development have given way to a sharp jump in tv drama and commercial production, especially in the past two years. The next big step for some producers here is international movies and tv series.

The existence of top design talent across this market is clear. The f/x and 3D animation production houses do not see themselves as post-production service providers but as designers, and in a sense, as program coproducers. What may be less clear and require time to sort out is how Montreal’s f/x producers will manage the growth associated with heavy network or studio-style production and delivery schedules.

‘The biggest issue for Big Bang right now is managing the growth,’ says Mario Rachiele, president, Big Bang FX/Animation. ‘We’re being solicited left and right and we just want to make sure we don’t take on too much and still deliver high-quality effects, that’s the main goal.’

All the active houses in Montreal are hiring, but the recent round of fragmentation in design shops has its downside, says Pierre Raymond, president of Hybride Technologies.

Raymond says the proliferation of new effects companies like Behavior Digital Studios and Voodoo Studios, which parceled up older, established f/x companies like Buzz and Hybride, has effectively created a split in human resources. And he says that has not served the market well.

‘If these new companies were doing tremendously well, that would be one thing, but it’s unfortunately not the case. I think the market was tremendously diluted,’ says Raymond. ‘I’m looking at a situation right now where I have too much work, and unfortunately, I can’t turn around and hire somebody locally to help me out.’

Raymond says several teams of high-end specialists were disbanded as talented individual designers headed out on their own, generally forming new and less experienced units. He says Hybride has recently undergone a 5% loss of personnel as a result.

This month there is more reconfiguration again in the still young f/x sector with Ice Storm Digital’s proposed buyout of Behaviour Digital Studio.

Behaviour Digital is believed to have spent up to $5 million in the past 12 to 15 months on Discreet Logic Inferno, Fire and Flint units, and up to eight computer graphics workstations with Maya and Softimage Extreme. The work orders may have been missing, and local film and tv producers rarely have the budgets, but does that explain the proposed selling price to Ice Storm of $500,000?

Isabelle Gratton, PMT Video vp, comments on the fragmentation issue.

‘A few years ago, it was much easier to talk to each other,’ she says. ‘But now there’s only one big person [service company], there’s maybe a few small players, so we’re kind of a little alone. I feel that it’s a very individualistic reflection towards the marketplace.’

Roddy McManus, executive producer at Tubes Images, says his company is currently searching for new talent. He says producers require a ‘spectrum’ of disciplines.

‘It’s kind of like an ant colony,’ says McManus. ‘You need a few people who are running a platoon or two. That’s not to belittle the people who are doing parts of the work, but generally speaking it’s good to have young talent, even right out of school, as long as they’re supported by middle-experience people and one or two project leaders.’

McManus says everybody wants a big-time studio assignment, but careful growth and development are an essential prerequisite.

‘You’re seeing everybody wishing they could get it. But in reality, the city still has to mature. There is not a facility in this city, at this time, that could handle a full Hollywood level feature. But that said, you’re going to see that happen.’

‘Unfortunately,’ says Rachiele, ‘the four or five schools that we have are churning out a lot of people, but they are inexperienced. Life in school and production life are very different. In order to have the experienced people, unfortunately, we have to either take them [from] other companies in the States, or try to bring back Quebecers who left for the States. Seniors are much in demand in Hollywood right now. It’s kind of tough to find people and keep them.’

‘What I see more and more is what was once post-production is now becoming, in a lot of cases, digital production, and a lot of companies are jumping on it,’ says Francois Garcia, gm, Behaviour Digital Studios. ‘And production companies have their own facilities. Production alone, especially for special effects, is not common anymore. Everyone has to have either their own facility or a partner who they work with hand in hand.’

Market is changing

If being tied into a production stream is a growing necessity, the other side of the coin is that producers, especially local program producers, operate on tight margins with limited f/x budgets.

‘I think the market here has always demanded a lot more, but it’s not willing to pay for it,’ says Garcia. ‘With clients in Montreal, we always have to compete with what we see on the screen, and a lot of it is American where you have several times the budget we have. And we have to rival that. Basically that makes for a lot of ingenuity on set.

‘But then in turn, companies like Covitec and myself and others have to buy the equipment with a lower dollar at the same price as u.s. companies, who charge a lot more for their services. Let’s say [a u.s. company] charges us$700 for a service, we can’t even get cdn$700 for it in this market. So we have to work with slimmer margins in a market that is really experiencing change.’

Production management

All of the f/x producers agree, the local industry’s reputation is undermined every time international work is not extremely well executed. It’s about production management issues.

‘There’s a lot of work that needs to be done to show the talent Montreal might offer,’ says Hybride’s Raymond. ‘But for the American market, it’s still the equivalent of one state in the u.s. It’s very small.’

‘We need to be very, very careful if we’re going to pretend to be able to do effects for them [the u.s.] that we can deliver at the level they expect. If we don’t, it might hurt the market very, very badly.

‘The flag I’m raising is, `Guys, let’s be careful about which projects we commit to. Make sure you’re [only] stretching your employees to a level they can deliver. If you don’t deliver, the damage will be greater and it will take years to recover,’ and I’m very concerned about that,’ says Raymond, adding:

‘As far as I’m concerned, I’m a little out of the loop because the market that I serve is not based locally. It’s always related to some American contact. But unfortunately, I find [the current situation] very dramatic. For most people, everything is going fine, and because of [developments like] the Cite du Multimedia, for example, [everyone says] it’s an up-market that’s going to expand. In reality, that is not necessarily the situation. Unfortunately, things were done in such a way that well-established companies that were able to deliver good effects for the American market were very badly hurt by a lot of factors.’

It’s not as if the f/x digital production industry credo is one for all and all for one. It’s more a genuine hope the competition can keep the flag aloft.

‘Whoever in Quebec gets the work, us or our competitors, we must make sure we do a great job so the Americans come back. That’s what’s important,’ says Big Bang’s Rachiele.

Big Bang is also on a roll, and hiring, too.

‘We’re waiting for the go on three major productions in the next two months. We’ll have to hire enough to double up staff,’ says Rachiele.

‘The management for effects is tremendously important for an effects company, for a producer,’ says Raymond. ‘We’re not talking about the creative side, we’re talking about movie management. Good management is a matter of teams, and that’s where the [concern] is.’

‘Salaries are going up as well because there is a lack of very experienced people,’ adds Garcia. ‘So we have to start training early.’