The Big Film Company has brought aboard veteran Canadian director/dop George Willis, most recently with The Directors Film Company. Willis has amassed an impressive reel, including spots for Hyundai, Sears, Ford, McDonald’s and Chrysler as both a director and dop.

His work on car ads is what initially attracted Big to Willis, says Big executive producer Angie Colgoni. ‘We just felt that he had a lot to offer and we were getting into jobs that would have suited George to a tee,’ she says. ‘We felt one of our weak areas was cars and that is where he excels.’

*Angel, Piper ink deal

Angel Films has inked an exclusive Canadian representation deal with the directors of Piper Productions, with offices in New York. Piper’s roster includes Jonathan Darby (director of the feature Hush, starring Gwyneth Paltrow), Iain Mackenzie (also a dop, and named Australia’s Director of the Year last year), Paul Arden (helmsman behind the successful Nescafe ‘Open Up’ campaign), Kevin Molony (whose clients have included Nike and bmw) and Hugh Hudson (director of Oscar-winner Chariots of Fire).

*Revolver opens in L.A.

Toronto’s Revolver Film Company has launched a new l.a. office that will offer music video representation for a roster of 11 directors.

Kelly Norris is executive producer at the new branch. The roster includes: Eric Yealland, Curtis Wehrfritz, Wyatt Troll, Cliff Skelton, Floria Sigismondi, Christopher Mills, Andrew MacNaughtan, Lisa Mann, Noble Jones, Holly Paige-Joyner and Nick Craine.

Going in Circles

circle Productions’ director Robert Turner continues to receive praise for his terribly funny spot ‘Walking.’ The Vancouver-based director (a founding partner in Circle) picked up an award for best commercial in the insurance category at the London Advertising Awards.

The spot depicts what the world would be like if everyone walked the way they drove. Other Turner-helmed spots in the icbc campaign include ‘Swimming,’ ‘Biking’ and ‘Shopping.’

*Hotshotz is now Spitfire

Toronto commercial house Hotshotz, which runs out of the same office as sister shop Post dna, has changed its name to Spitfire Pictures.

Recent action at the three-year-old shop, helmed by partners Ross Munroe and Ken Davis, includes a challenging new spot for Cycle Ski.

Helmed by Munroe, the spot, involving a cartoonish live-action chase down the side of a mountain, was shot over three days in Kelowna, b.c. – two days on the mountain and a day from a helicopter.

In the spot, five road warriors are chasing a man down the slope, all on mountain bikes. The man being chased has the Cycle Ski and is able to manoeuvre his way down the peak, foiling the attempts of the villains. He is finally in the clear, then…

‘It was a bit of a logistics nightmare,’ says Munroe. ‘At the end of the spot, he turns around and the first five guys are dead, but there are 25 more chasing him. We had to get all of these people up and down the mountain for every take. It was pretty intense.’

Munroe and his cronies at Spitfire – whose motto is ‘The air belongs to those who dare’ – are currently working on six spots for Medic Alert and a new Country Style ad.

*Global’s got them

Toronto native Howard Barish is having a home-coming of sorts after completing a series of spots for Global Television from his new home in Hollywood.

Barish, a former first ad at cbc and Alliance Entertainment in the 1980s, cornered stars for virtually every u.s. series running on Global’s schedule this fall while shooting promos for the shows in which they star – and got them to do station id and bumpers for Global while he was at it.

‘We’ve been able to pull the stars off to the side and say, ‘Listen, you’ve got big fans up in Canada and they’d really like you to do something personalized for them,” he says. ‘They take a few minutes of their time and we do some personalized things for the folks up at Global.’

Barish, founder and president of Kandoo Films, l.a., has been doing promo spots for series for the past few years so he had an in with most of the stars.

‘What we’ve been able to do with 3D graphics is have the star interact with the Global logo,’ he says. ‘We’ve been able to…put the star in the Global environment.’

Stars appearing in the spots include John Lithgow, Mary Hart, Dennis Franz, Mandy Patinkin and Betty White.

*New execs at Partners’

Toronto-based commercial house The Partners’ Film Company has named Lina Della Serra and Lidia Andic as its two newest executive producers. Della Serra, longtime assistant to Partners’ head Don McLean, and Andic, a Partners’ sales rep, start active exec producing duties at the beginning of the new year.

‘It is very much a desire to get some younger people involved in the day-to-day running of this company,’ McLean says.

Andic and Della Serra join exec producers McLean, John Smythe and Madelaine Atkins.

*Cattle call

Some advancements in Canadian post-production were made out of Northwest Imaging & FX recently as the shop took on the post work for a new spot for The Jerry Springer Show. The ad features two bovines, a male (a 1.6-ton steer appropriately named Big Bob) and a female, who are caught in a domestic squabble over Farmer Brown’s milking practices. The animals’ faces are completely animated and they lip sync the dialogue in the spot, thanks to the ad’s creative director, Northwest Inferno artist Joe Farrell.

‘The commercial is actually quite slick,’ says Farrell. ‘We had two 3D artists (Sylvain Huard and Mladen Miholjcic) and myself and it took about three weeks. There are 12 shots in the commercial and some of those shots are so manipulated that there is only about 20% of the original image left.’

To bring the beasts to life and give them a human quality, Farrell reports that he used Inferno, Softimage and 3D Equalizer tracking software, which enabled him to rework their faces from footage shot by director Steve Anker. The 3D Equalizer allowed the team to recreate the physical positioning of the camera so that a 3D model could be intertwined with the images of the live animals.

‘It does it so well that we can do wild camera moves now and track the computer graphics, which will lock absolutely perfectly on the cow’s head,’ says Farrell, citing a preference for the 3D Equalizer over motion control. ‘Unfortunately, motion control is very laborious, doesn’t take into account that the cow is not looking in the right direction, and costs a lot of money.’

As the compositor on the spot, Farrell says he spent many hours painting the flies that surrounded the cows out of the ads. He also says that a second Springer spot, this time featuring pigs, will soon follow.

*Correction

Marc Collister edited the Ford/McCain Foods commercial directed by Mitch Gabourie through Segal Communications at Players Post, not at Partners’ Post as reported in the Nov. 15 Commercial Directions.