Post-production and its powers are personified in this column. We’ll cover new techniques, technologies and the creative personnel and companies

giving them vibrant visual life.

Summer is over and School is in. Ask around the Toronto commercial production scene. School, comprised of a Toronto post-production all-star team, has been handling post work since June, and it doesn’t look as though the editors found within will be able to skip too many classes.

Headed by Panic & Bob’s David Hicks, School was created as a way for p&b to better handle the volume of work it receives. Hicks says despite the potential to make Panic & Bob larger, he felt the ad community would be better served by another shop offering the same p&b feel.

‘We [at Panic & Bob] thought we could serve our clients better that way and clients like our boutique-type feel,’ says Hicks. ‘They don’t want to feel like a number. They want personal service, and by making another Panic & Bob we feel we can provide that. It seems to be working so far. People have responded well to the space and us. It is all about the service of the client.’

Hicks, who will remain a partner

in Panic & Bob as well as School’s headmaster, says summer 2000 was the ideal time to launch the new post house, and coming out of the traditional summertime commercial drought, business has picked up.

‘The timing was good because we opened our doors in June, which is traditionally a slow time for this industry, and everything starts to pick up in July and then in August; and in September it goes nuts,’ says Hicks. ‘Right now it is great. All the machines have the bugs out of them and we’re booked up.’

As for the School team ensconced in new digs just blocks from Panic & Bob’s downtown hq, Hicks has brought together editors Griff Henderson, Steve Manz, Mark Morton and Marcus Valentin. With work divided amongst the current roster, School has edited spots for Compaq, Sears, Cineplex Odeon, Budweiser, Ikea, Becel, Burger King and Molson.

At press time, School was cutting a pool of five spots for Star Choice. Hicks says his squad has handled all that has been thrown at it, but there may still be room for growth, even at the expense of a novelty foreign to those coming over from Panic & Bob.

‘We’ve got a boardroom here and we never had a boardroom at Panic & Bob,’ says Hicks. ‘It is one of those sort of luxuries, and it potentially could be a sixth edit bay for somebody. We are hoping that one of the assistants at Panic & Bob or here at School could fill that spot eventually. We are into giving people opportunity. That is what it is all about, and we are giving these guys the opportunity to succeed and potentially be superstars.’

Hicks admits that although the two shops are more or less one and the same, there will be a certain level of competition to get work, but no more so than if School and Panic & Bob were being run out of the same office.

‘We won’t be based on a price competition with Panic & Bob,’ says Hicks. ‘There will be jobs where Steve Manz will be competing against Michelle Czukar [at Panic & Bob], but it is based on who the agency wants to work with, the same way [it is with the editors] at Panic & Bob. It’s the same thing, just in two different locations. A lot of times we will be in communication with Panic & Bob in terms of if there is overflow from either side, they will suggest School and we will suggest Panic & Bob.’

*Stealing more Time online

Stealing Time owner Alex Eaton is excited about a new means of working with his post clients via the Internet. Using Quick Time, Eaton is able to show clients different versions of spots he has cut – works in progress or completed ads – by posting the cuts on the Internet in the Stealing Time website. Clients are given a special user name and password to download the version or versions of the spots Eaton or one of his Stealing Timers has edited.

‘Last week I worked on a job where the director shot here and then at night he had to fly back to Los Angeles,’ says Eaton. ‘I was able to cut the spot, show him cuts [over the Internet] and make changes to cuts with him in l.a. before the client saw it. With couriers there is no way I could have waited a day for him to see it, have him get back to me and change it in time. I was able to post two or three different versions and get his feedback.’

To Eaton’s knowledge, Stealing Time is the first post house in Canada to attempt this sort of thing, borrowing the idea somewhat from peers in the u.s. who have been communicating and trading spots over the Net for a while.

Eaton says the technology makes it easier for post houses to do business and deliver work on time, without incident.

‘What it has allowed us to do is open up our market to the world,’ says Eaton. ‘As soon as we post it, England can see it as easily as they can across the street. We did a job with an agency in Buffalo and it saved them driving back and forth. Clients can basically take the day off work and see the cut at home.’

Eaton invites all to look at a free sample of what has him so excited. He currently has Cantel at&t’s Cannes Bronze Lion winner ‘Immigration’ (directed by Richard D’Alessio of Imported Artists and edited by Stealing Time’s Mark Hajek) on the site. To access it, go to www.stealingtime.com, type ‘stealing’ as the user name and ‘time’ as the password. *

-www.stealingtime.com