IF competition really spurs the industry to produce the best possible product, then commercial production companies in the Toronto market had better be churning out award-winning work with every board coming over the fax machine. As if the batch of new, homegrown companies isn’t enough to contend with, there is now frozen man, the Toronto office of hungry man, a heavy-hitting bicoastal spot shop based in New York.

According to hungry man executive producer Steve Orent, frozen man is the result of his and his New York partners’ very positive experiences shooting in Toronto.

‘We’ve been working there for about two years now and we’ve always enjoyed it,’ says Orent from New York. ‘We’ve talked to many different companies, and when we had done so much work up there during the [SAG] strike, we figured why don’t we just [open an office in Toronto]. We didn’t know how difficult it would be to even try to do such a thing, but it was actually quite simple.’

He says that when shooting in Canada during the strike, hungry man producers became a little frustrated when the names of other production companies appeared on the clapboard.

‘Hungry man, as a company, was losing its identity just working up there because we were working through other production companies. It really bothered me a lot,’ he says, adding that despite these issues he still wanted to continue working in Canada. ‘I think it is a great place to shoot. The crews are very talented, and the casting is fantastic, so why not give it a wail?’

And they did.

For the first while, he says, frozen man’s purpose will be to service hungry man shoots in Canada. This is already happening. Orent says frozen man/hungry man have already shot three projects for New York agencies McCann-Erickson, TBWA/Chiat/Day and Publicis. All shoots were done quietly in Toronto over the last couple of months. It is important to Orent and hungry man to not enter Canada with guns blazing.

‘We’re trying to move a little slow,’ says Orent. ‘We don’t want to upset everybody. Every business is built on competition, and we’ve made a lot of friends up there at Avion Films and Radke Films. We respect and like everybody, so we are kind of moving slow. Ultimately, we want to have a presence [in the Toronto commercial market].’

Although no staff has been hired yet for frozen man, Orent says hungry man producer Tom Rossano is keeping up with the action in Toronto and presiding over shoots.

‘We essentially haven’t hired anyone,’ says Orent. ‘There is a possibility that Tom Rossano and I may be handling it from New York. Tom has really been the lead man on this so far.’

He says frozen man staff will be picked from willing and able Toronto commercial folk. ‘We’re not going to import anybody,’ he assures.

Most important, perhaps, is the director roster that comes with frozen man. Through frozen man, advertisers and agencies will now have access to Hank Perlman, John O’Hagan, Paul Norling, David Levin, Bryan Buckley, Jim Jenkins, Marcos Siega, Marc Klasfeld, David Shane, Stacy Wall, Young Kim, Marty Canellakis, Mark Foster, John Towse and Bennett Miller.

‘We’ve been affiliated with Avion and Radke,’ says Orent. ‘Some of our directors are represented [at each shop] for sales purposes. Again, we’re trying to move slowly. [Radke and Avion] have been really good to us and at this point we have not hired a sales department, so they are still representing our directors.’

-www.hungryman.com