It looked like director James Cameron was going to single-handedly kill the physical F/X industry.

After his films The Abyss and Terminator 2: Judgment Day were unleashed on unsuspecting viewers, it was widely believed CG would forevermore replicate all those fantastical props and creatures that previously had to be constructed in the real world. But more than a decade later, Canadian practitioners of physical F/X are not only still around, but working harmoniously in the digital universe.

Vancouver’s SFX Studio recently provided an effect for the Warner Bros. Superboy series Smallville that required both physical and digital work. Artistic director Joel Echallier created an animatronic flower that attacked people with a deadly spray; the cables that gave it movement were later removed and the spray added in the computer.

A recent episode of MGM’s The Outer Limits called for a human to turn into an alien; Echallier constructed the alien and CG took care of the morphing process. While the alien could have been built digitally, producers often opt for the physical version.

‘CG is always perfect, but in practical effects you have small imperfections which actually make them seem more alive,’ says Echallier.

SFX, which is working on Fox’s X2, the sequel to X-Men, recently opened a miniatures department in its 5,000-square-foot facility in Vancouver’s North Shore studio district. It is trying to form partnerships with CG companies in order to be able to offer clients a package deal on all their F/X needs.

Since opening his shop eight years ago, Paul Jones of Paul Jones Effects has noticed no drop in business due to digital developments. If anything, business picked up a year ago, when, after working out of Toronto for six years, he moved to Hillsburgh, ON, where he now operates a three-person, 1,200-square-foot facility from the basement of his country home. The decreased overhead enables him to offer clients competitive rates and take smaller jobs he otherwise would have had to turn down.

Jones recently completed makeup F/X including burn scars and wounds for Paper, Scissors, Stone, a $3-million Canada/New Zealand/U.K. copro written and directed by New Zealand’s Jesse Warn. The thriller is executive produced by 49th Parallel and Australia’s Chris Brown and stars Rena Owen (Once Were Warriors) and Adrian Paul (Highlander).

Also for 49th Parallel, Jones will be working together with CG artists on director Vincenzo Natali’s feature Nothing, about two deadbeats who discover they have the power to wish away the world.

‘We’re going to be doing a lot of hybrid stuff on that – a lot of people with parts missing,’ says Jones. In the final scenes of this highly conceptual film, which shoots in Toronto starting late July, only the protagonists’ heads will remain, floating in a white void.

Erik Gosselin, art director of 12-year-old Twins F/X, a 6,000-square-foot Montreal studio he runs with twin brother Karl and 15 full-time staff, says the impact of CG on the physical F/X biz is sweet and sour.

‘We are gaining more projects that need us to enhance CG or vice versa,’ says Gosselin. ‘Then again, we are losing projects because people want to go with full CG all the time. But good effects use a hybrid of both.’

Twins F/X recently created animatronic creatures for the CineGroupe series Galidor: Defenders of the Outer Dimension, as well as prosthetic and mechanical work for Muse Entertainment’s Tales From The Neverending Story, to air on CBC, Hallmark Channel and Movie Central.

Gosselin is confident that filmmakers will come to recognize the shortcomings of full CG as audiences react skeptically to certain digital F/X in movies such as Spider-Man.

‘When producers can afford CG, they just go nuts with it,’ he says. ‘When the Spider-Man character is full CG, he looks like he weighs about two ounces instead of 200 pounds. When my neighbor, a plumber, says that to me, it should be visible to producers.’

Unlike SFX and Twins F/X, Laird Effects, in Toronto since 1979, is not in the monster business. Rather than makeup FX, prosthetics and animatronics, Laird handles things like atmospheric FX, smoke and pyrotechnics, breakaway glass, soft props and stunt weapons. Project coordinator Ken Whitmore says the F/X he works on are not easily reproduced by CG.

One month ago, Laird created snow for the Knightscove Entertainment family Christmas feature Blizzard, when director Levar Burton arrived to a snowless Toronto winter. In December, the company finished creating props, soft props and gag props for the Jackie Chan vehicle Tuxedo, which shot in Toronto. Laird is also working on the second season of the TNT/Warner Bros. mystical cop series Witchblade.

‘CG is great for fantasy-type stuff, but there’s a lot of stuff it can’t deal with, such as rain, atmospheric effects like smoke, and water effects,’ he says. ‘We can interact with an environment, whereas you can’t shake a tree if you want wind or roll a car over using a computer. There are certain axes of movement CG doesn’t have that you can do in the physical world.’

-www.sfxstudio.com

-www.twinsfx.com