Thirty years ago, Doug Dales was the new kid on the block. Today he owns several city blocks under the banner of PS Production Services. The equipment supplier boasts a four-acre head facility in Toronto along with offices in Halifax and Vancouver and Prairie centres in Regina and Winnipeg owned in partnership with regional GM Michael Drabot.

As Dales sits back in his office in an industrial area south of downtown T.O., he can look back on 30 years as founder, president and CEO of one of Canada’s foremost movers of film gear, alongside international giants William F. White and Panavision. PS has experienced years of dramatic growth, along the way outgrowing its Toronto Cinevillage facility formed in the mid-1980s with then-Atlantis Films, which used it for office space. Today Cinevillage is used primarily for Alliance Atlantis Communications’ broadcast work and remains co-owned by AAC and PS, although the latter, in need of more warehouse and parking, vacated it in 1998.

PS still counts on its media giant partner for a good deal of its production work on the Canadian side. Recent AAC-related projects PS has serviced include Cold Squad, The Eleventh Hour, Haven, Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows and Salem Witch Trials.

But unfortunately for PS, Alliance Atlantis is looking to focus more on broadcasting than producing, and domestic production is down overall.

‘The one sure thing about any arrangement in anything that size is you have to know that one day it is going to disappear – it’s just a question of when,’ Dales says. ‘It’s a bit unfortunate to see Canadian stuff disappear from production slates right across the country.’

In addition to the downturn in the local long-form biz, PS has also felt the slowdown in the commercial sector, despite being in its sixth year of a deal as exclusive provider for Toronto’s The Partners’ Film Company.

‘All of that has caused us to have to realign a lot of things that we’re doing,’ Dales says. ‘It’s working, but it hasn’t been a cakewalk.’

That realigning includes PS shifting focus away from what it started out as – the little guy perfectly suited for Canadian filmmakers with tight budgets. Director Atom Egoyan, for one, shot all his early features with PS gear (see story, p.24). Dales has had to skew his business closer to visiting Hollywood productions, particularly at PS Vancouver, which has serviced the likes of The 6th Day, 40 Days and 40 Nights, Halloween 8, Life or Something Like It and Snow Falling on Cedars. This presents a particular challenge to WFW, which has traditionally had a stranglehold on the U.S. shows.

Dales acknowledges that as production spending has been, at best, at a plateau since 2000, so have revenues at PS. This comes after a decade in which the company averaged more than 30% annual growth over a five-year span.

Another irritation for Dales, whose company specializes in motion picture gear toward the high-end, is the rise throughout North America of reality TV shot cheaply on videotape with minimal crews.

‘That doesn’t really bring any work to anybody,’ Dales says. ‘Leaving aside whether you like it or don’t like it, it really isn’t very good in terms of an industry developer.’

But the CRTC is allowing more programming of this ilk to be classified as drama. Dales says he would be ‘absolutely’ in favor of the CRTC narrowing the definition of drama again to stimulate domestic high-end production.

‘To be Canadian, we have to stand up and count ourselves, because nobody else is going to do it,’ he says.

Attracting the blockbusters

With mid-level production going the way of the leg warmer, that leaves at the other extreme the Hollywood blockbuster, the scale of which is expanding at warp speed. Case in point: the average budget of the top five films at the Canadian box office last year was US$112 million. Dales would like to see some of those types of productions come to Toronto, and feels that it’s going to take the fruition of at least one of the two proposed mega-studios, Great Lakes and Pinewood Shepperton, for that to happen.

‘Vancouver has pretty good studios; Montreal has very good studios; Toronto desperately needs them, so the sooner somebody builds them, the better,’ he says. ‘It will bring more business to Toronto, and that’s got to be good for everybody – the crews, the labs, the equipment suppliers.’

Dales also believes that in this current landscape the only way the mid-level studios will survive is from the spillover work from the massive productions drawn by principal photography at one of the mega-studios. Despite the perception of a studio war brewing in Hogtown, Dales’ outlook is that ‘when it’s busy, it’s busy for everybody.’

He gives the example of B.C., which has an ever-increasing number of facilities: ‘No studio in Vancouver that I know of, even though some of them are pretty mediocre in their facility, has closed down and turned itself into a mushroom farm.’

As for projecting the volume of business in Canada this year, Dales can’t say for sure, although he remains cautiously optimistic after recent cycles. If 2000 saw record business and 2001 was an anomaly due to writer and actor strike threats and 9/11, Dales classifies 2002 as stranger still.

‘Everybody thought it was going to kick back in,’ he notes. ‘There was lots of talk of stuff happening, and it just hasn’t got back on its feet yet.’

The lion’s share of PS’ work is in the long-form world, which suits Dales fine, because, Partners’ deal aside, it’s better to have a guaranteed 30 days of business than to service a production that’s done after 48 hours. And an ongoing series provides even more rental days than a feature. Series PS supplied in 2002 include Black Hole High, Blobheads, Degrassi: The Next Generation, I Love Mummy, Lord Have Mercy, Soul Food and Starhunter 2300.

Along comes HD

When times were high, PS was reporting capital expenses of up to $8 million per year. But the president admits the company has not spent much on new camera, lighting and accessory inventory recently. But, he points out, high-end film gear does not quickly become outdated.

What has recently changed in the image-capture world, however, is the rising popularity of projects shooting with the Sony/Panavision CineAlta high-definition system and other digital formats. Dales is convinced that PS does not have to jump on that bandwagon too quickly, as HD is still no substitute for film. And for projects that might want PS lights and accessories and yet still capture digitally, the company has formed a relationship with leading Toronto HD supplier Sim Video Productions whereby package deals can be arranged.

Dales says he has no interest in studio ownership or even partnering with any particular studios, as some of PS’ competitors have done. He sees a backlash whereby producers don’t want to be told which supplier they must use if they rent soundstage space, and has strategically remained at a distance.

‘We have good relationships with the studios in the city, but there is no exclusive relationship,’ he adds.

Price wars?

Back in the heyday, equipment suppliers could afford to take the high road and not try to undercut the competition. While Dales believes that reputation and relationships are prime factors in landing gigs, he admits that price has become a much more important consideration for production managers, and the fewer jobs have led to lower prices. Time of year also impacts pricing.

‘We’ve always tried to encourage people doing lower-budget films to do them [in the winter] when there’s not very much going on, because you can also get crew who are more than happy to give concessions and you can get labs [cheaper],’ he says.

And while Dales acknowledges the existence of smaller suppliers with lower prices, he says there is no substitute for three decades of experience.

‘If the production manager wants to get a good deal, [the lowest price] isn’t always the lowest price,’ he says. ‘If you take the lowest price and then lose a day because of some equipment problem, you really haven’t saved very much.’

What keeps Dales optimistic about getting PS back to a position of growth is that he believes many of the major productions spoken of last year are likely to finally go to camera in 2003, with at least five heading Vancouver’s way. Of course, PS has to win these jobs, and a deal isn’t a deal until only two to three weeks prior to principal photography.

‘We’re approaching that with a little bit of caution,’ Dales adds.

-www.psps.com