On The Spot went to some of the country’s most innovative production service companies and asked them to recall the one service assignment that stands out above all others.

Paul E. Kenyon

Absolute Location Support

Services, Toronto

Client: Feature film Resident Evil

Resident Evil was a memorable production for us because we had to ‘own’ Adelaide Street in Toronto for two days, and turn it into the aftermath of a mass attack. The entire area was turned into disarray, with fires burning, vehicles on their sides and buses lying across the street. We had a really good team of set decorators, props and locations people who were able to affect the closure, do the prep overnight, shoot the scenes during the day and then be out by Monday morning. It was remarkable to see Adelaide Street go from how we know it to total chaos and then back to normal again in a matter of days.

Michael Goodwin

Goodwin Studios, Toronto

Client: Carlsberg Beer

The spot involved shooting in Moscow, Shanghai and India and ending up in Toronto featuring a New York-style subway car that travels the world. It was complicated because we had to recreate New York, London and Rio de Janeiro here in Toronto while reconstructing the pieces of this same subway car and sending them to Moscow, China and India so they could shoot segments there. The whole thing got pulled together here and was coordinated by email.

Michael Stevenson

Fade to Black Casting, Toronto

Client: Nike Presto

A spot for Nike Presto was a strange but memorable experience for me. Performers in the spot had to run completely submerged underwater. We had to audition them in the bottom of a pool being held down with weight belts, wearing these Nike Presto shoes while running. We had safety divers in the pool, the camera was shooting underwater, and I was up on the deck with the director.

John Jackson

JJAMB Productions, Toronto

Client: Feature film Chicago

The most memorable production we worked on is the Academy Award-winning movie Chicago. We constructed all the special props, in other words, things that you couldn’t find anywhere else, for example, vintage microphones, the two white Tommy guns, and all the police badges.

(JJAMB sculptor/painter Jeremy MacPherson is pictured posing with the two Tommy guns.)

Suzanne Champagne

Crew Call Catering, St. Hubert, QC

Client: Feature film Timeline

Timeline was quite a challenge as this was the biggest production in terms of people to feed that we had ever worked on here in Quebec. Lots of equipment was needed to feed this many people and a very reliable staff. Our crew would vary from 20 to 36 depending on the amount of people to feed. We had to use three of our kitchens on this production, on three different locations. We served over 70,000 meals during the three and a half months of production last year. Some days we fed up to 1,000 people. Our biggest day was serving 1,800 meals.

Keith McCully

The Art Department, Toronto

Client: GMC Sierra

We built a two-storey house complete with veranda and placed it on a custom-built hay wagon. It was taken up to the Toronto Zoo and the GMC truck pulled it along a road at about 30 km/h. We had about four or five days to put that house together. For the pure size of it, it was one of the better ones.