Camera and gear suppliers in the major centres report a varied shooting season so far, but a few blockbuster Hollywood projects in B.C. are keeping them busy.

Rae Thurston, recently promoted to senior VP, operations at PS Production Services out of Toronto, says the Canuck production centres PS services have seen average-to-strong springs. But while Halifax, Winnipeg and Vancouver have all had a good start to the year, Toronto has suffered.

‘The spring has been awful here,’ he says. ‘There is quite a bit of U.S. production coming to Toronto this summer/fall, though.’

It is in Vancouver that PS is really humming, especially with the gargantuan shoot of Riddick, the Vin Diesel feature action follow-up to Pitch Black. The film is such an epic enterprise that the gear supplier is dividing its task with Universal Pictures’ operations group in order to get the film made. Thurston says the lighting budget alone is several million dollars.

‘It’s massive, so we realized not we nor any other rental house in Canada could do it alone,’ Thurston explains. ‘We partnered up with Universal and won the contract based largely on our operational skills.’

Bob Lynn, national camera manager of equipment giant William F. White, is confident production in Toronto will be booming again as early as next month.

‘I think that by this summer, the entire country should be back to a normal pace with regard to shooting days,’ he says. ‘Already our Vancouver office is recording above-normal activity compared to last year and this June promises to be brighter for our Toronto office.’

Vancouver is leading out of the gate for Whites as well. On the West Coast, the company is currently supplying the Isaac Asimov feature adaptation I, Robot, starring Will Smith and lensed by Simon Duggan. While that one shoots until October, Connie and Carla, starring Nia Vardalos and shot by Richard Greatrex, is in principal photography until early July.

Lynn says neither DOP on the projects asked for anything out of the ordinary for their respective productions, but he is noticing many cinematographers repeatedly requesting specific pieces of gear.

‘The Arricam ST and LT cameras are most commonly asked for,’ he says. ‘And Zeiss LDS Ultra Primes, Cooke S4 Primes as well as the new Angenieux Optimo 24-290mm zoom are the lenses that are requested most often.’

The Vancouver chapter of Clairmont Camera is also reporting brisk business with some of the same pieces of gear. Clairmont is boasting about its new line of Arri cameras, a brand it is supplying to Warner Bros.’ Scooby Too, the feature sequel to the live-action Scooby Doo, presently shooting for 10 weeks in B.C.

‘[It’s] a big deal for us,’ says Jon Johnson, Clairmont Vancouver GM. ‘We were [one of] the first independent rental houses in North America to receive the new line of cameras and their related accessories.’

He acknowledges that there is a learning curve with the new Arri cameras, but maintains it’s worth the wait for DOPs who enjoy control over F/X shots on the set.

‘It’s quite a bit more advanced than the cameras people are used to,’ says Johnson. ‘There are a lot of toys that go along with it and a lot of in-camera effects. Instead of doing it in post, you can do a lot of it in the camera.’

With a varied clientele in feature film, TV and commercial production, Clairmont, headed by Denny Clairmont out of Hollywood, takes a hands-on approach to hardware improvement.

‘We have redesigned the housing and controls of the latest HD cameras from Sony and Panasonic to make them more ‘film-friendly’ for camera crews,’ Johnson says. ‘We have a reputation for people coming to us with a wacky idea, saying, ‘We need this kind of look,’ and we put our heads together and figure out a device that will achieve that.’

Other recent projects of note for which Clairmont has supplied cameras include horror success The Ring, the rat-invasion remake Willard and Keystone Entertainment’s Bond-esque chimp flick Spymate, which recently wrapped in Vancouver.

-www.clairmont.com

-www.whites.com

-www.psps.com