Toronto shops Urban Audio and Critical Post are merging to create a single post-production entity with some of the city’s top names in audio post. Critical Post principals John Smith, Tom Bjelic and Allan Fung, who won an Emmy last year for the miniseries Hitler: The Rise of Evil, are joining Urban Audio principals John Laing and Mark Gingras to form Urban Postproduction.

Urban Audio recently expanded its services by adding video post to its sound editing setup and, with three new partners, Gingras says they will continue to build on the new services.

Today, according to Gingras, many post supervisors and producers are looking for big bustling shops, and, although Urban Audio has completed 17 features since it was formed in 2001, the company will benefit from the increased visibility of merging with Critical Post. Gingras, Laing, Bjelic, Fung and Smith have worked together extensively in the past.

The Critical Post team brings with it steady clients such as Ken Finkleman (The Newsroom) and director Bruce Pittman (Shattered City), adding to Urban’s already impressive set of regular clients, which includes David Cronenberg and Norman Jewison.

Laing and Gingras have worked on Jewison’s past five projects, including his HBO feature Dinner with Friends (2001), the first project completed under the Urban Audio banner. The pair also regularly take on feature and short film projects for the Canadian Film Centre, which Jewison founded.

Gingras formed a relationship with the director while working at Toronto-based Talking Pictures, before its founder Michael O’Farrell moved to L.A. and closed up shop. When Jewison wanted Urban Audio to finish work on his feature The Statement in 12 weeks (presumably so that it would make it out in time for Oscar consideration), O’Farrell came up from L.A. to help complete what would have otherwise taken 20 weeks.

‘Because of the compressed schedule, [Jewison] was very busy with picture and music, so he trusted us in a lot of ways to get to the mix,’ says Laing.

The Statement was rewarded at the Genies with trophies for achievement in overall sound and sound editing, a prize O’Farrell, Laing, Gingras and Smith shared with Jill Purdy, Goro Koyama, Andy Malcolm and Paul Inston.

According to Gingras, one of the main challenges on The Statement was creating the right audio for a series of dream sequences experienced by Michael Caine’s character, a Nazi sympathizer who has flashbacks of atrocities he committed during the war.

‘[Jewison] was very sensitive to the fact that there were really horrible incidents being played over and over again, and he wanted to make the sound very dramatic without hitting the audience over the head and offending people’s sensibilities,’ says Gingras.

Gingras says Urban Audio started working on The Statement early because ‘[Jewison] is one of the few guys who actually brings on the sound crew well before picture is locked.’ But the work did take a little longer than expected and ended up creating an overlap situation with a gig on the CTV miniseries Lives of the Saints. However, after working with Urban Audio on the feature Between Strangers, producer Gabriella Martinelli decided to put post on hold so Laing and Gingras could finish The Statement and get a fresh start on Lives of the Saints.

Now, with Urban Audio and Critical Post merging to form the new company, Gingras says they will be able to accommodate more projects simultaneously. Urban has doubled the size of its edit capabilities, but he adds, ‘Our key work ethic will remain consistent in that, individually, we concentrate on one project at a time.’

This month, Urban Postproduction begins working on Perfect Strangers, an MOW for CBS from director Robin Shepperd, starring Rob Lowe.