It was nearly one year ago that post-production giant Technicolor acquired struggling local player Command Post and Transfer, and in so doing grabbed a foothold in English Canada’s two largest markets. The past few months have seen Technicolor busy with the labor-intensive task of bringing the facilities it picked up in the deal – the Toybox video and audio post outfits and alphacine labs in Toronto and Vancouver – on par with its other locations. It is all a crucial part of a global strategy for the company, which celebrates its 90th birthday this year.

And it’s one charged to Walter Schonfeld, worldwide operations head of Technicolor Entertainment Services, who spends much of his time jetting between company facilities, but is officially based in Burbank, CA. On a recent visit to Toronto, Schonfeld sat down with Playback to discuss the progress that has been made.

According to Schonfeld, the company is looking to ‘a point in 2005 where you can walk into the lab here in Toronto and [your film print] will look exactly like a print from a Technicolor facility anywhere else in the world.’

In its new Canadian facilities, Technicolor is initially thinking local but has big plans.

‘[A client] who is ‘local’ in Toronto today may be in Montreal, New York, Vancouver, Los Angeles or somewhere in Europe next year,’ Schonfeld says. ‘And we can say, ‘Great – we have a facility there – let me give you the name of somebody who can take care of you.’ We definitely tailor what we’re doing to the local market, but we also have in mind that local markets sometimes become more global.’

Technicolor also has end-to-end post locations in Montreal, New York, L.A., London, Rome and Bangkok, and clients can, if they choose, collaborate with staff at any of those facilities in virtual sessions. While many post firms aim to be one-stop shops, Technicolor, as a part of France’s massive Thomson conglomerate, is likely best positioned to deliver on this claim.

At the image-capture end, Thomson’s Grass Valley 24p HD cameras are becoming increasingly popular with producers, and while Technicolor has been known for its processing and printing capabilities for generations, it is now one of the major DVD replicators, and has made a strong push in the post and FX field in the past five years.

This push saw Technicolor take over Montreal post house Covitec in 2000, and last December, Thomson acquired British post/FX shop The Moving Picture Company, boasting credits including all three Harry Potter films, for £53 million.

‘Being able to provide end-to-end solutions – particularly with digital intermediates being so important, and the fact that visual FX and digital intermediates are so closely linked on the theatrical, commercial and broadcast side – is something we need to do,’ says Schonfeld.

Despite the emphasis on FX, the company’s restructuring meant that five of Technicolor’s Toronto FX staff – a quarter of the department – lost their jobs in November.

‘We made the hard decisions and turned the business into something that was viable, where the vast majority of people here continue to earn a living,’ says Schonfeld. ‘We’re now doing a better job of serving customers and we can invest in the business in a way that the previous owners couldn’t.’

(Technicolor notes that since the interview, it has hired FX operations director Tom Sinnott and ‘approximately five’ other VFX staff members.)

The layoffs came a couple of months after Andy Sykes, a cofounder and VP of Command Post who stayed on after the Technicolor acquisition, jumped ship for Deluxe Sound & Picture, the company’s main international rival. (See Deluxe story, p.19.)

‘It’s never nice when one of your top guys goes to a competitor,’ Schonfeld concedes. ‘[But] what we found is that Andy was such a good manager that he put a lot of really good people in place, and some of them have stepped up and picked up some of the slack. This happens all the time. This is a part of the business.’

To hear Schonfeld tell it, Sykes’ departure is but a bump in the road in Technicolor’s establishment in English Canada.

‘It’s not a passing fancy,’ he declares. ‘It’s not like three or six months from now we’re going to shut something down because we’re not interested. We’re in it for the long term in Toronto and Vancouver.’

Feature film projects that have recently posted at Technicolor include Antarctica, Final Destination 3 and Fantastic Four in Vancouver and The Last Kiss in Montreal.

On the TV side, Technicolor Toronto has been posting Corner Gas, Instant Star and ReGenesis.

-www.technicolor.com