For the Canadian production services sector, it looked like the industry had hit rock bottom in 2003, and then it got worse. As Hollywood productions were lured by new tax credits throughout the U.S. and abroad, Canadian service providers were hit hard by the downturn.

‘People are still shell-shocked from how slow it was throughout 2004 and the first quarter of 2005,’ says Paul Bronfman, president and CEO of services conglomerate Comweb Group, which owns equipment provider William F. White and production management, tax-credit service and payroll service providers.

Now, however, a sharp turnaround in production volumes, particularly in Vancouver and Toronto, has service companies scrambling to keep up with all the work.

‘There’s no doubt we’re back on the radar again in L.A.,’ says Bronfman, explaining that tax-credit enhancements throughout Canada have helped attract production.

One factor helping to drive the production services sector right now, according to Bronfman, is the fact that a growing percentage of Hollywood productions shooting here are high-spending features, rather than TV properties.

Following is a closer look at some of the special services being used by a selection of guest shoots across the country.

The Sentinel

Genre: feature thriller
Location: Toronto
Shoot dates: May 15 to Aug. 30
Studios used: Toronto Film Studios,
Kleinburg Studios
FX: Intelligent Creatures, Acme FX
Extras casting: Dupére Casting
Stunts: Rick Forsayeth
Set decoration: Carolyn Loucks
Air transportation: Helicopter Transport Services (Canada)
Cranes: Techno Crane, Dwight Crane Rentals, Vertigo Films, Panavision Canada
Camera and camera equipment suppliers: William F. White, Moto Cam, Canada Camera Car

In this New Regency/20th Century Fox feature starring Michael Douglas, Kiefer Sutherland, Eva Longoria and Kim Basinger, authenticity was a key concern for Canadian director Clark Johnson and executive producer Bill Carraro of Douglas’ prodco Furthur Films.

The thriller is about a special agent, played by Douglas, who foils a plot to assassinate the U.S. president while having an affair with the first lady and trying to clear his own name in the murder of another White House agent. Douglas also produces with Marcy Drogin.

Ensuring that all things presidential were represented accurately required extensive production services, ranging from the talents of animal wrangler Rick Parker to casting by Donna Dupére, who organized extras for crowd shots at Toronto’s City Hall, the site of a meeting of G8 leaders and an assassination attempt on the president.

Weapons trainer Charlie Taylor took cast up to a shooting range northwest of Toronto near Concord to shoot live ammo so they could mimic exactly how to pull, hold and shoot guns like actual Secret Service agents.

To ensure that White House agents in the film behave exactly as real agents would, two ex-Secret Service agents, Gerry Kavis and Kevin Billings, who have hands-on experience working for the president, taught actors things such as where real agents would stand in relation to the first lady when she would get out of a limousine.

Some scenes were shot in the White House set at Cinespace’s Kleinburg Studios, which needed extensive redressing by designer Carolyn Loucks. The White House gate was recreated in extensive detail in the Boyd Conservation Area near Kleinberg, right down to the local Washington café menu hanging in the guardhouse.

Toronto FX companies Intelligent Creatures and Acme FX will integrate green-screen footage with shots of the actual White House. The last week of shooting will be spent in Washington, DC, capturing exterior shots of the White House and surrounding area.

Last Mysteries of the Titanic

Genre: documentary special
Location: off the coast of Newfoundland
Shoot dates: July 6-28
Broadcaster: Discovery Channel
Airdate: July 28, 8-10 p.m.
Camera and camera rentals: Sim Video, Toronto
Technical services: Robert Brunelle

The latest Titanic project from producer James Cameron, the Oscar-winning writer/director/ producer of Titanic, is currently underway off the coast of Newfoundland. From Earthship Productions, the US$6-million-plus documentary special for Discovery Channel required some unique services and equipment to take audiences to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean where the RMS Titanic lies rusting away.

High-tech equipment used to capture footage from the bottom of the sea included the Russian science vessel the Keldysh. It’s the world’s largest research ship and has been transformed into a giant floating production studio.

Standard-definition digital cameras are rolling on the decks of the Keldysh. At the same time, others have been mounted on the side of two deep-water submarines, and additional cameras are being mounted on remote operating vehicles, which will travel from the subs into parts of the wreckage not seen since the ill-fated 1912 voyage.

A total of 16 underwater cameras are being used in the shoot.

Rumored to be Discovery’s most costly doc special to date, the underwater, multicam shoot required an extensive customized camera package, provided by Sim Video, with supervision by freelance technical producer Robert Brunelle. The equipment package was airlifted from Toronto to Newfoundland.

‘It is by far the largest air pack we’ve ever put together,’ says Sim Video president Rob Sim, explaining that the shop’s initial work on this project started almost a year ago. ‘We shipped a 53-foot tractor-trailer full of cases of equipment out there.’

The equipment package includes three Sony Triax Cameras, one 32-input SDI switcher, one 64 x 64 router, laptop computers with router software, 54 monitors, two EVS playback systems, tek scopes from Tektronics, eight DPS frame synchronizers and one Chyron Duet graphics system.

‘We’ve never done any underwater, multicam work like this. It’s really a first,’ says Sim. ‘Even Cameron’s last Titanic project, Ghosts of the Abyss, was shot documentary-style. This is much different because the approach is live TV, which is why we had to build this monster control room.’

While the special will no longer be an entirely live transmission, as initially conceived, it is likely live elements will still be incorporated.

The underwater action will be linked to the fully operational television control room in the hull of the Keldysh by heavy fibre-optic cables, with satellite systems linking the ship to the homes of viewers.

The Untitled Pang Brothers Horror Project

Genre: feature thriller
Location: Regina
Shoot Dates: June 18 to early September
Studio Used: Canada Saskatchewan
Production Studios
Special FX makeup: Louise Mackintosh
Makeup: Lisa Love
Locations manager: Edsel Hilchie
Costumes: Mary Hyde-Kerr
Production designer: Alicia Keywan
Construction coordinator: Alf Arndt
Visual FX: Bruce Jones

It is Saskatchewan sunflowers that brought the Pang Brothers to Canada to shoot their first English-language feature. The Hong Kong directing team of Oxide Pang Chun and Danny Pang is best known for their successful horror films The Eye and The Eye 2.

‘The Pang Brothers do a lot of their horror very practically, with ‘in-the-moment’ real scares, but like any modern horror/science-fiction type of movie, there is a sprinkling of some cool FX,’ said L.A. producer Jason Shuman two weeks into shooting. Physical FX, such as those achieved by special FX makeup artist Louise Mackintosh of Toronto, help the Pang Brothers achieve their realistic style of horror.

The Untitled Pang Brothers Horror Project from Scarecrow Productions is about a troubled family that moves to North Dakota to start a new life as sunflower farmers. Shuman says the production was initially attracted to Saskatchewan locations because of their resemblance to North Dakota and the fact that it had sunflower farms. Half the film is being shot at the Canada Saskatchewan Production Studios in Regina and half at a farm in nearby Indian Head.

Shoots at both locations required extensive builds. Shuman says the skill and expedience of production designer Alicia Keywan and construction teams led by Alf Arndt have been key.

‘This whole shoot was a build,’ he says. ‘We built the whole second floor of our house on the soundstage, and on another stage we built the first floor. Then the construction crew built a whole farm out in Indian Head, complete with thousands of sunflowers, a barn and a three-storey house.’

Shuman suspects the Pang Brothers will likely return to North America to shoot more films, adding, ‘They are really enjoying themselves and have made themselves at home here.’

Shuman produces with Sam Raimi, William Sherak and Robert G. Tapert, and executive producers Joseph Drake and Nathan Kahane. The film stars John Corbett, Dylan McDermott, Penelope Ann Miller, Dustin Milligan and Kristen Stewart.

Principal photography is scheduled to wrap at the beginning of September, with a Columbia Pictures release planned for 2006.

Maurice Richard

Genre: dramatic feature
Location: Montreal
Shoot dates: May 29 to July 31
Set decoration: Manon Lemay
Costume design: Francesca Chamberland
Special FX coordinator: Guillaume Murray
Stunts: Stéphane Lefebvre
Production designer: Michel Proulx
Lighting: Locations Michel Trudel
Locations manager: Kim De Pietro

Produced by Montreal-based Cinémaginaire’s Denise Robert and Daniel Louis, this much-anticipated film about Quebec’s all-time greatest hockey hero is set mostly in Maurice Richard’s peak decade of the 1950s.
The $8-million feature stars Roy Dupuis as The Rocket. Séraphin: un homme et son péché helmer Charles Binamé directs a script from La Grande séduction writer Ken Scott.
While finding old hockey equipment, arenas and backgrounds was a challenge, Robert says the key to a historical piece is retaining the flavor of another time without sacrificing storytelling for historical accuracy.

‘What’s important is not to reproduce the time exactly, but to reproduce the illusion of that period,’ says Robert. ‘A lot of times historical dramas don’t work because the films become entangled in technical reproduction at the expense of the story.’

Another key challenge for the production is recreating a Montreal winter in the middle of summer. Cast members begrudgingly clad themselves in heavy winter coats, while Guillaume Murray’s FX company MFX helped to recreate a snowstorm in 35C temperatures.
Looking to recreate an exterior shot of a 1950s Montreal neighborhood, Robert says she could not find a city block with the right feel and it ended up being easier to use CG than to dress or build a set.

Getting the right NHL uniforms and other costumes from the 1950s was a challenge for consume designer Francesca Chamberland from Atelier du costume in Montreal, who also worked with Robert on Aurore.

The production could not shoot in the Montreal Forum, the old home of Richard’s Canadiens, which no longer exists as a hockey arena. The shoot instead went to Quebec City to use the Colisee Pepsi Arena.

The film follows the life of The Rocket from his modest beginnings up to 1955, when he was suspended from the Stanley Cup Playoffs by then-NHL president Clarence Campbell following a fight at a Boston Bruins home game. The suspension led to the infamous ‘Richard Riot’ in Montreal.