Robert McLachlan didn’t set out to establish a film company that, 25 years on, would be one of Western Canada’s most enduring. Instead, the Omni Film Productions founder was simply trying to make a living in Vancouver by shooting industrial films after he graduated from Simon Fraser University’s film program in the late 1970s.

‘There was no major film industry in Vancouver in those days – just The Beachcombers and some commercial shoots,’ recalls McLachlan, who has since left the company he started.

In 1980, McLachlan worked with Michael Chechik as his director of photography on Headhunters of Spatsizi, a Greenpeace documentary about trophy hunting in a B.C. provincial park. (Chechik had previously produced and codirected the 1977 documentary Greenpeace: Voyages to Save the Whales.)

Following the successful collaboration, ‘Rob asked me if I wanted to join [his start-up] Omni Film Productions – Omni being the Latin word for ‘all,’ because Rob wanted to shoot all kinds of projects,’ recalls Chechik, today the prodco’s president.

Adds McLachlan: ‘The two of us getting together seemed like a good idea, because I had a 16mm camera, while Michael had sound and editing equipment.’

The combination of Chechik and McLachlan amounted to more than just a pooling of resources. In the past 25 years, Omni has produced more than 175 hours of documentaries and factual/lifestyle series, plus drama and children’s programming. Among its best-known productions are the acclaimed CBC youth drama series The Odyssey; Edgemont, another youth drama that ran for five seasons on the Ceeb; the Discovery nature doc series Champions of the Wild; and the recent CTV comedy-drama series Robson Arms.

Over its lifespan, the prodco’s projects have garnered more than 75 domestic and international awards, including Geminis.

Despite this success, Omni has stayed true to itself, according to exec producer and VP Brian Hamilton, one of the prodco’s four partners.

‘We like to think that everything we do pushes the world in the right direction,’ he says. ‘Michael has built a company with a reputation for doing the right thing, and for being fair with the people we work with.’

‘We still make programs about environmental and social issues, and we combine these with a healthy dose of entertainment and comedy,’ adds VP, exec producer and partner Gabriela Schonbach. ‘Whatever we do, we’re still doing projects we feel passionate about.’

It was no mean feat for Omni to get where it is today in the cash-starved Canadian market. Further complicating matters was McLachlan’s burgeoning career as a cinematographer, which frequently led to his working away from Omni’s Vancouver office.

Although McLachlan did what he could to bring work to the company, Chechik found himself spearheading Omni’s day-to-day operations. After the first 10 years, McLachlan left Omni in Chechik’s hands, eventually selling his shares in 2002 to focus on lensing. He is a 10-time Canadian Society of Cinematographers Award winner, with credits including the Chris Carter thriller series Millennium and the 2003 feature Willard.

Meanwhile, the company continued to grow and diversify its slate under Chechik’s guard. His success in producing one-off half-hour dramas for CBC in the late 1980s led to The Odyssey, which ran from 1993 to 1995. Omni had another CBC youth drama success with Edgemont (2000 to 2004), produced through sister company Water Street Pictures. The program still airs in the U.S.

The prodco continued to produce respected docs, including Killer Whales in the Wild and factual series such as Hi-Tech Culture, which brought Hamilton and Schonbach into the fold in the mid-’90s.

‘I had successfully pitched the idea to the Discovery Channel,’ says Hamilton. ‘I had always wanted to work with Omni, but they didn’t have any jobs open, so I brought them on board to produce it. I created my own job at the company.’

High-profile docs

Later high-profile docs have included: Mystics, Mechanics and Mindbombs, which showcases the opposing visions of two former Greenpeace presidents; Spidermania, about giant arachnids; the wrestler profile Wrestling with Destiny: The Life and Times of Danny Igali; Canuck cinema showcase Weird Sex and Snowshoes; Older Women/Younger Men – a self-explanatory piece for W that predates Ashton and Demi; and Slammin’ Iron: Rebuilding the World, about First Nations workers helping to reconstruct the World Trade Centre.

Omni reports 2005 as its busiest production cycle to date, with Make Some Noise, a CBC doc series about young people who make a difference, and the movie stunt insider series Stuntdawgs (The Movie Network/Movie Central/Super Écran) currently on the go.

Partnering with other producers has made the load manageable. Omni is collaborating with Slanted Wheel Entertainment on the forthcoming CTV comedy series Alice, I Think, about a unique 15-year-old girl and her equally unconventional family. Dragon Boys, copro’d with Anchor Point Pictures, is a four-hour CBC miniseries about Hong Kong gangs in Vancouver; and the one-hour Ceeb comedy pilot This Space for Rent, about three roommates’ post-college years, is a joint effort with Resonance Films.

Today, a 5,000-square-foot office in Vancouver’s historic Gastown houses Omni’s 18 staff, including accounting and business affairs departments that track the prodco’s national and international sales. Heading up this operation is CFO and fourth partner Andrea Droege, who started out 10 years ago doing the company’s accounts two days a week.

‘It can be incredibly complicated trying to make sense of Canadian film tax credits, not to mention the intricacies of multi-partner financing scenarios,’ she says. ‘Still, when compared to doing the books for a chiropractor, it’s definitely more fun and challenging!’

Meanwhile, director of development Lauren Millar is busy finding new projects and production partners. She’s working with CBC and Discovery U.S. on developing a two-hour disaster movie combined with a one-hour doc, as well as finding international presales for the second seasons of Make Some Noise and Stuntdawgs, both of which she created.

‘Developing relationships with international producers and broadcasters is key to our continued growth and success,’ Millar says. ‘That’s been a strategic plan in Omni’s development department for the past three to four years.’

As for the next 25 years, the head of the company doesn’t plan to mess with a successful formula.

‘We want to continue what we’re doing, in terms of content, people, and clients,’ says Chechik. ‘We want to keep making films and TV that make a difference.’

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