Vancouver: Kirk Shaw’s Insight Film Studios has rocketed to the top of the Canadian production biz, but the shop’s non-union approach to making films and TV shows may soon be coming to an end, if IATSE has its way.

According to Playback’s recent Annual Report on Independent Production, last year the busy prodco spent more than $120 million on film and TV projects. (While Alliance Atlantis technically continues to rule the roost with an estimated $157 million in spending, the lion’s share of that comes through its stake in the U.S.-shot CSI franchise.)

Last year, Vancouver-based Insight chalked up 28 MOWs as well as the drama series Painkiller Jane and Blood Ties, and the reality The Two Coreys. The shop was also in on five features, including: the TIFF-bound Battle in Seattle, directed by Stuart Townsend and starring Woody Harrelson, André Benjamin and Charlize Theron; and While She Was Out, featuring Kim Basinger.

Shaw and Rob Ward, Insight’s SVP creative affairs, met with Playback at the prodco’s corporate offices in July to discuss the company’s quick rise and its recent conflict with the technicians union.

‘Sorry for being late – it’s been an insane day,’ says Shaw. As it turns out, police had shut down production on Insight’s TV movie Ghost Prison because an escaped convict was hiding out on the location site, which was at one time Riverview Psychiatric Hospital.

‘It’s a crazy business,’ Shaw adds.

And it’s only getting crazier for the prodco, which expects to log $170 million in production by the end of this year, including eight to 10 theatrical features and another 28 MOWs.

The shop has certainly come a long way since its humble beginnings in 1990 as an audio-tour prodco for museums and art galleries.

And if its quiet leader is known for anything, it’s for not being known. The 51-year-old Shaw flies under the radar, working out of a modest office with scripts and binders piled on his desk. He flicks through his BlackBerry as staff pop in and out of his open-door office at will. Simply put, the head of Insight loves what he does, and does what he loves.

A Vancouver native, Shaw graduated with a journalism diploma from Douglas College. ‘But I always ended up in business,’ he recalls. After a lucrative stint in the 1980s computer industry, he opted out in ’88 and took two years off.

‘I wanted to travel, to return to writing and being creative,’ he says.

Shaw founded Insight with brother Keith (today the company’s head writer), elementary school friend Maryvonne Micale (now a producer/director), and music composer Mike Thomas.

‘I liked [the audio tours] because they reminded me of old radio plays, with characters, sound effects, etc.,’ Shaw recalls. ‘Ironically, my brother – who didn’t want to be a writer – is, and I’m in the business end.’

In 1992, Shaw won the National Screen Institute ZeD Drama Prize as a producer. It was then that he realized that he was meant to produce films, rather than write them.

A large part of what makes Shaw attractive to broadcast partners including Lifetime, Global and CHUM has to do with maximizing tax credits.

‘On a production, I’m able to bring an average of 32% in tax credits, 5% to 7% from a Canadian broadcaster, and 10% in foreign money to the table,’ he explains. He adds that Insight also does well securing funds from the traditional banks, and equity financing might be part of the prodco’s future.

Insight will soon be handling distribution of its own productions as another revenue stream, in light of losses associated with the rising loonie. Insight locked in with foreign partners on projects only to later feel the sting of a less favorable exchange rate.

‘We’re losing money on productions now, so we either scale back productions, amount of shooting days, or create new economies,’ he says. ‘We’re now building a catalogue, which is not what I set out to do. Smaller companies are handling [distribution of our shows] and…not selling so much, and it’s something we want to protect.’

Shaw also credits his success to a template from the Hollywood system of the 1930s and ’40s, especially akin to that of the smaller RKO studio, with a tight production team.

‘We’re like family,’ he says. ‘We know each other, how each of us works, and this translates onto our sets. There is continuity. We hire Canadian and promote from within whenever possible.’

Certainly one of the key ways Shaw has kept down costs on his productions has been to keep his shop – which is comprised of 100 full-time staffers and a permanently contracted production crew of around 300 – non-union.

He says that operating outside of the unions is essential to his business model.

‘We couldn’t do this otherwise,’ he insists. ‘We’d be out of business, and a lot of people would be unemployed. We may pay slightly less [than unionized productions], but people know that they will have long-term, steady work.’

But not everybody is sympathetic to Shaw’s approach. In a summer in which B.C. is seeing a surprisingly low number of feature film shoots (just two as of July 30), IATSE Local 891 is targeting Insight productions for union certification, with reps dropping by sets looking to shore up support from crew members.

Although calls to IATSE for comment on this story were not returned, in the union’s magazine, posted online, president Elmar Thiessen (since resigned) acknowledges that union organizers have indeed been visiting non-signatory productions that are being serviced by moonlighting IATSE members ‘to explain to [the crew] exactly how much money they are potentially losing by taking on the work without consulting or aiding their union.’

Shaw is initially hesitant to respond to questions about the union drive.

‘I’ve tried to keep it out of the papers because I don’t think it’s good for the industry, but yes, they have targeted us,’ he finally says. ‘There is a rumor, confirmed by a union member, that they’re bringing in someone from New York to deal with me.’

According to Insight’s Ward, the crews are more concerned with steady employment than being part of a union. ‘In this industry, it’s rare to have the stability that they can count on at Insight,’ he says.

One IATSE member who spoke to Playback concurs. ‘I’d love to be working with [Insight],’ the member says. ‘At least I’d be working, doing what I love to do. And when one production wraps, I know there’s another one lined up.’

A union source who also requested anonymity counters that ‘there’s no reason not to work with unions. Even with low-budget productions, we are flexible and will work to make it work. The best crews are unionized. The union provides training to and supports the crews.’

So far there have been union certification votes on two Insight productions. The first one, on the set of the Laurence Fishburne feature thriller Tortured, was won by IATSE, so it became a union shoot – but only on the very last day of production. IATSE was voted down on the set of the MOW Smoke Jumper.

Shaw says that if the unionization movement takes hold, ‘the productions that we’re making here now are going to go away – to New Mexico, Connecticut, and people will lose their jobs.’

One industry source believes that that is exactly what IATSE in the U.S. wants to see happen, which would explain why U.S. reps might be getting involved.

‘With the rising Canadian dollar, there’s less and less money and it’s going to get harder. This is bad all around for the industry,’ Shaw says.