I mean no disrespect when I say that, upon arriving at the Off Camera exhibition at Filmport, I was surprised by the impressive quality of the art on display.

What drew me to the art exhibit was its participants – set builders, carpenters, key grips, sound technicians and gaffers – all members of IATSE 873 and the Directors Guild of Canada, and all of whom are either out of work or underemployed during the current production downturn in Toronto.

You know their work on studio movies including Chicago, Cinderella Man and Hairspray. If anyone knows how to create new worlds, physical and digital, through the deliberate manipulation of reality and appearance, the 50 representational artists showcasing their work at Off Camera through Oct. 18 sure do.

And, ever the busy bunch, it turns out they’re still at work, judging by the paintings, sculptures, screen printing and photographs on view in Stage 7 at Filmport.

Frank Perna, one of the participating artists, was a year ago painting bricks on a wall for a fight scene in The Incredible Hulk. Now, the veteran set painter displays his oil-stick-on-Mylar paintings based on photographs he took in the Kawartha Lakes and at a family cottage.

The paintings feature jarring colors and shapes to capture the contrasts between the surface tension and calm of a lake shoreline, and the riotous nature and wildlife that thrives above and below the waterline.

The paintings are also smaller and more intimate than the wide-screen landscapes and vast storytelling canvases typical of Hollywood movie shoots.

Perna is thankful for the time to do his personal painting, as opposed to working on a director’s or cinematographer’s vision on set. But he knows he’d be hard-pressed to make a living from his paintings, and so looks forward to a return to a local film or TV set.

‘We’re in a deep dive. But I’m hoping it will come back,’ Perna says of the current production drought in Ontario.

For all its impressive art and talent on exhibit, Off Camera also offers a snapshot of an industry in barren times, and the challenges and conflicted goals of its idled workers.

Toronto scenic artist Erin Leslie is not sanguine about her industry’s future. Leslie finds it hard to concentrate on her high-concept art – sculpture and oil on canvas – as she waits for big-budget movie shoots to return to Toronto.

‘It’s stressful. There’s a high anxiety about a lack of income,’ Leslie says about the prevailing mood among local production crews.

Among her Off Camera contributions is ‘Cherry Trees, High Park,’ an oil-on-canvas portrait of five cherry trees in full splendor. Another is a haunting gargoyle sculpture done as a prototype for the horror film Resident Evil: Apocalypse, which shot in Toronto.

Doug Ganton, a sound mixer nominated for an Oscar for his work on Legends of the Fall, is typical of the Off Camera artists, as his digital giclée prints originate from photographs that he takes both on set and away.

He took photos of the winter solstice festival of lights at Kensington Market in Toronto last December. From a carnival parade of giant puppets, stilt-walkers and samba dancers, Ganton captures the sublime from the ordinary, and prints his digital creations on archival paper.

Where does his art spring from? Sound is one-dimensional, Ganton reminds, and painting adds a visual dimension to his film work, and his world.

Mind you, Ganton’s not so keen on the idea that he does his art in his spare time.

‘I’m not crazy about the word ‘spare.’ It’s just time,’ he insists.

Mark Manchester, who started out as a grip on the 1980 horror pic Funeral Home, and lists the Oscar winners Good Will Hunting and Chicago among his credits, is used to directing a team of grips on film and TV sets when busy.

But he hasn’t been busy lately, save for working for a stretch on CBC’s forthcoming series Being Erica. But, seeing the glass half-full, he expects to be back at work soon

‘Film technicians are optimists by nature,’ Manchester insists. His photographs, on the other hand, are a tad darker. While on sets, he takes ample photos to acquaint himself with the environment in which he and his team help sculpt the look of a film or TV show.

His photograph ‘Camera Cover’ flows from a photo he took in 2005 while on the set of Knights of the South Bronx.

In the TV movie, starring Ted Danson, Toronto stands in for New York City, as evidenced by the giant U.S. flag draped on a schoolyard wall.

In front of the flag stands a camera on a pedestal, and on top of it an umbrella and a solar blanket that Manchester rigged to protect the camera from the hot sun during a break.

Together in ‘Camera Cover,’ the shielded camera in front of the stars and stripes, is the Canadian film industry writ large, according to Manchester.

‘America is a background for us, both figuratively and in reality, and this is what we do to protect it,’ the artist says.