It has been a slow winter season for a number of Toronto post shops, and there is plenty of anxiety about the months ahead.

Winter is traditionally quiet on the city’s production front, but Dan McLellan, EVP of Deluxe Postproduction, says this past January was likely the worst he has seen.

Facilities have been stung by the ever-looming threat of a strike by the Screen Actors Guild, a labor dispute that, as of this writing, has no end in sight and continues to prevent many Hollywood shoots from going forward.

‘Our front-end work has suffered, but we’re optimistic there are some things starting to percolate,’ says McLellan.

Longstanding relationships can help counter a slump, as is the case with Deluxe’s partnership with filmmaker Atom Egoyan, for whom the shop is providing processing, Blu-ray dailies and a DI finish on the erotic thriller Chloe. And then there is the sixth installment in the smash Saw horror franchise, for which Deluxe has been essentially a one-stop shop.

McLellan is wary of the current global economic crisis and its potential impact on the film biz.

‘It is probably going to affect more of our independent customers – those smaller features that rely on that investment community to get done – than our Hollywood studio customers,’ he says.

He sees hope, however, in the fact that the Canadian dollar was down to US$0.80 as of Feb. 25. In addition, Vancouver, where Deluxe also has a facility, is so heavily booked for the balance of the year that he expects Toronto will get some spillover.

Meanwhile, animation and FX house C.O.R.E. Digital Pictures has been seeing about 60% of the work volume it was handling one year ago. As a result, the company has not renewed the status of some contract employees, according to C.O.R.E. CEO Bob Munroe.

‘Last year at this time, we were doing five animated TV shows, so when one was finishing, another one was just starting up, so we could take [the employees’] contracts, renew them and put them right on the other show, and now it’s just not that case,’ Munroe says.

The shop is ramping up, however, for 26 eps of the new animated Nickelodeon series Planet Sheen. Copros are also yielding work, including ongoing FX creation for Vincenzo Natali’s ambitious Canada/France sci-fi feature Splice and season four of Ireland/Canada copro The Tudors, airing on CBC and Showtime, for which C.O.R.E. recently won a Gemini Award.

Munroe believes Toronto soundstages are mostly vacant because the city has stopped being competitive, especially with British Columbia. He would like to see the Ontario Computer Animation and Special Effects Tax Credit be as all-inclusive as B.C.’s 15% tax credit known as DAVE (Digital Animation or Visual Effects). The Ontario tax credit currently covers 20% of labor expenditures on FX and animation activity; DAVE also counts costs for all crew on set for the FX days, which is perceived by penny-pinching producers to make a significant difference.

Meanwhile, Ken MacNeil, president of creativePOST, which expanded with the purchase of Eyes Post Group over a year ago, says his shop might be working at capacity now, but he is concerned about the near future of the TV biz in the current economy.

‘What I am worried about is spring, because all the shows come up for renewal – or new commissions happen – in that March, April, May timeframe,’ he says. ‘I’m waiting to see what will happen with the renews.’

Diversification has always been the name of the game at creativePOST, which services doc and reality series and FX-heavy commercials, and also offers broadcast design. This breadth of services helps when certain areas of its business, such as film transfer and Blu-ray DVD authoring, are in downturn.

The shop is also looking ahead of the curve in order to stay strong, having invested in a 4K post suite for the growing 3D stereoscopic film market.

‘When I got into it last year, it was ‘Let’s just build it because I can,” MacNeil says. ‘It’s still a very niche pioneer market, but there is such a tremendous buzz about it that I do have upwards of eight projects in the works. Most of them are shooting in the fall, so assuming that all the financing that was committed goes through… You never know what the banking world is doing.’