The recent launch of Halifax-based commercial production company Cenex may help usher in a new era of high-end spot making on the East Coast, according to founder and executive producer Scott Westerlaken.

Cenex has been set up to offer local creatives a new option for making their TV ad ideas a reality, he says, adding that high-end commercial production hasn’t flourished for a while in the Maritimes.

‘The last person to do this here was Charles Bishop, who is over at Salter Street Films now,’ says Westerlaken. ‘When Charles decided he was going to stop doing this, he left the market wide open and nobody else picked it up in terms of the level of production he was delivering.’

Westerlaken suggests that the reason few producers followed Bishop’s lead might be because of Halifax’s ‘small-market mentality.’

‘A lot of it was that nobody else knew how to get those results, because they didn’t have the training,’ he says.

Despite the existence of several agencies on the East Coast, Westerlaken was watching with increasing impatience as a great number of local boards were being sent off to the major markets to be produced. He decided it was time to step in and help quash the trend.

‘At one point there was a phenomenal amount of money being exported to Toronto for production,’ he says. ‘It was enough to keep a couple of production companies going throughout the year. Nobody wanted to step up to the plate and deliver the same kind of product or better than you would find in Toronto.’

Cenex’s first commercial shoot took place before the summer, for client Health and Wellness New Brunswick, out of Apropos Marketing and creative director Shane McDonald in Moncton. Cenex director/DOP Gordon Miller shot the four-spot campaign, with Westerlaken producing.

Cenex’s output is already having a residual effect on the traditionally very slow East Coast commercial market, as upstart Filet Post Production editor Jeff Fish in Halifax is handling the editing and composer Kurt Hahn is completing the musical score for the Health and Wellness spots.

Halifax-based Miller is currently the only director on the Cenex roster (repped on the East Coast only), although Westerlaken says he is in talks with several others and hopes to ink some deals soon.

-www.cenex.ca