In this changing market, Canadian directors are having to branch out. Jet Films helmer Guillaume de Fontenay recently completed a 35-minute corporate video for Bombardier snowmobiles called ‘Ultimate Ride 2001.’

The project, through Milwaukee agency Cramer-Krasselt, won three awards, for advertising, direction and corporate communications, at the U.S. International Film and Video Festival in Chicago this spring.

Richard Speer, Jet honcho, is excited about the wins for his young director, who came out shining from a field of 1,500 entries from 33 countries.

Speer, who says less than 5% of Jet’s sales are corporate video, explains the shop usually limits its corporate work to big clients, even offering ‘freebies’ from time to time if a client has used Jet for a large campaign. ‘We want to go for the high-quality corporate videos,’ he says.

Speer explains the purpose of the Bombardier video: ‘Bombardier does not advertise that much on TV for snowmobiles. It does direct mailing to potential customers; I think 400,000 or 500,000 copies [of this corporate video] were sent out in the mid-western United States.’

‘[The Bombardier shoot] was a great experience,’ de Fontenay says. ‘We had the chance to do 12 shooting days in a row with helicopters and stunt drivers. All these production values we could have with Bombardier was something we can rarely afford in advertising.’

De Fontenay has a background in theatre and design and a somewhat daredevil spirit – traits that appealed to the client.

‘They were looking for a director that had a very slick artistic eye, but was ready to shoot in extreme conditions,’ says Speer. ‘And you have to remember we were shooting in the mountains of Utah at 12,000 feet of altitude.’

When ‘the storm of the century’ hit Utah during the shoot, burying a snowmobile in an avalanche, de Fontenay was happy to have a three-time world champion stunt driver on board. ‘That’s how they got out alive,’ he says.

De Fontenay, who has directed spots for Fido, Energizer and Sol beer, says he would like to continue to direct spots and corporate videos while keeping an eye on feature films and his first loves – theatre and design.

‘The head of Bombardier has told us it’s the best snowmobile video they’ve had,’ says Speer. ‘It was a question of teamwork. Guillaume did a great job. But all the technical support we got from Bombardier was absolutely unbelievable.’ *

-www.jetfilm.com