Even in a self-described slow spell, Fearless Films’ staff of seven has plenty on its plate.

The Toronto editing house is currently at work on the half-hour animated series Ripping Friends from John Kricfalusi (Ren & Stimpy), a coproduction among CineGroupe, Cambium Entertainment and Spumco Canada, slated to debut on Fox this spring. Also in the shop is the feature-length doc The Big Show, a Cohen Siblings production for the CBC that tracks 25 years of the Toronto International Film Festival. Fearless is also assembling a trailer for an upcoming feature for GFT Entertainment.

Recently completed projects include the Nelvana animated series Corduroy Bear and Timothy Goes to School and the travel show Alternate Routes, airing in the U.S. on Outdoor Life Network.

Fearless recently continued its relationship with director Jeremy Podeswa on After the Harvest, starring Sam Shepard as a World War I vet who comes to Alberta to work on a farm and subsequently starts a relationship with a young school teacher, played by Liane Balaban. The MOW, which recently aired on CTV, comes on the heels of Podeswa’s feature The Five Senses, which Fearless also cut.

Also in the theatrical realm, the shop opened its facilities to editor Michael Munn for The Law of Enclosures, the latest offering from director John Greyson (Zero Patience, Lilies). Already released in Winnipeg and opening in Toronto March 23, the film, starring Sarah Polley, Brendan Fletcher and Diane Ladd, jumps four decades ahead in the lives of a young couple.

Fearless president Al Maciulis says despite all these gigs, the company is still growing.

"We get our work largely through word of mouth because we’ve been around for awhile, but we’re still unknown in a lot of ways," he says.

Being a small, boutique shop entails certain financial limitations.

"I thought about going to 2001NAB [the Las Vegas gear trade show], but there are more things we want than we have money for," explains Maciulis. "We’re always interested in new equipment and technology, but it’s also good to be away from the hype of the salespeople."

The Fearless studio is currently equipped with Edit, Discreet’s realtime, nonlinear editing solution, and the Avid Symphony.

"We were actually anti-Avid for the longest time, but we got the Avid Film Composer for The Five Senses and found it really stable," Maciulis recollects. "One of the strongest things about it is the ability to bring in sequences from [the production], so we have no problems with edit decision lists, and we’re also able to output to PAL. It’s been amazing."

Although Fearless’s primary work is long-form editing, it also does some F/X work, most recently for GFT’s Going Back, veteran Toronto director Sidney J. Furie’s feature about a group of Marines that returns to Vietnam to recall its wartime experiences.

"There is a hand-held shot of some characters walking out of an airport," Maciulis explains. "A banner behind them had some information not correlating to the film’s city setting, so we needed to blank it out, which we did on the Symphony."

Fearless has also become somewhat of an animation specialist.

"We’ve done three years of animation post-production for Nelvana, so we have a lot of experience in that area," says Maciulis. "It’s kind of a weird specialty for a post-production house because it’s not really editing, but we like to do different things."

Despite taking on a variety of projects, the company president is dismissive about jumping on the bandwagon of stylistic trends. For example, the quick-paced cutting inspired by music videos seen in films such as Guy Ritchie’s Snatch is not for him.

"We were doing that in the ’80s," laughs Maciulis. "Fast is easy – it’s the easy way out."

One trend Maciulis does embrace is the move towards the 16 x 9 format, although there are problems there, too.

"A lot of companies claim they’re framing for 16 x 9, but they’re really framing for [the 4 x 3 of] TV," he explains. "Nothing bothers me more than seeing 16 x 9 when things are only going on in the middle of the screen and [the filmmakers are] not actually using the whole frame. But in a couple of years, it will all be 16 x 9 and let the 4 x 3 suffer." *

-www.fearlessfilms.com