Toronto’s Imported Artists has signed a deal with Atlas Pictures of Santa Monica, Calif., to represent directors Jim Byrkit, Chris Woods and Paul Boyd exclusively in Canada.

The agreement, signed late last month, is an exciting one for Imported, says the shop’s president Christina Ford.

‘Atlas has brilliant directors,’ she says. ‘We thought it would be a great idea to expose them to the Canadian market.’

Ford says Byrkit, who has only been directing for a short while, is creating quite a stir in l.a. and is often compared to director Steve Chase, repped in Canada by Jolly Roger. He is known for directing spots for l.a.-based radio station kcrw, which is widely known for its leading-edge advertising. He has also done work for Coca-Cola.

Chris Woods’ reel includes spots for Corona, Visa and Wrangler. Paul Boyd has helmed spots for Target as well as directed a number of music videos for the likes of Jewel, Shania Twain and Lenny Kravitz.

‘Right now what we are doing is trying to get all of the work they’ve done, not only with their current reels but historical reels, so we can get a sense of [the directors]’, says Ford, who hopes to be pitching the Atlas directors to agencies very soon.

*All Eyes on Da Vinci

Toronto’s Eyes Post has come through with another first. Not only does the post shop claim to be the first in the world to acquire the Y-Front (now used by other shops in the city), it recently picked up Da Vinci 2K Color Corrector, and according to the folks at Eyes, it is the only one of its kind in Toronto. Eyes contends the 2K will be a valuable tool for Canadian commercial producers looking to compete on an international level.

Eyes supervising colorist Judy Paul says she is extremely impressed with the new 2K technology.

The correcting results are instantaneous. Paul used footage from an old Oil of Olay spot to show the color correcting capabilities of the 2K. The still frame presented on the screen in one of Eyes’ stylishly dark studios is of the young lady featured in the ads. Her complexion is fair and her dress is a drab green. When the same picture appears after the use of the 2K, the colors are vibrant and powerful.

‘I haven’t used any of the potential of the color corrector,’ says Paul, explaining that the Oil of Olay color correction was produced by the most basic setup of the Y-Front feeding into the Da Vinci 2K – and nothing more. ‘Now I can go into the Da Vinci and do a number of things to it, like add different effects and grab different colors.’

As an example of what it can do, Paul uses the 2K to isolate the woman’s green dress and make it blue. She does the same to her lips. She explains the dress and lips will remain blue for the rest of the spot, without Paul having to go in and track the changes.

Paul also enjoys the multi-windows feature, which allows her to isolate certain areas of the picture and do some extremely detailed color correction work.

Eyes installed its new toy at the end of January and has already used it on jobs for Leon’s, Shoppers Drug Mart, Irwin Toys and at&t to name a few. Paul admits it took her about a day to figure out how the unit works, and says, ‘Once you know where everything is, it is not that difficult to use.’

Company vp Diane Cuthbert says Eyes is always striving to keep on top of the post world. She says the need to keep up means being in constant contact with clients and colleagues around the world.

‘Commercials these days are international and a lot of it is just knowing how they are making the best commercials all over the world and looking for where the best equipment in the world is,’ says Cuthbert. ‘It’s not like clients are saying, ‘Hurry and get the Da Vinci 2K.’ If they were, we’d probably already be too late. We are trying to be a step a head of our clients.’

Joe Scrivo, director of operations, says in keeping with the keeping-ahead motto at Eyes, they are expecting delivery of the new ITK Millennium machine, due to arrive in April. The Millennium is capable of transferring any film to different formats, from 8mm to imax.

*Dressing for success

Toronto director and entrepreneur Alex Ogus of Big Kid Films is breaking into the commercial directing business in a very unusual way. After finishing film school, Ogus decided to create his own line of salad dressings and used the proceeds from sales to finance two short films, the second of which screened at the Rhode Island Film Festival.

Recently he had an idea to make a commercial for his line of dressings, known as Carole’s Low-Fat Salad Dressings. Ogus wrote, produced and directed the spot without an agency or commercial production house. It begins airing later this month. He says he enjoyed the experience and is hungry for more commercial work.

‘I found it to be very rewarding and enjoyable,’ says Ogus. ‘It just seemed like a natural to direct for my own product line.’

The spot, which features a fledgling actress returning home from an audition and catching up with her boyfriend, is dialogue-heavy, which Ogus believes is his forte. His crew, the same used on his short films, worked for free. Including cast, there were only 10 people on set for the shoot.

He says in order to distinguish his spot from the thousands currently on air, he tried to give the ad more of a feature film look than most viewers are used to.

Ogus has been shopping the spot around to Toronto commercial production houses, hoping to find representation so he can continue to direct commercials.

*Corrections

In the Feb. 7 Storyboard ‘Shewchuk drives it home,’ the Gee Jeffery & Partners creative team of copywriter Trevor Schoenfeld and art director Craig Brownrigg were inadvertently omitted from the list of credits on the Toyota Dealers of Ontario spot.

* Matt Hawkins is a writer/ director for on-air promotions at ytv, not creative director as the Feb. 21 story ‘Hawkins scoops a Gold at NY Festivals’ might have suggested.