The Canadian commercial industry is stepping into the world of high-definition filmmaking with Canada’s first hd-shot television commercials.

The inaugural hd shoot, for Barclay’s Global Investors Canada, was done out of Toronto’s Revolver Film Company, with The Partners’ Film Company’s Greg Hoey directing and manning the lens. With the technical support of Rob Sim at Sim Video and the post work of Optix, Canada’s first pair of high-def ads hit the airwaves mid-month.

The two spots, out of Toronto’s Top O The Mast, follow the office exploits of good guy financial adviser Jack Crawford who is recommending Barclay’s iUnits to his clients. The spots are to run as a series – Crawford hangs up with one client and then picks up the phone with another – with a projected four to follow the first two.

Top O The Mast creative director Morgan Earl reports some initial reluctance from the client to shooting high def.

‘Barclay’s had never advertised on television before,’ says Earl. ‘They kind of looked at me funny when I said hd, as if, ‘Do you really think it’s a good idea to experiment with our commercial?’ I said, ‘You’re not experimenting, this has all been done before.’ ‘

Earl says he didn’t prescribe a high-def treatment for the cost savings alone, but more for the excitement of utilizing a new technology and the opportunity to bring hd to Canadian television advertising.

‘When this commercial project came along, my first inclination was, ‘Let’s use high definition.’ After all, this is what we want to do,’ says Earl. ‘I was blown away by the results. I defy people to tell the difference between 35mm and hd.’

Once it was established that Top O The Mast was going to take a high-def approach to the spot, the new issue became finding a director willing to tackle the project. Earl approached Partners’ director and cameraman Greg Hoey.

‘We brought Greg in on it for several reasons,’ says Earl, explaining that the filmmaker is known for his work on character-driven spots (like this one) and his instincts as a dop. More than anything, however, his eagerness to try something new won him the job.

‘We were looking for a director who knew that hd was not the pariah of the industry,’ says Earl. ‘I wanted someone who was enthusiastic about hd.’

Hoey has his own theory as to why he was chosen to make the spots. ‘They wanted to have a film look and a film style approach to the directing,’ says Hoey. ‘I’m video-friendly and I’ve been to enough seminars to know that high definition is improving a great deal and I just wanted to try it.’

To learn the new camera, Hoey conducted a series of tests with the new hd camera at Sim, testing for sharpness, exposure, color and ‘just to see what the tool would do.’

‘The main challenge wasn’t technical,’ he says. ‘The challenge was dealing with, and sometimes altering, everybody’s preconceptions about what film is, what video is and what a commercial is. I just went in and treated it like any new film stock or camera or lens or new tool that came out.’

The director reports he went into the project with a few worries about the quality of the finished spot, which were soon extinguished.

‘There is a lot to be leery and scared about, but in terms of the image quality that high def makes, it is better than any video thing that has come down the pipe,’ says Hoey. ‘It is very film-like, and by that I mean the image is very warm and pretty and not harsh, and that is one of our preconceptions [about hd].’

Hoey says he isn’t certain what the immediate reaction to high def will be, but predicts that after time, the images produced via hd will appeal to both film and video people.

‘Film people think video is too bright and too harsh and too real looking,’ says Hoey. ‘The other side of the coin is that video people think that film is too soft and too dark. I think high def looks great. It’s not film, yet it’s definitely not video as we have come to know it in the past. It’s really kind of a new thing.’

After the spots were shot, with actor Martin Doyle playing the role of Jack Crawford, the footage from the ads were handed over to the folks at Optix. Company president Robert Peace says considerations had to be made in post so that the spots could air properly.

‘It’s not going to be shown in high def because the market that this is going to be shown in is not going to be broadcast in high def,’ says Peace. ‘In the case of the iUnits spots, they didn’t want to finish in high def, they wanted to shoot in high def. We have a down converter to make it viewable in most people’s homes. We work with the footage in the edit suite, uncompressed, and then we output it to Digital Betacam.’

Peace says for clients shooting in high def, Optix has a number of options for post to make the process as easy and unintimidating as possible for producers.

‘What we try to do on this end is make post no different than when coming in with a regular job – so that the client doesn’t feel like they are going through any extra processes to be able to utilize high def,’ says Peace. ‘We’ve also tried to make it cost-effective, so it isn’t something that can be available only to a few people. Sure there are extra bells and whistles behind the scenes that are helping to make it happen, but for the producer or director or whoever, they come in and do work as usual.’

With hd filmmaking now a reality, Peace believes there is a fear from some in the industry, but compares the situation to another advancement in post-production.

‘The same thing happened a number of years ago between linear and nonlinear editing – and it is still trickling down,’ says Peace, pointing out there was an initial reluctance to step foot into a nonlinear editing facility. ‘Once people get into a nonlinear suite and have a positive experience and see what more they can do and the time they can save, they get converted. Now 90% of Toronto is nonlinear editing.’

Although the buzz surrounding hd has been strong, Peace says film is not going to pack it in anytime soon. He expects many filmmakers will continue to shoot on film and then, if need be, convert their work to high def. However, he believes that many filmmakers are going to have to experiment with hd to keep abreast of future requirements for spots.

‘Eventually, networks will be demanding programming, commercials and everything in this format,’ he says, adding that filmmakers will have the converting option. ‘Film is not going to disappear.’

Hoey predicts an annual January event will be a major turning point in high-def awareness. ‘What is going to kick it off is the Super Bowl this year,’ Hoey says. ‘This will be the first Super Bowl broadcast in hd and they say that all the commercials will be in high def.’ However, the majority of the Super Sunday spots will be shot first in 35mm and then converted.

‘Film is still going to be with us for a long time but it is definitely going to have to be cohabiting with high-definition video – and that is one of the reasons I wanted to do this thing,’ says Hoey. ‘I wanted to take my film knowledge and mix it with my video knowledge, because that is where it is all going.’