*Northwest lands on Hope Island

Vancouver’s Northwest Imaging & fx is busy with the Lion’s Gate Television series Hope Island. The 22 one-hour episodes will continue in film transfer until December, and Avid offline and online editing until March.

Meanwhile, DaVinci’s Inquest (Haddock Entertainment/Barna-Alper), which has wrapped shooting on season two, will continue in offline at the shop until early January.

Northwest has also begun effects work for the current season of mgm’s The Outer Limits. Inferno compositors and 3D animators will handle work on the 22 episodes and Robert Appleby is assigned to additional online compositing.

Compositing in Inferno and Henry and 3D animation work on mgm’s Stargate SG-1 is also finishing up, while work has commenced on the Stargate pass-through ‘puddle’ for the last episode.

In addition, senior colorist Larry Engelmann is overseeing the film transfer and Henry work on 13 episodes of the AKA Cartoon animated series Ed, Edd n Eddy. Larry Appleby and Robert Appleby are also handling the new season of Double Exposure (Cullen Robertson/Soapbox Productions), which started in September in tape-to-tape and online.

Finally, Yaletown Productions’ Weird Homes continues in online and tape-to-tape.

*Image Engine drives Stargate CG

Image Engine is currently busy working simultaneously on three episode’s of mgm’s Stargate SG-1. In one, the Vancouver shop’s effects team generated a shot in cg that has a ship riding the crest of a shock wave from a planet explosion while another craft is enveloped in debris.

In another episode, Image Engine will complete more than 30 shots with the SG-1 team battling hundreds of mechanical metal-eating cg bugs.

The shop has also been hard at work updating the opening of DaVinci’s Inquest (Haddock Entertainment/Barna-Alper).

*C.O.R.E. rides Magic Railroad

Animation director Bret Culp and production manager Traver Lalonde have been on the job at C.O.R.E. Digital’s Toronto facilities, completing work on the film Thomas and The Magic Railroad, a coproduction between Gullane Pictures and Destination Films. The pair has also been collaborating on the Alliance Atlantis series Psi Factor: Chronicles of the Paranormal.

Meanwhile, visual effects supervisor Bob Munroe is busy on Paramount Pictures’ feature film Snow Day, New Line Cinema’s Knockaround Guys and the Disney mow Cover Girls.

Claude Theriault and Tracey Vaz from c.o.r.e.’s 2D department have taken on two Rhombus Media productions: The Four Seasons and Leparello. They are also working on The Sandy Bottom Orchestra, a Dufferin Gate mow.

*Keeping the Faith at TOYBOX

Command Post/toybox has been awarded four visual effects shots for Keeping the Faith (Spyglass Entertainment/Triple Threat Productions), the first feature film helmed by actor Edward Norton. The shots involve 3D animation and visual effects composite work. toybox is also creating the opening title sequence. Shots will be delivered in March.

toybox has also been awarded 50 shots for Tarsem Dhandwar’s The Cell (New Line/Avery Pictures). It is also designing four dream sequences in hd, employing heavy color correction and effects with image processing, paint and composite techniques through the Spirit datacine. Other work involves on-set supervision, creation of full cg environments, compositing and matte painting. toybox will continue in production until mid 2000.

The shop has the full slate of effects on Jim Isaac’s Jason X (New Line/Pebblehut Productions) and is also handling the second unit visual effects work. toybox will be digitizing every frame of the film and creating a digital master conform at hd resolution. Production commences in February 2000, with the release scheduled for fall 2000.

toybox also continues its work on 35 visual effects shots for Thomas and the Magic Railroad Gullane Pictures/Destination Films). Work involves 3D animation and multilayer paint compositing.