Canadian production studio facilities largely look for longer-term projects to fill their stages, and rarely have trouble doing so. Ongoing television series or feature films are always welcome tenants at virtually any Canadian studio for the security of having something occupying a studio for months at a time.
So where does that leave the indigenous television commercials that need a place to be produced?
For many studio owners, spot production is much like what commercials are to television programming: they fill the gaps and generate much-needed revenue.
According to studio owners and commercial representatives, there are always places within many studios for commercial production; it just may take a bit of digging to find them.

The Fast Runner – Atanarjuat walked away from this year’s Genies with the achievement in editing award among its half dozen statuettes. What makes that particularly impressive is not only that the Igloolik Isuma/National Film Board coproduction is the first-ever Inuit feature and shot on video, but also that the cutting credits include two of the film’s coproducers, director Zacharias Kunuk and cinematographer Norman Cohn.

In the last two years, it seems, Apple Box Productions has really come in to its own. One of a handful of Canadian-based commercial houses with multiple locations across the country (in this case, Toronto, Edmonton and Vancouver), Apple Box has made clients, ad agencies and competitors sit up and take notice.
One competitor – or rather a director at a competitive company – certainly did. The result? Christopher Gentile left Toronto’s LTB Productions to join ABP in December, and is looking forward to a lucrative future at his new home base. Apple Box will represent Gentile across the country and in the U.S.

Toronto-based adbeast’s online common operating platform for the advertising industry has only been operational for less than a year, but it has already generated quite a buzz amongst post houses.

St. John’s-based Kickham Productions’ founder Anita McGee (New Neighbours), a staple of the Newfoundland production community, is set to direct and produce a new feature film called The Bread Maker, penned by Sherry White (Beyond Zerba, Blue Blazes) who will also star.
The Bread Maker is about a woman who is a bread maker by day and romance novelist by night. When a personal relationship interferes with the quality of her writing and book sales, she must find a way to win back her waning audience.

Regina-based Minds Eye Pictures is in development on a feature film called End of the Soo Line from writer William Boyle (Now & Forever). The film is set during the prohibition era when much of the bootleg alcohol sold in the U.S. was made in southern Saskatchewan and transported on the Soo rail line to Chicago.
The story is about a trip taken by legendary mobster Al Capone to Saskatchewan to escape the heat in Chicago.

Toronto-based animation giant Nelvana has secured television distribution rights for the red-hot Japanese animated kids series Beyblade for North America, South America, Europe and Oceania (excluding Turkey, Italy, Greece and Arabic-speaking countries).
The deal gives Nelvana home video and broadcast distribution rights to all 51 Beyblade episodes (produced in Japan by Mitsubishi’s wholly owned subsidiary d-rights). The series will air in Canada on YTV as early as summer 2002.
The agreement also allows Nelvana to act as agent for the importation and distribution of all Beyblade metal and plastic spinning tops from toy licensees Hasbro and Takara.

Snakes, mud and natural disasters best describe the conditions endured throughout the production of 100 Days in the Jungle, a very ambitious MOW for CTV coproduced by Edmonton’s ImagiNation Productions and Vancouver’s Sextant Entertainment Group.

Although 2001 was largely unspectacular in the commercial production industry, with cutbacks to advertising budgets and general slowness, it certainly appeared to be a plum time for spot shops to do a little recruiting abroad.

Toronto’s Industry Films has signed the roster from L.A.’s Rock Fight to an exclusive Canadian representation agreement, taking on spot directors Pep Bosch and Craig Champion and music video directing teams James and Alex and Blue Source (Rob Leggatt and Leigh Marling).

With ad budget cutbacks and increased border security, agencies have to look for alternate ways to get the big shot. Before renting the largest crane at WFW or flying to South Africa to capture that perfect sunset, some producers are looking to rediscover the options presented to them via stock footage.
Freelance agency producer Leslie Hunter went the stock route for a Roche Macaulay & Partners ad called ‘Eat Sleep Work’ for Mercedes Benz. The spot was mostly stock, put together by some slick post work at Toronto design shop Crush. Hunter says in her experience, going the stock route is often a fine alternative.

Jeff Fish is a hot commodity in Halifax commercials. He is one of a very few editors who specialize in cutting ads and has become somewhat of the go-to guy in the region for agencies and start-up production companies like Cenex Inc. In the East Coast advertising market, which is in a serious growth phase right now, Fish’s Filet Post Production is rarely quiet and a quiet rarity.