Canadian animation, F/X and broadcast design shops are attending SIGGRAPH 2001 in search of more mature versions of software packages already in-house, while software developers are working to address perceived problems through upgrades. Perhaps most important for Canadians are the many networking opportunities of the people kind.

SHOOTING is wrapping up in Calgary on the Hallmark Productions miniseries Roughing It. Budgeted at $8.5 million, the two-part, four-hour project is based on the novel by Mark Twain. Roughing It stars James Garner as the old Mark Twain, in tales of the young Twain’s quest for his calling as a writer.

With frustration mounting among local studio operators over Toronto’s plan to build a massive soundstage on the city’s harborfront, arguments for several, smaller locally owned stages abound.
An $118,000 report issued more than two years ago by the Toronto Film and Television Office and the Ontario Film Development Corporation (now the Ontario Media Development Corporation) outlined the need for more soundstage space in Toronto. The arguing begins over questions of who should build the stages, how big they should be and where they should be built.
In the two years since the report’s release, several local studio owners have pressed to build mid-sized staging, while the Toronto Economic Development Corporation has been pushing for a ‘mega-stage’ funded by an international investment community attracted to Toronto and its potential as a world-class, high-end feature film production destination.
There are all kinds of complex issues surrounding the lands around Toronto’s harborfront, the preferred location for more soundstages.

There is no denying a slowdown in commercial production across North America in recent months. Clearly, Canadian spot shops have not been left unscathed. Companies are scrambling to find new sources of revenue, and whispers continue that not everyone will survive the dip.
With agency layoffs signaling a greater slump in the overall economy, some nervous producers are saying this slowdown, unlike others that preceded it in the ’80s and ’90s, may signal a complete paradigm shift in the industry.
Canadian spot shops are responding to the downturn in different ways. Some smaller companies, with lower overheads, are ‘sticking to their knitting,’ using the down time to strengthen relationships with agency people. But most medium to large shops cannot afford to wait it out.

Established commercial directors are the subject of this regular feature. Each issue we will profile their careers, accomplishments and the ideas that propel them to new advertising heights….

Ever wonder why the standard commercial media format is still the 3/4-inch tape? You’re not alone. Effectively, 3/4-inch technology has been defunct since the mid-eighties.
The last 3/4-inch deck made by Sony Canada was shipped two years ago, and the technology only held on that long due to industry demand.
Calvin Judges, marketing manager for broadcast systems at Sony Canada, confirms ‘[the 3/4] has gone through a couple of discontinuation announcements. There was all sorts of crying and we said, ‘We’ll extend it this amount.’ ‘

Adbeast, a digital media-based common operating platform for the advertising industry, had its ‘coming out party’ at the recent Bessie Awards in Toronto….

IT is with great sadness that On The Spot reports the mysterious abduction of well-loved and hard-hated commercial columnist Rick Ricketts. Ricketts disappeared at the Bessie Awards in Toronto and has not been seen since….

Some say editing is like writing poetry. For Panic & Bob editor Tanis Darling, this edict took a literal turn with a corporate video job for The Griffin Trust. …

In this changing market, Canadian directors are having to branch out. Jet Films helmer Guillaume de Fontenay recently completed a 35-minute corporate video for Bombardier snowmobiles called ‘Ultimate Ride 2001.’…

The following is part three of Playback’s three-part overview of major Canadian announcements by broadcasters during Fall Launch week, June 4-8, in Toronto….

Winnipeg isn’t exactly a hotbed of animation houses, and when Ken Zorniak and Chris Bond saw a niche opening up in the Manitoba spot market, they jumped all over it. The result: Frantic Films.
Frantic launched in March 1997 as a ‘humble operation’ with only two computers, Frantic VP/producer Zorniak recalls.
‘[Before Frantic], Chris had some experience working for a local multimedia company, doing animation for broadcast, primarily for commercials. That company wanted to get out of it, and get more into Web stuff. At that point, another animation company in Winnipeg, Ken Perkins and Associates, closed its doors. So there was really no competition at the time. We saw the opportunity and went out there to solicit local television commercials,’ explains Zorniak.