Marc Laliberte Else is a Toronto-based director of photography. A veteran of many music videos and commercials, including the 2000 Top Spot finalist ‘Heist’ for Nearly Naked pantyhose, he recently shot 2gether, an MTV movie that has spawned a TV series….

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.

While local studio owners in Toronto argue over if and when a huge soundstage should get the green light, building and plans for further expansion push ahead in a buoyant B.C. market, with already crowded studios expecting 10% to 15% growth in the coming years.
Sacha McLean, senior vice-president at Vancouver Film Studios, whose family controls the major ‘studio row’ complex – situated in the city but opposite The Bridge Studios in Burnaby – has just opened soundstages eight and nine July 1, and says construction will start on stages 10 and 11 in August.

The term smooth sailing doesn’t always apply to productions shot on or near the water. According to Halifax’s Topsail Entertainment, producer of the new documentary series Tall Ship Chronicles, and others, the mix of water and film gear is not always easy on the nerves, or the stomach.
Tall Ship Chronicles follows the adventures of the crew of a tall ship as they sail around the world.
With a crew of 40, the cinematographer for the first leg of the voyage was Wade Cornell. He says his time on the ship was challenging, but he was very pleased with how the equipment held up.

No matter the desired look, the period in question or the duration of the shoot, the tale of the costume designer continues until the final scene is shot, the final time….

In an industry known for its share of prima donnas and troubled actors, animals, even bugs, can be easier to work with than many humans. Naturally, there are people behind these talents, guiding their careers and providing directors with well-behaved creatures…

The perils of catering might seem to involve only a predictable list of problems – food allergies and intolerances, oddball demands by finicky cast or crew, kitchen fires, running short of vittles, that sort of thing. But it turns out that…

BRITISH COLUMBIA…

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.

A team comprised of Redrover Studio’s Andy Knight, Hero Films’ Linzi Knight, Imported Artists director Richard D’Alessio and former Revolver Films producer Allan Weinrib has put together a new commercial production company known as UnpluggedTV.com.
UnpluggedTV is best described as a spot shop that helps agencies and advertisers extend their brands to the Web. In the gray area between Web ads and commercial production, UnpluggedTV plans to guide advertisers and their agencies through the confusing zeros and ones to a solid end product – a fully-produced animated or live-action broadcast spot suitable for the Web. If the client is up for exploring the new frontier, its spot can be viewed on the UnpluggedTV website, which can be linked directly to the brand’s own home on the Web. Pepsi and AT&T have already signed contracts, and the founding partners expect other major clients to follow suit when the company begins performing.

The focus of this regular section is on agencies in Canada. Looking for agency business strategies and creative teams’ secret weapons? We tell all in Ad Missions….

With a much-anticipated September launch of roughly 40 new digital services, including 16 mandatory ones, broadcasters and distributors are in the final stretch of carriage negotiations for second-tier digital channels, and there’s still little word on who’s picking up what.
‘It’s a very complicated negotiation process, more so than ever before,’ says Janet Yale, president and CEO of the Canadian Cable Television Association. ‘[Distributors are trying] to work out a lot of many parts (sic), all at the same time.’