Canadian Society of Cinematographers Magazine December 2010

Canadian Society of Cinematographers

$4 December 2010 www.csc.ca

In the

Heartland with Craig Wrobleski csc 9-DEC

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56698 94903

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Graeme Ferguson csc • Tony Westman csc • Gemini Winners

A publication of the Canadian Society of Cinematographers The Canadian Society of Cinematographers (CSC) was founded in 1957 by a group of Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa cameramen.

Since then over 800 cinematographers and persons in associated occupations have joined the organization.

The purpose of the CSC is to promote the art and craft of cinematography in Canada. And to provide tangible recognition of the common bonds that link film and video professionals, from the aspiring student and camera assistant to the news veteran and senior director of photography.

We facilitate the dissemination and exchange of technical information and endeavor to advance the knowledge and status of our members within the industry. As an organization dedicated to furthering technical assistance, we maintain contact with non-partisan groups in our industry but have no political or union affiliation.

CORPORATE SPONSORS All Axis Remote Camera Systems Applied Electronics Arri Canada Ltd. Canon Canada Inc. CinequipWhite Inc. Clairmont Camera Cooke Optics Ltd. Creative Post Inc. D.J. Woods Productions Inc. Deluxe Toronto FUJIFILM Canada Inc. Image Media Farms Inc Kingsway Motion Picture Ltd. Kino Flo Kodak Canada Inc. Lee Filters Mole-Richardson Osram Sylvania Ltd./LtĂŠe PS Production Services Panasonic Canada Panavision Canada Rosco Canada Sim Video Sony of Canada Ltd. Technicolor 3D Camera Company Videoscope Ltd. William F. White International Inc. ZGC Inc. ZTV

FEATURES – volume 2, No. 7 DECEMBER 2010

In the Heartland with Craig Wrobleski csc

10

By Moira Potter

The Man Who Invented IMAX: An Interview with Graeme Ferguson csc By Wyndham Wise

Tony Westman csc Shoots Force of Nature: The David Suzuki Movie By Wyndham Wise Columns & Departments 2 From the President

5 The CSC and Sponsor Meetings

6 In the News

23 Camera Classified

24 Productions Notes / Calendar

Cover: Craig Wrobleski csc on the set of Heartland.

Photo credit: Andrew Bako, courtesy of Rescued Horse Season Four Inc.

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Canadian Cinematographer December 2010 Vol. 2, No. 7 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Joan Hutton csc CO-EDITOR-IN-CHIEF George Willis csc, sasc EDITOR EMERITUS Donald Angus EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

From The PRESIDENT

Susan Saranchuk admin@csc.ca EDITOR Wyndham Wise mfa editor@csc.ca ART DIRECTION Berkeley Stat House PROOFREADER Karen Longland INTERN Jonathan Thomas WEBSITE CONSULTANT Nikos Evdemon csc www.csc.ca

F

or the past four years William F. White (WFW) has generously provided space to the CSC for its clubhouse. So, when WFW purchased a new building just down the road, they graciously asked us to come along. This was our first peek at the new CSC clubhouse space and the new WFW Centre in Toronto.

As I walked through the front door and inched my way around a huge stepladder, what unfolded before me was a gigantic warehouse space, with a dozen construction workers feverishly painting, hammering and doing all the finishing touches that need to be done on any renovation site. The building is impressive and seemed to go on forever. Alex Bronfman, WFW’s building manager and our tour guide, said that while their new space is actually smaller than their present location, it’s more efficient, functional and accommodating.

ADVERTISING SALES Guido Kondruss gkondruss@rogers.com CSC OFFICE / MEMBERSHIP 131–3007 Kingston Road Toronto, Canada M1M 1P1 Tel: 416-266-0591; Fax: 416-266-3996

Our new clubhouse is ideally situated central to WFW’s administrative offices, its new theatre department and, of course, its equipment-rental venue. Our new space is similar but larger than the old clubhouse. Floor-to-ceiling walls will provide better sound insulation than the three-quarter walls at our present location. Three strategically placed windows on the large inner wall offer expansive views of the WFW plant. Our new home looks and feels good.

Email: admin@csc.ca CSC Subscription Dept.

PO Box 181 283 Danforth Avenue Toronto, Canada M4K 1N2 Email: editor@csc.ca Canadian Cinematographer makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of the information it publishes; however, it cannot be held responsible for any consequences arising from errors or omissions. The contents of this publication may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the express written consent of the publisher.

The opinions expressed within the magazine are those of the authors and not necessarily of the publisher.

Upon publication, Canadian Cinematographer acquires Canadian Serial Rights; copyright reverts to the writer after publication.

Canadian Cinematographer is printed by Winnipeg Sun Commercial Print and is published 10 times a year.

One-year subscriptions are available in Canada for $40.00 for individuals and $80.00 for institutions, including HST. In U.S. rates are $45.00 and $90.00 for institutions in U.S. funds. International subscriptions are $50.00 for individuals and $100.00 for institutions.

Payment by money order in Canadian funds.

ISSN 1918-8781 Canadian Mail Product Sales Agreement No. 40013776 Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to 181-283 Danforth Ave. Toronto M4K 1N2

2 • Canadian Cinematographer - December 2010

The clubhouse is an important facet of the CSC. It’s there for the exclusive use of the CSC membership. The Society’s executive and various committee meetings are held around the clubhouse’s large conference table. There are relaxing sofas for less formal discussions, plus an office area, complete with desk, computer, printer and internet connection. A large flat screen HD television, donated by Sony Canada, is available for screenings and will be used by our membership committee to view applicant reels and by our awards juries to view submissions for the CSC Annual Awards.

The clubhouse contains an ever-growing media library, with books and manuals of interest to our membership. Various items and documents of historical value to the CSC and our industry are displayed and maintained at the clubhouse. Should any member wish to book a meeting, screen material, or anything at all (we’ve even had a short film shot in the clubhouse), please contact our administration at 416-266-0591 or email us at admin@csc.ca.

By the time everyone reads this, the big move will be complete. So, to the CSC membership, mark this date in your calendars – December 16, 3 p.m. to 7 p.m.

This is when WFW has its annual Christmas gathering, and we throw open the clubhouse doors. Join us for some holiday spirit and see our new digs and the new WFW Centre. The address is 800 Islington Avenue.

For those of you who can’t make it, the CSC executive would like to wish everyone a wonderful holiday season and very happy New Year!

Michael Condon, SOC VP Digital Division

Andree Martin VP Technical Services

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By George A. Willis csc, sasc

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he film and television industry is a business that relies heavily on many types of equipment to capture and process visual material. The range of equipment includes cameras and lenses, both film as well as digital, and a plethora of support systems. This also applies to the slightly less common areas such as aerialand underwater cinematography. Film and digital media for recording images and post-production equipment requirements make up a large percentage of the hardware that is required on a day-to-day basis.

One of my undertakings as vice president of the CSC is to arrange monthly meetings with various sponsors, as and when new products or equipment have been announced. The traditional practice has been to schedule meetings in January for the calendar year, with each sponsor being limited to one meeting per year. The CSC members are invited to a venue where the sponsor hosts the meeting and presents their latest wares. The meeting would consist of the sponsor’s technical personnel demonstrating a particular piece of equipment. This would be followed by a Q & A period after which the CSC members would be invited to a hands-on session, if applicable.

However, the industry is at a stage where it is becoming increasingly difficult to keep up with the pace of the rapidly emerging technologies. As an example, in the past there might have been a new film stock release, a new lens, or a visit to the film laboratory to view some of the latest film tests. There seemed to be a pace equal to that of new product and equipment release that fitted well within the monthly scheduled meetings.

This has changed dramatically. The rate at which new technology is now emerging is astounding and it seems that almost every day there is some new piece of equipment or process that has a significant effect on the film and television industry. It would also seem that this has put added pressure on the sponsors, who are not only having to deal with these rapid changes but who also need to disseminate the information to the public, including the CSC. This has resulted in sponsors finding it more convenient to

George A. Willis csc, sasc leading the 2009 CSC Lighting Workshop

announce a meeting to showcase a new equipment release or something similar within their our time frame. With this new methodology, there is no limit to the number of meetings for any of the sponsors.

The fact that the invitations are now extended to the industry at large, as opposed to only the CSC, also boosts the attendance and therefore makes for a more successful and productive meeting.

This has the added benefit of a reasonably large attendance.

We trust that this explanation of the change in procedure is acceptable and we assure that the CSC will continue to be in constant communication with our sponsors, thereby keeping you abreast of the latest in technological advancements. We do not wish, however, to limit the membership to meetings only with the sponsors; therefore, we would like to expand further by offering other opportunities to our members. This might come in the form of recently completed projects such as a feature film, documentary or some commercial advertising. The CSC would invite members to attend an evening where this work may be screened with the DOP available to talk about that particular project followed by a Q&A. As well, we, as filmmakers, understand all too often that necessity becomes the mother of invention; therefore, another consideration could be the demonstration of a piece of equipment designed and built for a specific purpose. This would be combined by a visual reference of how the particular item was used on a given project. The innovativeness of film crews is legendary, so what could be more rewarding than to have an idea showcased in this manner.

These are two examples. We would like to hear other ideas and open up the discussion, as we would like the membership to become more involved within the society. If you have any suggestions or know of someone who might be interested, please contact the CSC.

Canadian Cinematographer - December 2010 •

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Photo credit:  Joan Hutton csc

A Message from the Vice President The CSC and Sponsor Meetings

In The News

CSC Members Sweep the

Gemini Awards

Glen MacPherson csc, asc

Dylan Macleod csc

Matthew Phillips csc

Paul Sarossy csc, bsc

Henry Less csc

David Fazee csc

I

n an unprecedented year, the first that anyone can remember, CSC members swept all five photography categories at the 2010 Gemini Awards handed out by the Academy of Canadian Film and Television in November.

The Gemini for best photography in a comedy program or series went to veteran Paul Sarossy csc, bsc for his work on the hilarious miniseries Kids in the Hall Death Comes to Town, produced by Accent Entertainment for the CBC. Best photography in a documentary program or series went to Matthew Phillips csc for Rob King’s Silent Bombs: All for the Motherland, a hard-hitting documentary about the radioactive mess the Russians left behind at its abandoned nuclear test site in Kazakhstan (see the February 2010 issue of Canadian Cinematographer).

6 • Canadian Cinematographer - December 2010

The Gemini for best photography in a dramatic program or series went to Glen MacPherson csc, asc for the four-hour CBC miniseries Keep Your Head Up, Kid: The Don Cherry Story, starring Jared Keeso as the combative Cherry. Best photography in a variety or performing arts program or series went to Dylan Macleod csc for Moze Mossanen’s Nureyev, with Nico Archambault as the legendry Russian ballet dancer, produced by MDF Productions for Bravo!, and best photography in an information program or series went to Henry Less csc for French Food at Home, featuring host Laura Calder and produced for the Food Network Canada.

In addition to the winners in the photography categories, David Frazee csc picked up the best director Gemini for his work on the dramatic series Flashpoint. A hearty congratulations to all the winners from the CSC executive and the staff at Canadian Cinematographer !

Dylan Macleod csc and David Frazee csc photos credited to George Pimental, courtesy of the ACCT

Canadian Cinematographer - December 2010 •

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In The News

Parcher, former group VP for Fujifilm North America, is now responsible for key account management for the motion picture studios and major labs worldwide. He will also oversee Kodak’s global print film franchise. The appointment became effective October 4, 2010.

Tom Burstyn’s The Way of Life

Parcher, who began his career as an assistant cameraman, spent four years in marketing and sales at Panavision Canada. He joined Fujifilm in 2000, and was named VP of Fujifilm Canada in 2006.

For the last two years, Parcher has led Fujifilm’s North American Motion Picture Division’s Sales, Marketing and Operations.

CSC Members Are Honoured Worldwide The New Zealand film This Way of Life (see the November 2009 issue of Canadian Cinematographer) has earned its director/DOP Tom Burstyn csc a nomination at the world-renowned cinematography festival in Poland. The International Film Festival of the Art of Cinematography, known as Plus Camerimage (which this year runs from November 27 to December 4), is the only festival dedicated to the art of cinematography and honours films according to their visual, aesthetic and technical values.

Burstyn emailed us to say, “To be celebrated by your peers is an amazing thing.”

Northern Lights, a documentary about Canadian cinema-tographers directed by Antonio Galloro csc (see the October 2008 issue of CSC News), was nominated for best documentary at the Marbella Film Festival in Spain. Galloro emailed Canadian Cinematographer that, “The documentary received an overwhelming response from the international community attending the festival. It made me feel proud to be a Canadian cinematographer.”

Philippe Lavalette csc won the Jack Naylor Award for cinematography in a feature film for his work on Guy Nattiv’s Israeli film The Flood – about how a family is thrown into turmoil when its oldest son, who is autistic, returns home from an institution – at the Haifa International Film Festival in Israel. Jack Naylor, who passed away in 2007, was a wealthy American business man who, over his lifetime, had accumulated the world’s largest camera collection.

Graeme Parcher Moves to Kodak from Fujifilm Eastman Kodak Company announced that CSC affiliate member Graeme Parcher has joined the company as its worldwide general manager strategic accounts and distribution and vice president of its Entertainment Imaging Division.

8 • Canadian Cinematographer - December 2010

Grows with Digital Projection New digital technology is fuelling IMAX’s unprecedented expansion into markets that haven’t been served by the company’s one-of-a-kind movie experience in the past.

Long considered a cutting-edge, yet, unfortunately, inaccessible movie experience for film buffs living outside of the largest urban centres, IMAX is finding its way into new and smaller markets by greatly reducing the inhibitive costs for operators. IMAX spokesman Jackson Myers said IMAX is experiencing unprecedented growth thanks to its new digital projection system. At its headquarters in Mississauga, Ontario, a staff of 200 is churning out the large fridge-size projectors at a rapid pace for the 43-year-old company.

Four new IMAX theatres opened in Ontario recently and Moncton, NB, got its first in 2010. Many more have been built in the United States and around the world, including the first in Kazakhstan, due in large part to the new digital system, which has eliminated the high cost of film prints, said Myers. In fact, while it could cost $60,000 for a theatre to purchase a 3D IMAX film, the equivalent cost under the new digital system is only the price of a hard drive. Myers said most new IMAX locations are the result of partnerships with large chains such as AMC and Cineplex, in Canada.

Sony Launches Its SRW9000PL HDCAM-SR Sony presented its SRW9000PL HDCAM SR camcorder at its offices in Toronto to members of the CSC in October. The SRW9000 is a one-piece HDCAM-SR camcorder that delivers full HD resolution images and employs 2/3 CCD. Combining this CCD with a high-precision 14-bit A/D converter and digital signal processing, the camcorder is able to capture and reproduce extremely high-quality 1080/60P and 1080/50P images with low noise and high sensitivity. With its self-contained recording media and compact one-piece design, the SRW9000 delivers highly competitive images.

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Canadian Cinematographer - December 2010 •

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Photo credit: Andrew Bako, courtesy of Rescued Horse Season Four Inc.

In the

Heartland with Craig Wrobleski csc

By Moira Potter

N

ever work with animals or children,” the legendary W.C. Fields advised. He knew from experience that their cuteness could upstage anyone or anything and their unpredictability try the patience of cast and crew alike. Craig Wrobleski csc ignores that advice – with mixed results. His days as DOP for the CBC hit drama Heartland include working with numerous horses and a very young cast. The cast is reliable, professional and, okay, cute. The same can’t be said about the horses.

“The horses are very well trained and used to lights, cameras and people,” says Wrobleski. “But they don’t care about schedules or dramatic moments. If they get bored, they’ll simply walk out of a shot or flap their gums. They’ll fart or relieve themselves when they need to – usually in the middle of a highly emotional scene.

But shooting this show is all about the unpredictable and that’s what makes it challenging and, for me, exciting.”

Now in its fourth season, the series revolves around teenaged Amy Fleming, a gifted horse whisperer, and her family on the Heartland Ranch in the Alberta foothills. What makes Heartland different from many other television series is that it’s not shot

10 • Canadian Cinematographer - December 2010

entirely in a controlled studio environment but mainly on location, a ranch 45 minutes southwest of Calgary. And if horses didn’t present enough of a challenge, shooting a series on location – in Alberta – presents some unique weather issues.

With a shooting schedule beginning in mid-May to ending in mid-December, Heartland follows the changing seasons, leaving the DOP and his crew adjusting to constantly changing conditions. It’s not unusual to start a scene in blazing sunlight and end it scrambling to cover falling snow – or vice versa.

“You have to be very adaptable to work on this set,” says Wrobleski. “Fortunately for me, the Heartland crew is unflappable. They can deal with anything that’s thrown at them. They amaze me every day.” And they have to deal with whatever’s thrown at them and wrap each one-hour episode in seven-and-a-half days. There’s little room for error. But for Wrobleski, it’s all worth it because when it works it is, in his words, “like capturing lightening in a bottle.”

That lightening is caught on Super 16 film – again, unusual in today’s world of HD television production. Although the

production team did discuss shooting the series in a digital format, they decided to stick with Super 16. “Film handles the fluctuations and extremes in light, which is important because we never know what nature is going to throw at us,” he says. “Digital doesn’t have the dynamic range or exposure latitude film has, and we want a cinematic look for the show that only film can really give us.”

Shooting with Super 16 has another advantage. The cameras are smaller and lighter, allowing Wrobleski and his splinter unit DOP, Jarrett Craig, to go virtually anywhere – from foothills to grassland to barn or paddock. As much as Wrobleski would love to shoot in 35 mm, he concedes it’s not a realistic choice for this production. Quite apart from bigger cameras, the expense would be too much for a weekly hour-long series. And the newest Kodak stock has resolved some of the issues that previously plagued 16 mm, especially the recently released 7213, which Wrobleski uses for interior scenes.

Heartland also stands out in a sea of television sitcoms and dramas with L.A. or Toronto sound stages posing as New York, Cleveland or elsewhere by not pretending to be anywhere but Alberta, Canada. The stunning location is almost a character in itself, and because of the importance of capturing the landscape, the crew employs mostly wider lenses – Angenieux Optimo 15-40, 28-76 and 24-290 zooms and Cooke S4 12-mm and 14mm primes are favourites – and Airriflex SR3 cameras, which Wrobleski calls reliable workhouses because they can go anywhere and are able to handle the hundreds of film loads each episode requires. “I love the Optimo lenses,” he says. “They’re crisp yet soft and don’t breathe much. They have a pleasing warmth to them and capture the amazing natural light of southern Alberta.”

Although every effort is made to use as much of that natural light as possible, fill is used for almost every scene. “We use fill for two reasons. The first is to ensure our cast is shot in the most flattering way possible and two, because many of our male actors are wearing Stetsons. And incidentally, this is the best crew around to get light under a cowboy hat and into the actor’s eyes.

However, we also take great pains not to over light. We want to retain a natural look”.

Since it debuted in 2008, Heartland has defied the expectations placed on many Canadian television dramas by becoming an enormous hit with a devoted following in Canada and, thanks to its website, around the world. In September of this year, 198 U.S. stations began airing the first season. Wrobleski became the series DOP last season when Malcolm Cross, DOP for the first three-and-a-half years, decided to move on. Wrobleski had done B camera work on the pilot, capturing landscapes and establishing shots, and the producers had seen 45 RPM, a short

Photo credit: Andrew Bako, courtesy of Rescued Horse Season Four Inc.

“We were the first show in Canada to use this stock, and it’s transformed how our studio interiors look,” he says. “Kodak has tightened up the grain, something that was always a concern with 16 mm. It also holds more highlight detail and has smoother, more balanced colour that allows us to give our interiors a warm look, which further adds to that cinematic feel we strive for.” For exteriors, Wrobleski prefers Kodak 50 daylight stock.

“Film handles the fluctuations and extremes in light, which is important because we never know what nature is going to throw at us,” Greg Wrobleski csc

film that Wrobleski had been involved with, at the Calgary Film Festival. So his work was known and his visual style deemed perfect for Heartland.

“I’m a different kind of cinematographer,” he says. “I didn’t follow the typical union route, so I didn’t learn from mentors.

I figured things out for myself over a long period of time, and I have my own unique approach.” Wrobleski’s atypical route began at 18 when he enrolled in a two-year broadcasting program at Mount Royal College in Calgary. A music lover, he thought a radio career would be the perfect fit. He quickly realized it wasn’t, and television didn’t appeal to him either until an introduction to television course at the end of his first year. It’s then he got his hands on a video camera.

Canadian Cinematographer - December 2010 •

11

“It was weird. I just knew immediately what to do with it. I was fascinated and quickly became obsessed with light and images.”

He completed the course and landed a part-time job as a studio cameraman with the CTV affiliate in Calgary, doing mostly news and weather. One day between news shows, he saw a copy of American Cinematographer and, to kill time, flipped through it.

“My first impression was ‘Wow! This is something I could do,’” he says. “I had no idea until then the power of visual storytelling, lighting and the collaborative process of filmmaking.”

Not enjoying working in a dark studio every day, he quit after a year and became involved with a community of freelancers in the Calgary area. He volunteered for any film job he could get, anything to get on set. He didn’t make a penny for a year, but slowly he began to pick up camera jobs and, over the next 16 years, worked on a wide variety of projects – music videos, corporate films, commercials, television movies, indie projects, the Commonwealth Games – in a variety of formats, including 35-mm film, 16-mm film, 8-mm film, Betacam, 24p NTSC and HD video and multi-camera mobiles. “I wouldn’t trade that experience for anything because I was constantly learning new ways of doing things,” he says. “It was a slow evolution but I found my visual voice.”

Heartland is Wrobleski’s first television series. “It’s a new challenge because in a series, the DOP is the one constant,” he says. “We have several different directors, each with their own vision, so the DOP is the shepherd of the show’s look. I’m the one who must preserve a consistent cinematic feel.” Heartland is also one of his favourite collaborations to date. “I love building the world of Heartland,” he says. “We do action sequences, drama, comedy, big and small moments. And as I keep saying, this crew is unparalleled. Along with Jarrett (who also operates the B camera), A-camera operator Rudy Katkic, focus pullers Kirk Chiswell and Schane Godon and second assistants Chris Bang and David Gordon really make my job so much easier, as do gaffer Martin Keogh and key grip Rick Schmidt and their crews. Alberta has some of the best in the business.”

12 • Canadian Cinematographer - December 2010

Photos courtesy of the CBC.

Top: Amber Marshall. Bottom: Michelle Morgan with Nathaniel Arcand. “I enjoy everything about this job, the crews, the cast, the location and the challenges,” Craig Wrobleski csc

Wrobleski, however, is frustrated that so many of his colleagues are being forced to leave the province due to dwindling opportunities and a lack of provincial support for the industry. “The Alberta government doesn’t believe in the same incentives as Ontario or B.C. and it doesn’t seem to recognize how critical the financial element is. It relies on the amazing landscapes to draw U.S. business, but doesn’t realize that Montana and New Mexico also have amazing Western landscapes. It’s a shame because U.S. productions also come to Alberta for the crews. These guys are the most experienced in the world shooting Westerns. But they’re starting to leave the province.”

Fortunately, the CBC is happy to shoot in Alberta, and Wrobleski is happy to be just a 45-minute drive away from his own small ranch, south of Calgary. “I enjoy everything about this job,” he says, “the crews, the cast, the location and the challenges. And yes, even the horses. Every morning when I drive into the Heartland ranch, I get a buzz. There’s really nothing like it.”

Canadian Cinematographer - December 2010 •

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M Th e

an

Who Inve nted

A M I X An Int ervie w with

G

m e ra

s c c n o s u g r e F e

By Wyndham Wise

T

he IMAX story is one of inventiveness, experimentation and ultimate success. Conceived by freelance cinematographer Graeme Ferguson csc and NFB producer and director Roman Kroitor in the fall of 1967, their goal was to create the world’s most sophisticated film-projection system. As of November 2010, there are nearly 500 IMAX theatres in 45 countries. This level of corporate success has been a long time coming and what started out as a very clever idea to revolutionize film projection became a decades-long struggle to attain financial security. With the advent of digital projectors it’s just a matter of time before IMAX theatres will be found in every major market worldwide, just as Ferguson and Kroitor dreamed some 40 years ago.

Blue Planet, Destiny in Space, Deep Sea 3D and Hubble 3D. Space Station 3D, a film produced and directed by Toni Myers, Ferguson’s long-time collaborator at Imax Corporation, grossed over $80 million worldwide.

Ferguson not only co-founded IMAX, he has also been responsible for producing, directing or executive producing some of its most successful films, including North of Superior, Man Belongs to Earth, Ocean, Hail Columbia!, The Dream Is Alive,

Other awards include The Royal Canadian Academy of Arts Medal, the Canadian Government Environmental Achievement Award (for Blue Planet) and a Special Achievement Award for outstanding contributions to the Canadian Film Industry from

14 • Canadian Cinematographer - December 2010

In 1993, Graeme Ferguson was made a Member of the Order of Canada and in 1997 IMAX was awarded an Oscar for Scientific and Technical Achievement by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The Large Format Cinema Association awarded him The Kodak Vision Award in 2005. He received an honorary doctorate from the University of Bradford (U.K.) and a Doctorate of Sacred Letters from Victoria University (U. of T.).

the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television in 1986. He was awarded an Aviation Week Laurel, as well as the NASA astronauts’ personal award, the “Silver Snoopy,” for his continuing support to the space program. Ferguson has also received the IMAX Founders’ Award and is an honorary lifetime member of the CSC. He is a patron of the Toronto Film Society, a member of the DGA and the International Cinematographers Guild. In 2010 he was given the lifetime achievement award at the first Muskoka International Film Festival.

WW When and where were you born?

October 1929, in Toronto.

WW What got you interested in filmmaking? Was there any one film that influenced or inspired you?

GF Before entering University of Toronto, I had mainly seen Hollywood movies, but I had read Roger Manvell’s Film and I was eager to join the University film society to see some of the classics. There I saw Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc [1928], which brilliantly demonstrated film’s ability to tell a story through images. I also saw Maya Deren’s At Land [1944], and assisted her on a production. It was Maya who persuaded me to become a filmmaker.

When I was a student, there were essentially very few ways of learning filmmaking. The NFB established a very good program. It went across the country each year and chose about a dozen students in Canadian universities to work at the Film Board for the summer. I was at U. of T. and I was chosen as a summer student in 1951. I was assigned to the camera department. One of the other summer students in the department was Michel Brault and in the production department the summer students included Roman Kroitor, who later became my brother in law.

The re-launch of the Hubble telescope in 2009. IMAX’s Hubble 3D was released by Warner Bros. in 2010. Produced and directed by Toni Myers, Graeme Ferguson csc was the executive producer.

WW You landed in New York in the 1960s as a freelance cameraman and worked on Robert McCarty’s Rooftops of New York (1961), which received an Academy Award nomination for best short. How did you come to work on Polar Life for Expo 67?

GF Roman had asked me to consult for a day or two on Labyrinth when he was first conceiving it. I had done a fair amount of filming in the Arctic and Alaska, so it wasn’t a startling idea, but I had nothing in particular to show the committee. I showed them The Love Goddesses, which couldn’t have been more remote from what they were asking me to do. But they said okay, ‘We’ll hire you to go and wander around the Arctic, but give us a film on polar life.’ I hadn’t worked in 3D, but I thought it would be kind of nice to do the Arctic in 3D for Expo. They were designing Expo 67 at the same time that the New York World’s Fair was going on, and it had some wonderful examples of multi-image and multi-screen. Of course, there was a whole tradition of that going back through the Expos in Europe and the American exhibit in Moscow. A lot of people had been working on this idea. It really goes back to the beginning of cinema.

WW When and where was the idea for IMAX hatched?

GF It was right after Expo. I was up in Montreal in August, and Expo had been very popular. It was obvious to us that there was a big audience for large-format films. It wasn’t just because it was multi-screen. It was because the screens were bigger; because we had more projectors to fill the screens. I was at Roman’s house one afternoon, and he and I were discussing the fact this was a very successful but very cumbersome way to project films. We asked each other, ‘Wouldn’t it be better to have a single, largeformat projector to fill a large screen? Obviously the next step Canadian Cinematographer - December 2010 •

15

was to have a larger film format, larger than anything that had been tried. We talked for about an hour, and within that hour we had sketched out the screen size that could be used and the film format that would be capable of filling it. The idea of a horizontal, 65-mm film format with 15- or 16-perf pull across was really worked out in the first few minutes. We said to ourselves, ‘Let’s invent this new medium.’

To do that, we needed a company. When I made Polar Life, I chose a very experienced businessman, an old high school colleague named Robert Kerr. He printed all the reserve seat tickets for the Maple Leaf Gardens in those days. He was also the mayor of Galt. I asked Robert to be my business partner. He had never made films before, but Polar Life was not only a very popular film, we actually made it for less than the budget. So we made a bit of money from it. I called Robert, and we met in my office in New York one evening. The three of us decided to set up a company. Robert lived in Galt, Roman lived in Montreal and I was in New York. We didn’t even have a headquarters. We started out with three people in three different locations. I think if you look at the incorporation date, it would be September, 1967. We did that all within a few weeks.

WW Where does the name IMAX come from?

GF It came a year or two later. We first called the company Multiscreen Corporation, because that was what people knew us as. After about a year, our attorney informed us that we could never copyright or trademark Multivision. It was too generic.

The words that you can copyright are words like Kleenex or Xerox or Coca Cola. We were sitting at lunch one day in a Hungarian restaurant in Montreal and we worked out a name on a placemat. We kept working with the idea of maximum image.

We turned it around and came up with IMAX. WW How did you transform your idea into a working model?

GF Neither Roman, Robert or I were engineers or even very technically oriented or skilled, but we knew what technology we would need. One of the things we knew was that you couldn’t

take a standard movie projector and just scale the whole thing up and run a big film. So we knew that we would need to find a new projector movement. Roman and I had gone out to Los Angeles to look at a movement that was being used in some high-speed printers. One evening we were at dinner with an old friend, Jean-Philippe Carson. Jean-Philippe and I had worked together in film in my freelance days and now he was running the Eclair Corporation of America. He said he had just read a little, one-paragraph extract in a publication that described a new film movement that had been invented in Australia. We said this looks interesting, why don’t we find out about it?

Jean-Philippe and Robert called on the inventor, Ron James, in Brisbane. I think Ron was essentially a man who serviced projectors; a very bright man. Jean-Philippe and Robert flew to Australia and acquired the patent rights to his invention. We didn’t have much money, so we paid for it over time. He had a set amount he wanted. I don’t remember the exact amount, but it was a rather odd number. We asked, ‘Why do you want that?’ He said, ‘I want to build a little house up in the hills and that is the amount it will cost me to build it.’ He was in his sixties and he wanted to retire. So we paid him the amount over time and then for the rest of his life he continued to consult with us, helping us develop his invention, which he called a Rolling Loop.

WW Now you had the idea and a patent, but how did you actually build the projector with its Rolling Loop?

GF Not being terribly smart, we thought we would just find somebody to build the projector for us. After thinking about it for a couple of weeks, we became more astute and we came to the conclusion we would need an engineer. And who was the best engineer? That was Bill Shaw. Bill had been in the same high school as Robert and myself in Galt and was now the chief engineer at CCM, which in those days was the principle builder of sports equipment in Canada. Robert and I went to see Bill and asked him to quit his job and come to work for us. We had no money, but we had an idea for the world’s most sophisticated motion picture projector and the most sophisticated camera.

This was the challenge.

Bill quit his job at CCM and came over to us in 1968. The interesting thing is that we were all in our forties and it has been said since then that we would never have done this earlier or later in life, because each of us had had a successful career up to that point and we were confident in our abilities. When someone is in their forties, it’s a very good time to try something new. For us, it was a very good moment.

Graeme Ferguson’s The Dream Is Alive

16 • Canadian Cinematographer - December 2010

Bill had never been in a projection booth when we hired him, so the first thing he did was study conventional projectors. He had no preconceived notions of how a projector should work.

Bill knew that McMaster University [in Hamilton, Ontario] had a program to support private industry. If a company wanted to develop something new, it could be done at McMaster in conjunction with its engineering faculty. They took us under their wing and gave us a lab and a supervising professor. The first projector was built at McMaster. It was the one that went

Blue Planet

Photo credit: Imax. Courtesy of the Smithsoian Institution / Lockheed Corp.

The Space Shuttle flight STS-29, 1989. “Some time in the 1980s we got interested in taking the cameras into space… to try and do different things with the medium,” Graeme Ferguson csc

Canadian Cinematographer - December 2010 •

17

to Osaka for the World’s Fair in 1970 and later shipped back to Ontario Place.

WW Ontario Place, with its geodesic dome and large-screen theatre, was built on the Toronto waterfront directly after Expo.

GF We had money from Fujifilm for the World’s Fair, which helped build the projector. We also received a small amount of money from the federal government, but we were very short of money. We could see that we would have difficulty in meeting the company payroll very soon. I went to Chris Chapman [the Toronto filmmaker who had made the Oscar-winning, large-screen multi-image A Place to Stand for the Ontario pavilion at Expo] and told him we were in trouble and might go under. He said, ‘There’s something going on that you may not know about, and it might be helpful. The Ontario government is building Ontario Place. There will be a large-screen theatre and the architect is Ed Ziedler. They haven’t figured out exactly what they are going to show, but they do want a large-screen theatre.’ Chris set up a meeting with James Ramsay, who was the civil servant who oversaw the building of the Ontario pavilion at Expo and he was now overseeing the building of Ontario Place. We would bring the projector back from Japan and have a wide-angle lens designed for it.

That theatre would become the prototype for all IMAX theatres today, with its deep-slopped seats and surround sound. Not only did Ramsay buy the projector from us, but he commissioned the first IMAX film for Ontario Place. He was commissioning films from Ontario filmmakers to cover various parts of the province.

He divided up the province, and each filmmaker was given a section. He said, ‘You can have from Wawa to the Manitoba border and up to, but not including, the shoreline of Hudson’s Bay,’ because he had given that to another filmmaker. I had never been given a film with less detailed instructions, which is great for a filmmaker because the less detail you get, the more freedom you have.

WW That film was North of Superior, which was basically your film, wasn’t it?

GF I produced, directed, shot and edited it.

WW It set a standard, creating a new way of experiencing cinema, and it was hugely popular with the audiences. The motion of swooping over the cliff, everyone remembers that. The audience would experience a sudden drop, like a rollercoaster ride.

better mouse trap and the world will come to your door the next morning. In fact, they will beat the way to your door about five years later. That’s how it really works. There are many inventions, like Xerography, which took many, many years between the invention and its widespread use. What happened is that the film industry did not go to Osaka. Once we got to Ontario Place, however, exhibitors, producers and directors began to come to see what we had and determine whether they could use it. We had many discussions with studios and filmmakers. Most were initially promising, but it would always bog down over the time it would take to build enough theatres to make our invention practical.

WW If Ontario Place was beginning to look like a one-shot thing and you didn’t have the capital to pop these theatres across the countryside, what kept you in business?

GF It was a deep searching look into ourselves. Within a couple of years, a few people came along and said they wanted to use IMAX. One of the first was the U.S. government, who put it into Expo 74 in Spokane, Washington, and Roman and I produced a film that I directed called Man Belongs to Earth with Chief Dan George. Again, it was successful.

Roman had previously made Lonely Boy, and Paul Anka’s manager had subsequently become the owner of the Ringling Bros. Barnham and Bailey Circus. Roman persuaded him to put an IMAX theatre in the Circus World theme park [located in Polk County, Florida], and he commissioned Roman to make a film called Circus World in 1974. So we had a couple of things that kept us going, but the money kept getting thinner and thinner and we finally had to face the fact we had failed in our efforts to attract a big financier. In the spring of 1974 we decided to change the company’s strategy and find customers one by one, customers who could put our projectors in theatres such as Ontario Place and Circus World. Places that didn’t rely on a chain. The second thing we tried to do was to make films that explored the medium. For example, somewhere in the 1980s we got interested in taking the cameras into space.

WW You directed and produced, or served as a consulting producer, on a series of IMAX films focusing on the NASA space program, including Hail Columbia! (1982), The Dream Is Alive (1985), Blue Planet (1990), Destiny in Space (1994) and Space Station 3D (2002).

GF In the days of Cinerama that was called a Kinesthetic effect.

I knew that I had that tool, because Robert Gaffney, who I had gone to for advice on the camera, had done extremely successful work on Fortress of Peace [1964] and Sky over Holland [1967].

He had taken a 70-mm camera and put it in the nose of an airplane and made people airsick. So we knew we had a tool that we could use.

GF It’s just about exploring what the medium can do. If you look at Roman’s films and my films, you’ll see that it’s a common thread to try and do different things with the medium.

People kept telling us nobody would sit still for 90 minutes and watch an IMAX film. We were told this endlessly. Our original concept was to make feature films. So we made feature-length films, if not traditional features. One was Rolling Stones at the Max [1991] and the other was Titanica [1995], both 90minute films. One was a concert film and the other a docudrama directed by Stephen Low.

However, the reaction time to anything is always rather longer than the inventor can ever imagine. You think you have built a

WW I want to talk about selling your business to U.S. interest. Was this your only choice?

18 • Canadian Cinematographer - December 2010

Stephen Low’s Titanica

Rolling Stones at the Max

GF If you go back to 1967, we understood from the beginning that we must make films that would appeal to audiences worldwide. So from day one, it was never our intent to make the medium for Canada alone. We always saw ourselves as an international company. By the late 1980s, we still had no significant financing. We were still the owners and we were all turning 60 at that point. We said we’ve got to turn the company over to the new generation of management, and ideally an owner/manager.

We set up a serious search to move the company into its next phase. We explored options in Canada, Japan and the U.S.

GF It was only when Stephen Low, Colin’s son, made The Last Buffalo for Expo 90 that it really dawned on us that IMAX 3D was a major element in our future. With that one film, theatres began to convert to 3D. I was quite surprised how fast they converted, and to this day we are building more 3D theatres than 2D and the trajectory in that direction. One of the challenges for the company right now is to get more 3D films into production, so we can supply films for those theatres.

Brad Wechsler and Richard Gelfond were different from the others we looked at. They were quite a bit younger. They had some motion picture background. Brad was on the board of MGM, but their main background was in finance. They worked on Wall Street and they brought the enthusiasm of youth. They had the drive, maybe the original drive we had ourselves. It worked out with Brad and Rich and with Douglas Trumble [the special-effects wizard]. Within weeks they had secured major debt financing, so for the first time there was money in the bank.

They took the company public on NASDAQ and the Toronto Stock Exchange, all within six or seven months. When people ask me if I made the right decision, I say if I had to make it over again today, I would make the same decision.

WW What do you see for the future of the process you set in motion nearly 45 years ago?

WW In the early part of this decade you switched from a producing role to that of an executive producer on Deep Sea, Under the Sea 3D and Hubble 3D. Would you briefly describe this role change and your involvement with these films?

GF Shortly after we sold the company, I turned over the leadership of my film unit to Toni Myers who had started with me as assistant editor on Polar Life. She has directed and produced all the recent films, and I have helped her out, most recently on Hubble 3D. WW With the success of such blockbusters as Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Night and James Cameron’s Avatar 3D, both of which incorporate the IMAX process, do you now feel IMAX has now reached its full potential?

GF As soon as we can get enough bandwidth, you’ll see IMAX 3D in every living room and eventually an IMAX 3D camera in every smart phone.

CREDITS INCLUDE: Rooftops of New York 1961 (ph); The Legend of Rudolph Valentino 1961 (d/co-sc); Love Goddesses 1965 (co-p/co-sc); Polar Life 3D 1967 (co-p/d/ph); The Virgin President 1969 (d/co-sc); North of Superior 1971 (co-p/d/ph/ed); Circus World 1974 (ph); Snow Job 1974 (p/d); Man Belongs to Earth 1974 (co-p/d); Ocean 1977 (p/d/ph); Hail Columbia! 1983 (p/d/ph); The Dream Is Alive 1985 (p/d); Blue Planet 1990 (p); Journey to the Planets 1993 (p); Destiny in Space 1994 (p); Into the Deep 1994 (p); L5: First City in Space 1995 (co-p); Mission to Mir 1997 (p); Space Station 3D 2002 (consulting producer); Deep Sea 2006 (exp); Under the Sea 3D 2009 (exp); Hubble 3D 2010 (exp).

Canadian Cinematographer - December 2010 •

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Tony Westman csc Shoots

Force of Nature The David Suzuki Movie

I

ntroduced as “the godfather of Canadian environmentalism,” scientist/television host/prolific author David Suzuki stands at a lectern before a capacity crowd at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts, on the campus of the University of British Columbia, wearing an open-necked red shirt emblazoned with a Haida symbol. The 75- year-old Suzuki is the picture of passionate health.

He lunges into a 90-minute lecture that is part autobiographical, part plea for the environment and part a metaphysical meditation on the history of humankind on this planet, the third rock from the sun, that we call Earth. At one point he intones, “Air is more than just a physical component of the biosphere. Air is a sacred element.” It’s part of his thesis that all living things are bound together by scientific laws and the elements, just as every particle since the Big Bang holds a minute pull on every other particle. It’s a scientific explanation for the physical force “that some people call love… and that attraction is built into the very fabric of the cosmos,” he says.

20 • Canadian Cinematographer - December 2010

By Wyndham Wise His message resonates with the capacity crowd that seems enraptured by the gentle force of his argument. He postulates the mathematical hypothesis by American astronomer Harlow Shapley that every person through the ages – from Jesus to Joan of Arc to you and me – ultimately breathes the same air, specifically atoms of argon gas, which our bodies don’t store and that we release through our breath widely to all other living things.

It’s a powerful argument – almost “trippy” in the best hippy tradition – and is the central point of Force of Nature, the latest documentary from veteran director Sturla Gunnarsson (Such a Long Journey, Air India 182), which is structured like an up-scale version of that old television series This Is Your Life.

So it comes as a bit of a surprise that the whole thing, the “legacy” lecture and the stunning rear-screen images that accompany the same, were, in fact, the brain child of the film’s director and DOP, Tony Westman csc. As Westman told Canadian Cinematographer, Gunnarsson was non-too enthusiastic about directing a documentary on the Canadian icon when first

approached by Gemini-winning executive producer Laszlo Barna (Keep Your Head Up, Kid: The Don Cherry Story, Shake Hands with the Devil). Despite the fact that Barna had the money and theatrical deal in place and permission from Suzuki to make the film – a deal most filmmakers would give their eye teeth for – Gunnarsson was not convinced that such a public figure as Suzuki, Canada’s best-known scientist, environmental activist and host of CBC’s long-running The Nature of Things, was a viable subject. Surely he was overexposed and there was nothing new to say, Gunnarsson reasoned.

However, he was willing to a least to explore the possibility of coming up with something original. So in March 2009, he and Westman travelled to Quadra Island, off the east coast of Vancouver Island, where Suzuki has a home, and filmed a speech he gave to the Chamber of Commerce in Campbell River. After the event, both Gunnarsson and Westman were invited back to Suzuki’s house for dinner. Still not convinced, it was not until their trip back to Vancouver that night where the pair traded ideas and came up with an approach that worked for both of them. They would stage a lecture at UBC, complete with a multimedia slide show, which would provide the narrative structure of the film. This would be complemented by footage of Suzuki visiting parts of his past that were important to him and informed his worldview.

This is where the film excels. Gunnarsson and Westman expertly inject scenes of Suzuki as he visits a memorial of an internment camp like the one his family and other Japanese-Canadians were sent to in the British Columbia interior during the Second World War. They follow him to Leamington, Ontario (after their internment, all Japanese-Canadians were deported from BC), where he developed his love of fishing and exploring swamps, at first due to the alienation he felt growing up as the only non-white kid in a small town.

Another revelatory turn is the ethical crisis Suzuki had in his early scientific career working in a genetics lab in Tennessee, when he came to deplore applications of science that in so many ways destroyed nature. Also the blatant racism of 1960’s American South eventually drove him back to Canada and the safer confines of the University of British Columbia, where he became a tenured professor from 1963 until his retirement in 2001.

Other side trips include a visit to a memorial ceremony in Hiroshima, site of the first use of an atomic bomb against civilians and the home of his ancestors, and Haida Gawii, where Suzuki took part in the successful Native-led protests to stop the logging in the pristine wilderness in the 1980s.

The American-born Westman and Icelandic-born Gunnarsson have been friends for years and began working together in 1993 on The Diary of Evelyn Lau, the award-winning CBC drama starring a young Sandra Oh. Since then they have made halfa-dozen television dramas and documentaries, including The Ricky Nelson Story (1999), Scorn (2000) and Air India 182 (2008), about the terrorist bombing of the Air India flight in 1985. That one won the DGC Award for excellence in documentary in 2009. Westman was given the CSC Award for

On the left, DOP Tony Westman csc; on the right David Suzuki, host of CBC’s The Nature of Things. The idea for Force of Nature was to have Suzuki give his lecture on stage while images, projected on a 40x20-foot screen behind him, complimented the text.

best cinematography in a television series in 2002 for his work on the series UC: Undercover.

Westman admits that staging the lecture was a bit of a “mad plan,” which producer Barna had not factored into the budget.

Previously he had done something similar at Expo 86 when working for a Vancouver design company. The idea was to have Suzuki on stage while images, projected on a 40x20-foot screen by two “piggy-backed video projectors,” complimenting the text of the lecture. Gunnarsson and Suzuki worked on the text together, going through dozens of drafts. The Chan Centre was booked for a date in December 2009, and essentially the filmmakers made two recordings, one in the afternoon with students in attendance to work out the bugs, and another in the evening for the up-scale crowd seen in the finished film.

Westman chose to use a Panasonic 3000 digital camera and during the lecture employed four camera assistants, Nicholas McKenzie, Reg Cole, Robert Simpson and April Hall, and three operators, Robin Forst, Brenton Spencer and CSC associate member Kirk Tougas. Throughout the rest of the shoot Westman served as his own operator and Kim Macnaughton was his first assistant in Canada. Additional photography was by John Holosko csc and A.J. Vesak, and the post was done at Deluxe Toronto.

Force of Nature won the first Documentary Award at TIFF 2010 and was enthusiastically received at its screening during the Vancouver International Film Festival. It went straight into theatrical release by eOne, and the producers are now negotiating a U.S. release, not an easy thing given the current hostile political climate. Will Americans warm to a Canadian advocate of climate change when the ascending Right, despite all the evidence confirming that human beings are negatively affecting the planet’s health, is still in deep denial? It remains an open question. But there’s little doubt this handsome documentary about one of Canada’s best-known and best-loved figures will have a long life in its own country and it has a good shot at taking the best documentary prize at the Genie Awards in 2011.

Canadian Cinematographer - December 2010 •

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Fujinon XA17X7.6 BERM-M48 HD Lens in new condition, bought and mounted but never used. As new in box (camera is sold), $7,900. Panasonic Digital AV mixer WJ-MX50 (missing a few knobs from the lower right corner on the audio mixer), $400. JVC TN-9U 9-inich colour monitor, $60. Photos available for everything. Contact: johnbanovich@gamail.com or 604-726-5646.

For Sale 28-Foot Black Camera Trailer with new brakes and tires, 20-foot awning, dark room, viewing lounge, two countertops with lots of storage space, heating and air conditioned, side windows and three access doors. Contact: jwestenbrink@rogers.com Digital audio natural sound effects library for sale, recorded in various countries. All recorded on VHS digital with analog audio search on audio channel 1 and time code on audio channel 2. Completely catalogued by time code and includes Sony PCM decoder. $3,500.00 OBO. Contact: rvbocking@rogers.com.

Camera Classified is a free service provided for CSC members. For all others, there is a one-time $25 (plus GST) insertion fee. Your ad will appear here and on the CSC’s website, www.csc.ca. If you have items you would like to buy, sell or rent, please email your information to editor@csc.ca.

16 – 35 mm Film Equipment for sale: Our animation studio is closing, and we are in the process of selling our equipment, here is a short list of items we have for sale: Densitometer McBeth Td903 for calculation of film density, $300. Split reel (16 and 35 mm) various sizes, Moviola Rewinds, 35-mm film synchroniser, Scan-0-scope converter lens system, Scope lens to “squeeze” and “unsqueeze” anamorphic, $3,500. Tilt Plate for heavy cameras, $800. And more. Contact: Erik at 514-637-5077 or erikgo@videotron.ca.

Sony BVW-400a Betacam SP Camcorder camera used by professional cinematographer (one owner), never rented out. Comes complete with Fujinon A15x8BEVM-28 lens, Petroff matte box with 4x4 and 4x5.6 filter holders, remote zoom and focus control for lens, six Cadnica NP-1 batteries, Sony BC-1WD battery charger, Porta-Brace fitted cover with rain jacket (like new) and Sony factory hard shipping case and manuals. Lens and camera professionally maintained by factory technicians. Usage hours are: A – 1,918 hours; B – 1,489 hours; C – 4,286 hours, $10,000.00 obo. Contact: Craig Wrobleski csc at 403-995-4202

VANCOUVER CALGARY VANCOUVER 604-527-7262 CALGARY 403-246-7267 604-527-7262

403-246-7267

TORONTO

HALIFAX TORONTO902-404-3630 HALIFAX

416-444-7000

416-444-7000

Canadian Cinematographer - December 2010 •

902-404-3630

23

PRODUCTIONS & CALENDAR

Production Notes Being Human (series); DOP Pierre Jodoin csc; to December 6, Montreal Chaos (series); DOP Attila Szalay csc, hsc; to April 29, 2011, Vancouver Dan for Mayor II (series): DOP Milan Podsedly csc; OP Peter Battistone; to December 8, Toronto Final Destination 5 (feature); DOP Brian Pearson csc; OP John Clothier; 2nd unit DOP Roger Vernon csc; to December 14, Vancouver Fringe III (series); DOP David Moxness csc & Thomas Yaksko (alternating episodes); OP Chris Tammaro; to April 1, 2011, Vancouver Haunting Hour (series); DOP Michael Balfry csc; OP Dale Jehraus; to January 21, 2011, Burnaby, BC Heartland IV (series); DOP Craig Wrobleski csc; OP Rudy Katkic; to December 17, Calgary Hiccups II (series); DOP Ken Krawczyk csc; OP Daryl Hartwell; to December 1, Burnaby, BC Human Target II (series); DOP Robert McLachlan csc, asc; OP Junichi Hosoi; to January 14, 2011, North Vancouver How to Be an Indie II (series); DOP Yuri Yakubiw csc; OP Brian Harper; to December 21, Toronto King (series); DOP Luc Montpellier csc; to February 15, 2011, Toronto Nikita (series); DOP Rene Ohashi csc, asc; OP Gilles Corbeil; B Cam OP J.P. Locherer csc; to December 10, Toronto Rookie Blue II (series); DOP David Perrault csc, OP Frank Polyak; to January 21, 2011, Toronto Skins (series); DOP Mitchell Ness csc; OP Andrew Cull; to December 15, Toronto Smallville X (series); DOP Glen Winter csc & Michael Wale csc (alternating episodes); OP John Davidson; to March 22, 2011, Burnaby, BC Supernatural VI (series); DOP Serge Ladouceur csc; OP Brad Creasser; to March 31, 2011, Burnaby, BC XIII (series): DOP David Greene csc; OP Colin Hoult csc; to February 20, 2011, Toronto

Calendar of Events December 1–5, Whistler Film Festival, Whistler, BC, whistlerfilmfest.com January 20–30, Sundance Film Festival, Park City, Utah, sundance.org 24, CSC Awards entry deadline, csc.ca February 1, CSC Annual General Meeting, Toronto, Technicolor 4–13, Victoria Film Festival, Victoria BC, victoriafilmfestival.com 4–13, CSC Camera Assistant course, Toronto, csc.ca MARCH 2–6, Kingston Canadian Film Festival, Kingston ON, kingcanfilmfest.com 25–Apr. 3, Cinéfranco, Toronto, cinefranco.com 31–Apr. 9, Images Festival of Independent Film & Video, Toronto, imagesfestival.com April 2, CSC Awards, Westin Harbour Castle, Conference Centre,Toronto, csc.ca 28– May 8, Hot Docs, Toronto, hotdocs.ca MAY 14–15, CSC Lighting Workshop, Toronto, csc.ca

Subscribe to Canadian Cinematographer online www.csc.ca One-year subscriptions are available in Canada for $40.00 for individuals and $80.00 for institutions, including HST. In U.S. rates are $45.00 and $90.00 for institutions in U.S. funds. International subscriptions are $50.00 for individuals and $100.00 for institutions.

Payment by money order in Canadian funds.

24 • Canadian Cinematographer - December 2010

A CLEAR PATH THROUGH POST Format

SxS cards

Direct to Edit workflow Tape-based workflow

Format

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On-board recorder

File-based workflow

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Format

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