Several Canadian companies provided vfx for 300, including Hybride (above) and Buzz Images. Chris Watts, vfx supervisor for 300, remembered that the Montreal studios were worked to capacity. Courtesy of Warner Bros. 

True North Trends
Bond says that he sees the key trend in Canadian vfx as "more, faster, better." He adds, "It's the same trend from five years ago, and I think it will be the same trend in five more."

"I believe the scope and concept of what we do is increasing dramatically," Bond comments. "All of us have had the experience of replacing every pixel in a shot from original photography, and it seems to me that we get continued calls to build entire shots that they weren't able to capture either because of their scale, the danger in capturing something of that nature, or the fact that it simply doesn't exist. It seems that writers and directors and studios are all coming up with ideas that were inconceivable before, simply because they were un-filmable. Now, we can design and build the un-filmable. That opens a lot of doors to worlds of imagination."

"Certainly, there has been an increasing tendency for productions to move toward high volumes of 'virtual set' greenscreen shots," says Atmosphere's Hoey. "A recent example for us was the upcoming DVD release of Babylon 5: The Lost Tales. Shooting schedules and budgetary constraints made it highly cost-effective to shoot entire scenes against gree screen. Atmosphere then created CG sets and environments for less than it would have cost to build sets practically. The economics of virtual environments have been turned upside-down in recent years; it is a technique that modestly-budgeted shows can realistically employ now."

Rainmaker's Franklin says that a key trend is more work from the U.S. coming to Canadian companies. "Another trend is that companies are expanding, and will be getting more difficult work -- prime contracts rather than secondary contacts," he notes.

Buzz Image's Moodie offers, "We imagine we will continue to see the move toward big and small shops as is happening elsewhere in the world. It seems that we are shifting toward the smaller boutiques and the bigger film production houses."

"I think the industry in Canada will continue to grow," says Gray Matter's Mackay. "I think more companies will make their own movies and develop their own intellectual properties."

"This is not an easy business to be in," Mackay says. "We have to deal with decreasing budgets and increasing time constraints. The good news is that there are more opportunities and more jobs."

"In the future, we will be seeing a move to globalization," says Hybride's Raymond. "Post-production activities are easier to split, and the Internet is working a lot to advance that. Canadian companies serve a U.S. market, and it's not an easy market to serve. We need to focus on coordination and follow-up. This is what our clients are expecting, and we need to be as organized as they are."

"There are a lot of unknown factors that are going to come into play, the biggest of which will be the emergence of highly competitive, mature, high-end visual effects companies in Asia," comments Atmosphere's Hoey. "How Canadian companies will deal with the competition, there's no telling. It'll be interesting, though!"

Janet Hetherington is a freelance writer and cartoonist based in Ottawa, Canada. She shares a studio with artist Ronn Sutton and a ginger cat, Heidi.