At inMotion, we feel a certain kinship to this true-life fairy tale.  Like those visionary gents at TCMC, we are expanding to meet an escalating demand for our services.  That’s how we knew, from the moment we stepped inside the sandblasted brick-featured walls of TCMC’s renovated factory building, that we belonged there.

And so it was that we moved our Toronto office into Suite 212 in the Toronto Carpet Manufacturing Company building this week, honoring a legend for big-picture planning which began in 1899 and continues in our hearts today.

From April 16^th to April 19^th, I will be in Las Vegas attending the National Association of Broadcasters Conference.

It is one of the most exciting and fun conferences to attend.  Last year I tried to get to as many of the exhibitors as I could, and wore out many pairs of shoes in the process by walking the equivalent of several marathons (I kid -  it was only one pair of shoes!).

With inStox launched and poised for the next phase of development, my natural focus at this year’s conference will be all things related to content. I will be looking for tools and trends while sizing up our brave competitors (of course!). I will also seek out all of the slick filmmaking products available today.  Keep checking inMotion’s blog and Facebook page for updates and photos!

P.S. If you want me to check out anything or anyone in particular, send me a message. I can be your virtual attendee!

Paul Kite is President of inStox Media Labs Inc, a division of inMotion responsible for the sourcing, managing and licensing of production-quality video.  Contact Paul Kite at paul.kite@instox.ca.

We explored our hometown at all times of the day and night, ARRI Alexa in hand, to shoot this piece for the City’s revamped economic development agency, Invest Ottawa.

The award was announced during an evening gala at the Lieutenant’s Pump on Thursday, February 16th.

Jonathan and Robin recently sat down to describe their experience, and what it took (besides caffeine) to win such a tough competition.

MF: Tell me about how this challenge works.
JK: All the teams had 72 hours in which to shoot a short film following very specific rules. The theme of the film had to be “Time to Celebrate,” and we needed a character to say “Damn right, your dad drank it,” while clearly showing a bottle of Canadian Club on the screen. We also had to make a reference to Parktown Productions, shoot the final scene in front of the Lieutenant’s Pump, and use two of the five prescribed music tracks.

MF: How did you come up with such a simple, compelling story so quickly under those constraints?
RL: The original concept came from our teammate Cierra Campeau. There was not much to it, so we just used it as a base from which to work. Our team gelled perfectly, and no idea went undiscussed. It was an amazing team effort.

MF: You must have needed a lot of gear to get it done.
RL: Thanks to inMotion and its production services company, Accent PS, we were able to shoot the whole thing using an ARRI Alexa digital cinema camera.
JK: There was a Hollywood film shooting in Ottawa at the same time which had rented quite a lot of Accent’s gear, so we used the Alexa with hardly any bells and whistles. Still, we think it created the perfect look for our story.

MF: How did you manage to get everything done in such a short timeframe?
JK: We just went ahead and started shooting with a small idea, not even knowing how we were going to end the film. We started on Thursday, and it was due Sunday. We had no time to waste so we just kept going. On Saturday evening we just had epiphany after epiphany about how we were going to tell the story and, more importantly, how we were going to finish it.
RL: We finished shooting late Saturday night, had a couple of hours of sleep, woke up Sunday, and edited all day. We didn’t record sound while we were shooting, so on Sunday Val, Cierra, and Jon went out to a parking lot to record the noise of high heels and a shopping cart being pushed around.

MF: It’s amazing how well it all came together. Congrats on such a great piece, guys!
RL: Thanks. It’s been a great experience.
JK: If people would like to know more, they can listen to our CBC radio interview, recorded the morning after the competition.

“inMotion believes in boundless creativity and quality-driven customer service,” says Pat McGowan, CEO.  “From its genesis thirty-three years ago, our firm has hand-picked team members and partners who share in that vision.  Bringing Steve and Dave into that fold with the added bonus of capabilities in the audio post-production arena is a significant leap forward, and is part of our goal to become Canada’s top-ranked creative production house.”

“This opportunity could not have come at a better time for us,” says Barton.  “To be part of a production group that truly values the power of storytelling in a solid business framework is something that we are very excited to bring to Calgary.”

“We are now able to bring high end cinematic production tools like ARRI Alexa, RED Epic and Canon C300 cameras to Calgary. This is the perfect complement to our already state-of-the-art post-production capabilities” says Dierkens. “We are now part of a larger team of very talented people with a proven track record.”

The On3 acquisition continues inMotion’s upward trend of national business growth, which began with the 2009 acquisition of SandBay Pictures of Ottawa and the 2011 acquisition of Toronto-based VFX and Motion Design studio, Capricorn8. In addition inMotion has recently launched Accent PS (a high-end production rental company) and inSTOX (a stock footage house).

inMotion is an award-winning company with a history spanning more than three decades and a reputation for delivering creativity and value to a diverse slate of clients including corporate, government, institutional and broadcast.

Please address any enquiries to Pat McGowan at patm@inmotion.ca, Dave Barton at daveb@inmotion.ca,  or Steve Dierkens at steved@inmotion.ca.

The microstock industry has grown dramatically, fueled by the rise of new media and by production teams looking to augment their overall production while saving time and money. inStox services this market with a growing library of stock footage provided through a cluster of production partners, each with their own varied and distinct approach.

Paul Kite, inStox President, will build and grow this new venture. Kite has over 25 years in business management and intellectual property development.  In 2003, he co-founded and became vice-president of AFORE Solutions Inc., an award-winning cloud security provider.  His experience in marketing and intellectual property licensing qualifies him as the ideal candidate to lead inStox.

“inStox is primarily a repository of unique intellectual property and will effectively bring together producers and consumers.  As such, it requires a unique and influential leader,” said Pat McGowan, CEO of inMotion.  “We are very pleased to have discovered just such a leader in Paul.  His strategic approach to online content management and his attitude towards excellence, creativity, and a collaborative corporate environment make him a perfect fit for our company.”

“Studios, marketing agencies, independent filmmakers and ever-growing new media development firms around the world are expecting more innovation, diversity, and quality from their stock footage providers,” explains Kite.  “At inStox, we will provide unique processes for submitting, searching, purchasing and distributing video products.”

inMotion is an award-winning video and film production house with a history spanning more than three decades and a reputation for delivering creativity and value to a diverse slate of clients including corporate, government, institutional and broadcast.

Please address any enquiries about inStox or inMotion to Pat McGowan at patm@inmotion.ca or Paul Kite at paul.kite@instox.ca.

But I was thwarted: this place was completely, unequivocally empty.  I felt like I was wandering a post-apocalyptic world, with vacant office chairs still turned towards vacant doorways, as though expecting the warm, familiar rears of their owners to arrive at any moment.  In a building that usually has the muscle and velocity of a European train, this stillness was a little eery.

Here’s what inMotion sounds like without people: soft, cerebral hum of overhead ventilators, CPU fans whistling dust into the air, and the faraway trill of a fax machine moulting pages of Caribbean cruise announcements to the floor like exotic feathers.

There’s something rogue and seductive about finding yourself unexpectedly alone in a place that is usually cluttered with people.  It’s as though you’ve cheated circumstance and have somehow slipped into a little moment in time which was never meant to exist.  I think this must begin in the soft, mouldable days of early childhood, when we are constantly supervised and accompanied and escorted and shadowed by adults.  Being totally alone becomes both a terrifying and exhilarating prospect.  We wish our parents would disappear, but then when it seems like they have, we are hysterical… until we discover them calmly washing dishes in the kitchen.  We want to be alone.  But not that alone.

Which is why I felt relieved when I heard the perfunctory chirp of a car horn out in the parking lot, marking the end of my obscurity in this cavernous space.  But it’s an uncanniness that I will revisit as often as I can.  You feel differently about a building after you’ve existed inside of it solely by yourself.  As though the building has now acknowledged you, personally.

Just as Nietzche said, when you gaze long into the inMotion studio, the inMotion studio gazes into you.

Entering the professional world in any field is a scary thing.  The fear (mingled with excitement) is heightened in the film or multimedia industries, where you must prove yourself at every step. A good way to combat this fear is to become the dreaded Intern. For people like myself, though, being an intern is a freedom unlike any other.  It’s a privilege to be taken in and shown the ropes from industry professionals.  In my case, these professionals preside here at inMotion – a place that I will call home for the next six weeks.

I chose to intern at inMotion because of its background and focus.  They have proven themselves to be a respected industry powerhouse that, to my knowledge, has limitless creative ability.  The team at inMotion also drew my attention.  As a young up-and-comer, I want to work with people I can relate to—people who aren’t intimidating—and inMotion provides just that.  The team here is young and driven, just like me.

Today is my first day and I have yet to feel out of place, which goes a long way in an industry so full of well-known people.  As I walked into the studio, I couldn’t help being a little intimidated by the bright lights, high ceilings and long, dark conference tables.  That intimidation melted away once I met the team, seemingly around every corner, who were so willing to introduce themselves and help in any capacity.

As a writing student from Algonquin College, I’m not sure of my expectations coming into inMotion; my only hope is to gain experience that will prepare me for my long and prosperous career in the vast field of multimedia (fingers crossed!).  Preparedness is necessary in order for this experience to be useful.  Sure, I’ve written a few scripts and blogged a few scribbles, but am I really prepared to work with professionals who do this seven days a week? I believe so, but only time will tell.  Luckily, I have six weeks to find out.

Many people have fond childhood memories of falling asleep to the sound of their parent’s voice reading a favourite book, or the thrilling freedom of finally riding a bicycle, leaving behind those unwanted training wheels.  Some proudly remember their elementary school graduation day, or anxiously preparing for their first date.  Some can even vividly recall their first kiss.  But I can’t.  I have no memories of how I felt during my first kiss (no offence J.B.), but I can tell you that Get It Together by the Beastie Boys (from their 1994 studio album Ill Communication, track 7) was playing in the background when it happened.  It was at a house party and I was fourteen.

I remember my mother teaching me the cha cha (a very popular dance enjoyed at Vietnamese weddings, by the way) to the delicious latin-flavoured sounds of Oye Como Va by Santana.  I remember watching my dad drum on phone books to Hey Joe by none other than the great Jimi Hendrix.  My life is a playlist.  I shop, buy groceries, and write project schedules with headphones on.  I have a different playlist for rushing in the morning and decompressing at night.  I even have a playlist for writing RFPs.  Music is a part of me.  It’s a lifeline I can’t survive without.  It is a powerful art form capable of evoking every human emotion in the spectrum and I am confident in stating that it is the ONLY art form that is globally loved by everyone.

Now, people often say that you only get one great love in your life.  I’ve been very fortunate to have two: music and film.  And to combine the two makes my heart explode.  I take great comfort in being surrounded by audiophiles.  One can walk through our studio to find most of the staff bopping to the musical score of an online edit or immersed in a carefully crafted playlist while storyboarding or blogging (I’m presently listening to Abbey Road as I write this.  Mean Mister Mustard is playing.)  We exchange songs like hockey cards in between exports, uploads and deliveries to our clients, though when it’s crunch time, the songs are paused and we get down to business.  The inMotion team welcomes all projects with enthusiasm and then tackles and executes them wholeheartedly.  But on one fine July morning, our hearts did indeed explode with glee: inMotion was asked to produce our first music video, ‘Long Days’, by country music artist, Jeff Callery.

Each team member brought a fresh vibe and new perspective to the video and it was during one of our creative meetings when I really noticed how differently we approach a new project despite having the same goal.  Our production manager envisioned the video in the form of schedules and call sheets.  Our editor heard rhythms, beats and pacing.  Our make-up artist painted shades of skin tones and selected complimentary wardrobe colours.  Because I live a life of music, I deeply related to the song’s passion.  Our client is the lovely and very talented Jeff Callery.  He is childhood friend of Sarah Fodey, inMotion’s vice-president, and he recently gave up his career and business in life insurance management to rediscover what gets him out of bed in the morning: music.

This film involved two days of shooting, packed with laughter, hard work, an incredible cast and crew, and some very adorable children.  On the second day of shooting, as I hid under Jeff’s coat that draped over the monitor, ten feet away from the train tracks where we had our last set up, my eyes welled with tears of bliss.  I realized that ‘Long Days’ is now a part of Jeff’s life soundtrack.  It is a song that marks a terrifyingly exhilarating moment in his life and a euphoric moment in mine and I am honoured to have taken part in Jeff’s return to passion.

 - Han Nguyen

Go behind the scenes in Jeff Callery’s “Long Days” music video:

We are very fortunate to have the best tools in the industry to produce our projects. The Arri Alexa can record images in a similar way celluloid film behaves under a scanner. This means the camera has 14 stops of exposure latitude. This helped us tremendously with the consecutive overcast days we endured. We were left shooting with fog, clouds and rain. With the Alexa we were able to gather enough information in the blacks to easily push them into warmer and brighter tones in post production to recreate a bright day.

Here are a couple of examples of the work we did during post-production to enhance the picture’s colour:

The team worked so well together that this terrible weather was only a slight inconvenience. We each had our assigned tasks; however, everyone kept an eye open on the final composition. When the entire team is crowding around the field monitor you know everyone has full attention to detail. It was a great feeling knowing we were all part of a team that was dedicated to capturing the best images possible.

The plan was to shoot the entire project at 48 frames per second instead of the usual 24. This meant that Jeff had to play twice as fast so we could match the vocals and guitar strumming in the post-production phase when slowing it down to 50%. Back in the edit bay, the entire team was in awe as we watched the raw unedited clips. The talented Jeff Callery never missed a beat and the clips synced up perfectly to the master track.

- Robin Leveillé

Take a look at the final product:

The taxi deposits you outside of a building you hardly recognize, though you’ve been here before.  The parking lot has been transformed into a dazzling Hollywood boulevard.  It’s like the whole building holds its arms out to you, folds you inside. You step onto a red carpet, framed by velvet stanchions under the canopy of a sweeping white tent.  A photographer with a halo of curly brown hair asks if you would like your picture taken and you strike a pose, feeling the evening extend lavishly before you.  The sound of the party boils out from the building doors.  You recognize familiar voices, the staccato laugh of a long-lost friend.  Suddenly, you can’t wait to be in there.

They know you at the door, where inMotion’s Amanda Barakat greets you with a dazzling smile and hands you a nametag in company colours.  You step into the building like a child into Narnia, hardly believing how it all looks.  Christmas trees wrapped in white lights shimmer in the corner.  Where there had once been desks, computers, rolling chairs, and bricks of printer paper stacked against the wall, you now discover an enormous buffet, reaching into the room like a waiter’s arm.  You taste fresh, buttery shrimp, barbecued chicken, a baked brie that weakens you at the knees as you scoop it onto a disk of fresh French bread.  For now, you are happy just to enjoy the flavour of the party, the glowing faces around you, the tide of voices and laughter and music that crests against you.

Then someone touches your arm and you turn to see your friends, bright with eagerness, friends who haven’t seen you in ages, friends who have been waiting for you, scanning the crowd for your face.  They guide you through the buzzing crowd to the bar, where you order the signature martini.  The bartender places a glass in your hand garnished with red sugar and the classic inMotion play button, cut from Jello.  You take a tentative sip and for a moment you picture the party from above—it’s a game you play when you feel explosively happy, when the building just isn’t large enough to contain all of its own potential.  You imagine removing the roof and looking down at all the party guests, mingling, churning, moving between the walls.  Like toys, and just as carefree.  It’s a joy to open your eyes and come back down, come back to the party, which has only just started, after all.  The whole night remains ahead of you.

You discover the band much later, drawn by a single sultry voice that stretches like a cat into the hallway, long and luxurious.  You follow it around a corner and into the studio, where a feeling of surprise pins you to the wall for just a moment as you struggle to reorient yourself.  This is no longer the shooting studio you came to know; this is a jazz lounge, straight from the pure heart of an era you never knew but instinctively recognize.  People sit or stand around candlelit tables, drinks forgotten by their sides, watching a jazz band play like it’s the only one left on earth.  Surely the vocalist has been transported here from the nineteen-forties; she lifts her voice like a torch singer, her glamourous red dress catching flecks of gold cast by two production lights, which gaze at her as devotedly as her audience.  This is Paula McGowan, singer by night and inMotion office manager by day.  It’s an amazing thought.  You sink into the music, grateful, thirsty for it.  You try to imagine the inMotion headquarters on a regular morning—Wednesday, for example, the most banal of all days—and you give up.  Tonight, this is a whole different world.

Time folds in half and suddenly hours have gone by, just like that.  The band stops for a break, but their spell hangs over the room as people turn to one another with dazed looks – could you believe that?

You head for fortification at the open bar, and though it’s only down the hall, the journey takes you nearly an hour—and you love it intensely.  There are so many people who want to talk with you.  So many inMotion folks scattered through the crowd, reaching out, seizing you in bone-crushing embraces.

It’s after midnight and everyone has that sparkling, collaborative feeling, like we’re all in this together, rocking the house. Pat McGowan, inMotion’s magnificent patriarch, wanders through the crowd slapping people on the back and glowing from the inside out.  This is his building, his vision; I see him take a moment with his front-office team, the ladies of inMotion, who flank him on the red carpet for a final photograph of the night. A dance party breaks out in the tent; someone shouts a toast and others repeat it, voices hoarse from the extravagance of the night, glasses clinking and spilling in the air above our heads.

When the chauffeurs arrive to shepherd us home, it’s hard to believe time has passed so quickly.  Before you are willing to leave you extract several promises from inMotion staffers that they’ll hold another party next year.  Your ribs ache from so many bear hugs.  You twist in the back of the chauffeur’s car to watch the building retreat in the distance, the tent standing boldly next to it, its soaring peaks extending towards the sky.

Only 364 more days to wait til the next one.

In Mrs. Dalloway, the masterpiece-slash-doorstop (depending on your point of view) by Virginia Woolf, readers hang out with the heroine and her entourage as they prepare for a party. As you might know, we, too, are preparing for a party, and you are invited. Wherever she is, toying with the rocks in her pockets and looking down upon us, I think Virginia would approve. We are following her criteria, after all. Like Clarissa Dalloway, we have to-do lists and cleaning supplies and long, breathless run-on sentences which, in our case, are punctuated by explosions of undignified laughter as we try (and reliably fail) to straighten four Christmas trees in their plastic stands.

Woolf’s novel opens like this: “Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself” (1).

Our own story is similar: “Han and Amanda said they would buy the Christmas trees themselves, from that place in the Ikea parking lot where they give part of their sales to Tree Canada (a nice thing to do). Plus: Fifty-cent Ikea hot dogs! But there was no clerk on duty accepting money, and certainly no one to help them lug the six-foot Balsam Firs into the back of the production van. Luckily Amanda works out precisely twenty-three times a week (to make up for the rest of us) so she piled them on her shoulders and jogged all the way home while Han piloted the van next to her and sang the Swedish anthem as encouragement.”  I think that’s pretty much what Virginia Woolf was trying to say.

Later on, Mrs. Dalloway explains, “What a lark! What a plunge!” (1).

For her part, Amanda said, “I will never volunteer for this again.”

Fortunately she persevered, and, like Clarissa, we are watching the makings of a fabulous night spring up around us: a tent and a red carpet, a jazz band with a heartbreaking singer, a forest of Poinsettias arranged like exquisite gifts along the bar. The walls have a fresh coat of paint and the bathrooms are stocked to the gills with four-ply (not mentioned in Mrs. Dalloway, but I’m sure Clarissa thought about it).

We have stood in the doorway and squinted into the building, trying to see it through new eyes, through the eyes of our guests, eyes that have not grown used to the essential clutter of a busy production house. All offensive items have been removed – the binders, the staplers, the hole punchers and swan-neck desk lamps and stacks of mailing labels. To fill the space left behind, we have again turned to Ol’ Virgie, who twitched her distinctive nose and spoke thusly: “A million candles burnt in him without his being at the trouble of lighting a single one” (Orlando, 92).

So we went to Wal-Mart and bought a million tea lights, although we will almost certainly have to light them all ourselves.

And now, ladies and gents, we are very nearly ready. Bring your thirst and your curiosity and, for heaven’s sake, your dancing shoes. We will have photographers standing by to snap professional pictures of you & yours. We will have bartenders pouring ice-cold drinks without taking a cent from you (except for tips, because, like Tree Canada, bartenders need help too). We will have music and hors d’oeuvres and velvet stanchions (do you know what those are? Because until yesterday, we didn’t). And when you risk going numb from an overdose of festivities and good cheer, we have drivers standing by to shuttle you safely home, wherever you live in the area.

Please come.  If you don’t, we be forced, like a Woolfian invention, to hold our cracked, empty hearts in our hands and endure “the hours after the party, and the hours after that.”

But if you DO, oh!  The memories we will create together! The fun we will have! Enough to fill our beating hearts from now until next Christmas.

It’s still not too late to RSVP.

To learn more about the people you’ll work with when you work with inMotion, visit our first profile piece. This series will be updated regularly, so don’t go far.

[I dropped in at the vet hospital right across the street last week to pick up some cat food, and when I pointed out where I worked the receptionist got the eager look of someone about to solve a lingering puzzle. What do you guys do in there? I looked out the window with her. Oversized shadows lurked on the other side of inMotion's frosted windows, and a vase of flowers glowed neon-bright against the creamy glass. It looked like some kind of abandoned lobotomy lab. I just smiled archly and left with my kibble.]

At last, though, we are branded to the nines, and this is good for different reasons. The vet staff have their answer, and our driving directions sound less creepy.

This is the latest in a series of ambitious acquisitions for Accent, located with inMotion at 891 Boyd Avenue, in Ottawa.

“We are responding to a growing need, not only in the Ottawa-Gatineau region but across the country,” says Patrick McGowan, President of Accent and inMotion. “Thanks to these cameras, Accent can now put the world’s best cinematic tools in the hands of the industry’s most talented digital filmmakers.”

These ultra high-end camera systems, lauded internationally for their unmatched technical sophistication, join a production services department that already offers some of the region’s best and most sought-after tools, including:

• A full complement of high-end lenses and accessories
• A 1,000 square foot soundstage
• A state-of-the-art audio recording environment
• A fully integrated and networked digital workflow infrastructure

“What we’re undertaking here at Accent is having a major positive impact across the industry in our region,” explains Greg Pilsworth, Accent Production Services Manager. “The cinema tools of Hollywood used to be exclusive only to Hollywood, but now we’re bringing them to Ottawa. We have the best in the world, and we’re here to play.”

For more information about Accent or inMotion, please contact Pat McGowan at patm@inmotion.ca or Greg Pilsworth at greg@inmotion.ca.

To view more pictures of inMotion’s third and fourth ARRI Alexa camera systems, visit inMotion’s Flickr album.

Through my childhood eyes, I believed him to be a careful and methodical man. Someone who would take due time and great care in the signing of his name, whether on a garish holiday card or a simple membership contract.

It wasn’t until years later that I realized that John T. Fodey, my father, was in fact a highly functioning, brilliant, illiterate man.

In the early 1930’s, rural boys were taken out of school to work the family farm. My father had two wonderful sisters; he was the only boy. His path was predetermined.

When I was accepted into university, my father took me shopping. Just him and I. The mission? To buy me a computer. Looking back, he was quietly insistent that I be armed with every tool that I needed to succeed. A nice apartment, food in my cupboards and a very large, clunky PC on which to write and write.  I kept the box it came in. Leading Edge was the PC brand and I still remember how it smelled coming out of the box. I felt like the luckiest kid in the world.

My dad stood in the computer store and signed a cheque, one that he could likely ill-afford, after I had filled in the date, destination, and amount.

Years later, when I graduated from Queen’s with a degree in English Literature, my father cried. He gave me what his parents could not have offered him because of time and circumstance: a chance to be educated. He then promptly drove me to a used car lot and signed another cheque that I still have to this day. It hangs on my fridge, pinned in place by a magnet, and reminds me of my life’s fortunes and the importance of love and teamwork. You see, for the second time in our relationship, I filled in some of the information and my father signed the cheque.

Many years later, even after the pain of his loss to cancer was stored away in my emotional memory bank, an opportunity surfaced that I could not, and would not, ignore. My good friend and client at the Ottawa Police Service, Marg MacDonald, told me about an organization she volunteered with called People, Words and Change.

She talked with great passion of her commitment to this wonderful place – a place that struggles to stay afloat while ensuring that their mission of delivering free literacy training to adults remains a reality.  I knew in that moment that inMotion could help.

The end product was, as most of our videos are, crafted out of love and respect for the brave souls that agree to sit in front of intimidating cameras and lights and open their hearts for us. I will never take this experience for granted. Special thanks to Ed, Catherine, Beth, Lynn, Tony and Ben for overcoming their fears and teaching us the dignity in owning your personal truths and facing your challenges. Thanks also to Dee, Chris, Jennifer, Marg and Gary, our awesome clients at PWC. These are the people who dedicate countless hours of their time, making sure that citizens of our Ottawa community have access to a free, non-judgmental learning environment. And special recognition to our crew, who needed little persuasion before lending their considerable talents to this project. To Han, Louis, Angie, Jith, Skyler, Soapy and Marissa, a huge thanks. And, lastly, I am very thankful to have a supportive business partner in Pat, who remains as committed to our charity work as I do.

John T. Fodey, this video was done in your memory. Thanks for everything you did for me. I promise to keep Playing it Forward.

xo
Sarah

To kick off this series, we bring you the effervescent Greg Pilsworth.

I remember a playground challenge which insisted that you could not skip while frowning.  Try it and see: a physical impossibility.  Just the act of tra-la-la’ing down the pavement draws out your silliest grin, sour mood be damned.  That’s what talking to Greg is like.  Within minutes of sitting in the chair opposite his, you can no longer tell where his enthusiasm ends and your unselfconscious smile begins: one just leads organically to the other.

Greg runs our production services department like the captain of a beloved yacht.  He’s humble but has quiet, muscular ambition.  His head is full of neatly organized systems and charts, which translate to a room where even the most neglected tools are put away in exactly the right place.  He’s articulate, kind, focused.

What’s most striking about Greg, though, is how involved he is in his job.  And I don’t just mean that he puts in a great eight-hour day.  He finds true, unmitigated pleasure from what he does, and when he emerges from the Production Services wing of the building, radiating eagerness like a supernova, what can we do?  We follow him, moths to a flame.  Like the other day, when he herded us towards his office, saying, “You guys have to see this.  This is too cool.”

We often hear such claims at inMotion, and they are usually backed up by a YouTube video of cute animals or incomprehensible skateboard stunts.  What Greg showed us, though, was a Bluetooth scanner.  Aim it at a barcode on any piece of gear and it would update a spreadsheet on his desktop, instantly populating a packing list, saving him mountains of work.  He was so excited about this improvement that he floated somewhere near the ceiling, hardly hearing our songs of praise.  And that’s the thing about Greg: it’s not the praise he’s after, but a shared reverence for the tools that make our professional lives run smoothly.  It’s a kind of intoxicating worship with him.

During our conversation in the lead-up to this blog post, he often reached for props to support his claims.  And, because he’s Greg, everything was at his fingertips, right where it should be.  He selected a binder from the row behind him and opened it to a packing list recently prepared for a major rental.

“I mean, just look at that,” he said, running his hand along the list of numbers.  But I only glanced at the list.  What I really looked at was Greg.  I have felt the way he was feeling when I’ve caressed a treasured letter, or a rare book I’ve searched high and low to find, or the last five dollars in my wallet when I’m in line at Starbucks.  But Greg?  He felt that way about a packing list.  And that’s what I mean: he’s involved.  He loves what he does, and he loves the gear that he uses to do it.

I suppose that’s why he keeps Production Services so fanatically organized.  It’s just the blood in his veins, the way he’s programmed.  I’m not surprised when he tells me about adapting an ordinary shelving unit in an old apartment of his into a custom-designed storage space for his art supplies.  I think about the current state of my own apartment shelves and can only nod along with him in slack-jawed wonder.

Still, he keeps it real.  He must see the look of childlike veneration in my eyes because he jerks his thumb towards a loop of wire on a hook behind him, not quite as perfectly coiled as its neighbours.  “See?” he says.  “It’s a little bit messy right now.  I’m going to have to clean that up.”

The funny thing is, we came so close to not having a Greg Pilsworth at all.  inMotion president Pat McGowan, always quick to recognize serious talent, spearheaded that recruitment drive, but only after meeting Greg by chance in a local Canadian Tire.  Like many of the people who careen through our doors, Greg has a long career history that brushes against Pat’s own.  From 1989 to 2000, Greg was writing, directing, and producing for the Canadian Museum of Civilization, and, in classic good taste, would collaborate with Pat’s then-company Blue Turtle Sound.  Since then, he has traveled an eclectic path, including several years running a nationally licensed charity.

When he visited inMotion for the first time last winter, our new 3,000-foot studio was under renovation.  “It was just studs and bare walls,” he said, as we both stared into the middle-distance and remembered that dizzying time in the company’s history.  “But I was familiar with a lot of the facilities in Ottawa, and I knew there was great potential in this one.”

All I can say is, thank goodness for that.  Because Production Services without Greg Pilsworth is difficult to imagine.

- Megan Findlay

The morning before our CAA shoot, Producer extraordinaire, Sarah Fodey, and I hopped into a suburban van filled with gear and headed west with excitement in our hearts. We were ready to tackle a national PSA with all our might, though I tried my best to hide my anxiety during the five-hour drive. One hundred and six ’80s songs later, we rolled into the quiet suburbs of Oakville. That night, the checklist in my head and the fears and doubts in my heart kept nudging my exhausted pre-production body awake. The pressure of directing a national spot, on nothing but DSLR cameras no less, weighed heavily on my chest and left me wide-eyed, staring at the hotel room ceiling until our 8am call time.

While the morning sun beat down on Sixteen Mile Sports complex, I watched backlit silhouettes approach the set, as though in slow-motion with a dramatic score playing in the background. The weight suddenly lifted from my shoulders when I realized that our crew was arriving. Though small in number, our hand-picked team was stellar and my worries finally let me be.

The first setup of the day was the opening shot of the PSA: a slow dolly move from behind a wall, revealing our star. When our wonderfully talented DP, Garry Tutte, showed me the final move and frame, I had hearts in my eyes.

Director Han Nguyen and DP Garry Tutte perfect the opening shot.

It was exactly what I had envisioned just a few days prior. The rest of the day unfolded with ease and certainly with lots of laughter.

DP Garry Tutte and inMotion Creative Director Rafael Ludwig never stray from their laser-sharp focus on set.
Not even for a candid photo.

Many people have asked me why I do this. Why do I dedicate most of my days, nights and weekends to this job? Honestly, I have no definitive answer for them. I can tell them that this industry depends solely on teamwork to ensure success. That every crew member, wherever they sit on the chain of command, is an important and valuable part of the puzzle. That it’s the perfect marriage of creativity and technicality. Or I can tell them that there is no better feeling than seeing what was once on paper come to life on screen.

However, my usual answer to the “Why?” question is, “I just do.” From working on a large film set to working on a small commercial, the collaborative and creative process in making moving pictures is an appeal like no other and I’m grateful and lucky to be able to make a living from it. So on every eve of principal photography, I welcome the anxiety and the pressure and all the worries in the world for there’s nothing else I’d rather do the next morning than be on set.

DP Garry Tutte, Producer Sarah Fodey, and Director Han Nguyen all got the same deal on sunglasses.

With many gracious thanks to Jennifer Botterill, Maia Shishish, Gracie Orr, Greg Pilsworth, Amanda Barakat, Megan Findlay, George Flores, James Irons, Rafael Ludwig, Garry Tutte, and of course, Sarah Fodey and Pat McGowan, for sharing your talents on the CAA School Safety Program PSA.

- Han Nguyen

Watch the CAA School Safety Patrol PSA.

See more photos from the CAA set.

So there I was, my belated lunch turning slow circles in the microwave, wondering if the spoon was sturdy enough for the task ahead, when one voice lifted from the usual office din and grabbed me by the throat: “… and on that next line, we need her to turn towards the camera…”

It’s an odd feeling, to overhear your own work being discussed without you. To realize that it no longer belongs to you once it has sprung from your mind, and you must completely surrender that control or else risk spontaneous combustion from the constant editorial reflex whipping through your body. It helps enormously when the person who takes ownership of it, both your successor and your deity, is someone you trust implicitly. Someone like inMotion uber-director, Han Nguyen.

Han was on a conference call with the creative director and cinematographer on our latest project. As my spoon slipped away and disappeared forever in my bowl of chili, I listened to Han wade bravely into the script I had written. She was teasing it apart line by line, blocking each scene. The process that had started with my script would now pass through Han to the camera lens, and from there to an editing suite, and from there to millions of screens across the country.  I did not own it any more than Han did, or the talent, or the shooter, or the editor. We all had to contribute, and then learn to take heart, find faith, and step back so others could do their job.

Is this how empty nesters feel? Like you’ve raised something as well as you could, you’ve tried to endow in it the qualities that matter to you (confidence, clarity of vision, and good grammar), and then you’ve been forced to shove it from the nest, hoping it will make you proud? It’s a feeling that leaves me both bereft and giddy, like that long-ago day when I lost a goldfish (belly-up after three short weeks) and gained a kitten (peddled from a shoebox outside the local library).

In graduate school, our creative writing workshops were a test of nerves: the writer of that week’s discussion piece had to sit in one corner of the room, muted and fidgety, while her classmates, at the professor’s prompting, warmed to the game of picking out faults and inconsistencies and iffy bits in the prose. Only during the last ten minutes of class was the author allowed a voice, but by then her mental list of justifications and counter-arguments and desperate pleas had grown so extensive that they came out on top of each other, sounding something like: EEEEIIIIIIIAAAGGGGHHTHOOOOOO.

This trial was followed by a sullen plod to the bar, where spirits would be revived through the pints offered by repentant classmates, who knew their turn was next. It was a cruel system, and an unforgiving one, but one that did help to make me a better writer.

But this is entirely different. Once a piece is written, I am invited into the discussion, not banned from it. Han and I will spend half an hour discussing a single line of script, weighing each word, measuring my intent against her vision until they balance perfectly. When I commit a work to PDF and hand it over once and for all, I don’t feel like I’ve severed a limb. But it will never stop feeling strange: my lunch going cold, all attention to Han’s next words, feeling that acidic mixture of pride and terror as I slowly open my fist and let the script free to do what it will.

* * *

Writing is easy: All you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.
– Gene Fowler

There’s a metaphor in there somewhere, and I’ll be darned if I’m not going to winnow it out.

As an inMotion writer, I need to plunge my imagination into whatever script is at hand. Remember those low-budget haunted houses with macaroni brains and seedless eyeballs? My job is like that, but more sanitary. I trade in client-specific knowledge. With each new contract, the producer clears a space on the bookshelf for the project binder, and I clear a space in my mind for the tide of facts and terms and talking points that I’ll maneuver into a shooting script.

Last night, lounging in my local pub, I found myself falling into easy conversation with the stranger sitting next to me who happened to be a veteran freelance journalist. “It’s like being a student forever,” she said. “And each new day you’re enrolled in a different program, and you want nothing more than to become an A+ expert.”

Yes, I thought: yes. That’s exactly what it’s like for me, too.

So here I am, a producer and (wholly, essentially) a writer, not so far from my adolescent dream. When I really get moving on a script, when my hands are deep in that macaroni-brain empire, I like to leave my desk and migrate up to inMotion’s coffee bar. Perched on a stool, with a bank of frosted windows tipping afternoon sunlight into my lap, I can plug in, tune out, and work in relative peace.*

Here’s the thing: inMotion is expanding like a pair of lungs, breathing in all that we can hold, filling every chamber with new and established talent. And that’s not just figurative; we really are adding to our workforce with powerful speed. Every suite, office, booth, and chair has been claimed and our fridge is a game of Tupperware Tetris. Even the boardroom has been temporarily converted into an editing lab, which looks like this:

The energy is mercurial, and the output is forever growing – but there are challenges. Writers working with editors. Motion graphics guys who see in twelve dimensions working with producers who see in deadlines and budget ceilings. Executives with long, respectable careers learning the lingo of hotshot neophytes who make everything they touch go viral.

People, this is the Zone of Uncertainty.

As I sit at this coffee bar, someone comes by to fish her low-cal hundred-mile vegan tofutti from the bowels of the fridge while someone else defrosts a deep-dish triple-cheese meat lover’s pizza. At least once a day a thirsty staffer circles the entire building with a pen and sticky note, taking orders for the coffee shop down the street, and the list unravels for miles: lattes, frappes, extra sweetener, skinny, double-long, extra pump. We are all so different; we are all so determined; we are all so caffeinated.

We are all students of each other. Together, like a muscular rugby scrum, we are advancing through this transition. There’s no measure for this, no imperial way to tell when we’re holding the pound cake. But there are these zones. Inching ahead, absorbing. Realizing, at 2 p.m. on a Wednesday, when the place thrums with energy and everyone is focused, that the Zone of Uncertainty may be behind us, and that we’ve reached a newer, mightier graduation.

*Footnote: Intuition always tells me to retreat to the studio, where 1,000-square-feet of soundproofed calm roll like a desert oasis from my feet, but just my luck: when we’re not wrapping up a shoot in there, we’re preparing for the next one. What’s a girl with a laptop to do? (To be fair, that’s why we built the thing: for shooting.)

“We’re thrilled to have Capricorn8 as part of our inMotion brand,” says Pat McGowan, President of inMotion. “Rafael is a perfect fit for us. His skills in motion design and his creative leadership will prove to be a major asset as we move forward.”

“Capricorn8 has been my passion,” says Mr. Ludwig. “I view this move as an opportunity to develop my creative pursuits with the support and backing of inMotion’s considerable production engine. I’m looking forward to a bright future mapped by both corporate and entertainment development and production properties.”

With the acquisition of Capricorn8, inMotion is now poised to service pan-Ontario markets, including Ottawa and Toronto.

inMotion is an award-winning creative studio that has been in operation for more than thirty years. inMotion has an unrivalled reputation for delivering creativity and value to a diverse slate of clients including corporate, government, institutional and broadcast. Its sister company, Accent Film and Video Services, a production services business with offices in both Ottawa and Gatineau, QC, rents and sources camera, grip and electric packages for features, MOW’s, series and daily rentals, while also managing a 1,000 square foot Ottawa-based filming studio—the only one of its kind in the region.

Please address any enquiries to Pat McGowan patm@inmotion.ca or Rafael Ludwig rafael@inmotion.ca

inMotion
891 Boyd Avenue
Ottawa, Ontario
CANADA
K2A 2E2
t: (613) 723-5800
f: (613) 723-5803
www.inmotion.ca

We’ve been hard at work these last several months. Visit our portfolio page to see what’s been keeping us out of trouble since moving into our brand new studio.

We arrived early, coffee mugs planted in our hands like permanent extensions of the human limb, our voices weaving white breath in the cold air as we discussed the day’s plan.

First: admire the cavernous space that would become our home, still smelling of fresh paint and new walls.

Then: fill it with life.

We worked all day on Sunday, January 30th, grinning at each other in the street as we jogged back and forth from the old building to the new, carrying plastic bins brimming with our worldly possessions. We moved laptops and production binders and tapestock. We moved office desks and editing suites and the almighty server, which in turn moved years of inMotion history written out in zeroes and ones.

This was a delicate transference; the server needed patient coaxing as it groaned on its wheels, unnerved by the cold and the prospect of a new and untested home. We were sympathetic as it leaned heavily against us during the 100-meter journey from one door to the other. We all understood. We were patient. For some, changes of this scale are exhilarating. For others, they are daunting. But just like our server, which is now cuddled in a honey-coloured home behind a red wall, not one of us is looking back with regret.

In the midst Moving Day’s organized chaos, I happened to notice Pat savouring a contemplative moment with inMotion’s thoughtful mascot, Flat Eric.

When Pat looked up at me, it was with the look of someone who’d just been hoisted on the shoulders of his teammates, celebrating a touchdown he could not quite remember. He watched it all in stunned elation.

“So?” I asked him. “How does it feel?”

The seasoned director and executive producer, whose silver tongue could cut a swath through dense corporate boardspeak on any given day, was at a loss for words. He shifted his iPhone from hand to hand as we flattened ourselves against the wall to let a fleet of armchairs squeeze past. Finally, he spoke.

“It’s…an emotional day.”

The crew was taking a break, and for a moment we returned the composed silence of hours before, when the city slept and we were only just beginning the day. Our minds, though, were traveling weeks ahead, imagining the lives we would live and the work we would accomplish inside these new walls.