Motion Control Services

Here is how the work lines up. Motion control in Canada operates almost fully against the country's deep VFX pipeline. Vancouver and Toronto are the two largest VFX hubs in North America by headcount. The motion-control workflow is tightly coupled with the plate-shoot needs that pipeline demands. Our rig pool covers Mark Roberts MILO systems for large-scale repeatable moves on automotive, beauty and tabletop work, Bolt high-speed robotic arms for the kind of frame-accurate fast-move plate work that powers commercial direction at Pinewood Toronto and Vancouver Film Studios, plus smaller Modula and tabletop systems for product, food and macro motion control.

Here is the layout. High-end global rigs route through CBSA ATA carnet for short-term import — often dispatched via Sim Digital and partner suppliers, then integrated into the Canadian sound-stage pipeline at Pinewood Toronto Studios, Cinespace Toronto, Vancouver Film Studios, Mammoth Studios Burnaby, Bridge Studios, MELS Cité du cinéma Montreal and Calgary Film Centre. Pixomondo Toronto — the team behind Star Trek Discovery and Strange New Worlds The Volume LED-wall work — and DNEG Vancouver anchor the VFX-integration side of the pipeline alongside MPC, Method, Rocket Science VFX, Industrial Light & Magic Vancouver and Sony Imageworks Vancouver. Timelapse motion-control work in Banff, Jasper, Lake Louise and atop Toronto's CN Tower for cityscape time-lapse plates rounds out the location envelope.

Here is how the work shapes up. Pre-visualisation is the single largest determinant of motion-control shoot efficiency. Our team works alongside the VFX supervisor or commercial director from previs through programming, calibrating axes against the stage setup, and capturing motion-data files alongside footage for direct ingest into the Vancouver and Toronto VFX pipelines. Bolt arm work with high-speed Phantom Flex 4K or Phantom VEO cameras supports the fast-move beauty and automotive plate work that Toronto and Vancouver commercial agencies. Cossette, Sid Lee, Rethink, Grey, Ogilvy and john st. — bring through the stages on rebates-driven schedules.

Here is how it adds up. Permits, stage bookings and crew route through provincial film office planning with the Directors Guild of Canada (DGC), IATSE Local 891 Vancouver, IATSE Local 873 Toronto, IATSE Local 514 Montreal and Alberta's IATSE Local 212 for unionised stage crew. CPTC federal incentive, BC Production work Tax Credit (PSTC), Ontario PSTC, Quebec QPSTC and Alberta Film and Television Tax Credit apply to qualifying motion-control unit spend, logged to provincial film office and CRA audit standards. CBSA carnet records routes through Sim Digital. The Canadian film office network from start to finish.