Studio Tours

Ryan O'Brien - Bell Media
http://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanobrien

Jon Finkelstein - Grip Ltd.
http://www.linkedin.com/in/jonfinkelstein

Mavis Huntley - John St.
http://www.linkedin.com/in/mavishuntley

At the Start of the second semester we took a little group studio tour. Starting with an art exhibit we walked around toronto to 3 agencies.

The first agency we saw was Bell Media. Our tour was lead by Ryan O'Brien. After checking in with security and checking our coats our tour began.

Ryan gave us a quick over view of the tour and some information about Bell Media in one of the show studios. We moved on upstairs to one of the news studios where Ryan talked about the quick transitions the studios had to make as they got ready for each show.

As we continued along we got to see many different sets. Our tour concluded on the bridge overlooking the parking lot where we had a lengthy Q&A session.

After concluding our tour of Bell Media we made our way to Grip Ltd. After heading up the elevator in groups we arrived in the lobby of Grip. Jon Finkelstein meet us in the lobby and had us take a set on the stairs/benches below the main lobby. Jon gave us a good over view of Grip and showed us Grip's demo reel.

After the short intro presentation Jon showed us around Grips lower floor. The lower floor is basically the production floor. It has some side offices and then has a larger open area with desks where there designers and developers work. They also have a large print production section at the back and a small 3d design team.

We moved back up to the middle floor where reception and the meeting rooms are. There are also lots of small hangouts and sitting areas for when employees need to get away from their desks.

The third floor is mostly offices and a few meeting rooms. There is also a sound room for recording and found editing. After seeing the third floor we thanked Jon for the great tour of Grip and headed out for a short coffee break before heading to John St.

Over at John St. we were meet by Mavis. She took us up the stairs to the 5th floor to start the tour. John St. is a bit thinner building then Grip and is set up with long office spaces. Most floors had a few offices on the right had side and then a large studio area. John St. is also a bit more divided up having smaller teams divided out accorse all the floors.

Mavis introduced us to John St.'s web team though many of them were out of the office working on a project that's deadline was coming up.

The basement of John St. features the lunch area with a ping pong table. There were a few employees having lunch or a coffee break while Mavis was showing us the area. There was also an intense game of ping pong going on.

Once we finished at John St. we had some free time to either check out toronto or head back to the AGO to wait for the bus.