Cinematographer Gerald Packer has earned a living by shooting, lighting and troubleshooting on various films for about 20 years. Sitting with a coffee on the set of the new Showcase mow/pilot The Ride, Packer is relaxed in the midst of his second week of a four-week shooting schedule. The Ride, produced by Cambium Entertainment, is the first film made for specialty channel Showcase. Packer says he is very excited by the opportunity to perhaps change the direction of Canadian television.

"I wanted to be involved with this production because it is ground-breaking Canadian television," says Packer. "I'm a big supporter of Canadian filmmakers and a lot of the films I have shot have been Canadian."

Packer's dop credits include H, his first feature film. H won the best Canadian feature prize at the 1990 Toronto International Film Festival. He has also lensed features Swann, Booze Can and Painted Angels and was behind the camera for director Piers Haggard's Conquest, which was named the best film at the Atlantic Film Festival.

Packer says working on The Ride with director Steve DiMarco has been a good experience and the two have similar views on how the camerawork should be handled.

The Ride is about a taxi cab company called City Cab. It focuses on the lives of five characters depicted in the film over a two-day period. All of the plots revolve around City Cab in some way, and Packer says roughly half the film is shot from inside a cab - something that has posed a number of challenges for the cinematographer since shooting began.

The set of The Ride is located in Toronto, just off of Simcoe St., where an auto glass repair shop has been transformed into the City Cab home base. Cabs line the closest side street and sit in the open garage space, with one battered car off to the side looking like it has been in a major traffic accident. There is a small sitting area inside, with different colored chairs around a table with an apparently often-used ashtray at its centre. If someone had told you this was an operating cab company, you would likely believe them.

Packer is sitting in the City Cab's front office. He and The Ride crew have been shooting since 7:30 a.m. and he appears in desperate need of a nap. However, he is still in good spirits and becomes quite passionate when talking about the art of cinematography, saying he is always eager to throw himself into a project and learn as much about what he is photographing as possible. This scenario is no exception.

"There is a constant flow to the cab business, which I have kind of picked up on," says Packer, who decided on the film's look with the director after they took an up-close look at the biz. "Steve and I talked about the look of the film and we wanted it to have a realistic look and not a typical television look. Because I come from shooting film and features, we are using film."

Packer uses Kodak 7246 Vision 250D film because of its color and contrast latitude. He says he did many a test with the film to make sure it was correct for this project and to see just how much light would put the stock over and under normal exposure.