Motion picture and video production
This Canadian industry comprises establishments primarily engaged in producing, or producing and distributing, motion pictures, videos, television programs or commercials. — Statistics Canada, NAICS 2022A
- Establishments · CanadaA
- 4,594
- Under 10 employeesA
- 88%
- Establishments · USA
- 17,683
- Employment · USA
- 139,965
- Payroll · USA
- $13.7B
Size and shape
How many businesses there are and how small they are. Fragmentation is the first thing an entrant — or anyone selling software into this industry — needs to know, and it is one of the few things that is actually measured.
Canadian establishments by number of employeesA
Of 4,594 Canadian establishments with employees, 88% have fewer than ten — an industry of very small operators.
Where they areA
Largest four provinces by establishment count. Establishments with employees only — sole operators with no payroll are not in this table, so in trades and personal services the true number of businesses is higher.
Measured, not forecast: the share of US establishments opening in one year that were still active later. It counts good operators and bad ones together, which is exactly why it is the honest answer to “what are the odds”. It is for the whole sector rather than this market, and the ten-year figure comes from an older cohort because no younger one has reached ten years.
How businesses here compete
The structural profile of subsector 512, which every industry beneath it inherits. This is analyst judgment from how the subsector is organised — not research into this industry, and not a measurement.
Project-financed work dependent on commissioners and tax credits. Service production follows the exchange rate and the incentives.
- Who sets the price
- Broadcasters, streamers and tax-credit regimes.
- The software it runs on
- Production management, post-production pipelines, rights and royalties.
Market screens and studies
Market-entry records filed along this branch of the hierarchy. A record at or beneath this code is about this industry; one above it is about something wider that contains it.
No operating-business record sits in this industry — the records filed here are software markets, shown in the next section.
Software serving this industry
The vertical software markets filed along the same branch — who sells to these businesses and who they would have to displace — and then the generic categories every business buys whatever it does.
The incumbents are not software vendors; they are the employer. Entertainment Partners and Cast & Crew sit on a production's payroll as employer of record: they issue the cheques, hold the workers' compensation cover, remit taxes, and report hours and contributions to the guild and union health and pension plans. A single production can carry up to 11 unions and guilds [B, 2005 trade interview with EP Canada's president]. Because the payroll company is the signatory employer, residuals owed on a picture keep flowing through it for years after wrap. The software (EP's SmartStudio and Movie Magic, Cast & Crew's PSL+ accounting, Start+ onboarding and Hours+ timecards) is bundled into that service, not sold on its own. Both are private-equity platforms that keep buying the edges. TPG agreed to acquire EP in 2019 [B]. EQT bought Cast & Crew from Silver Lake in 2018 [B]. Cast & Crew has since added Media Services (2020), The TEAM Companies (2021) and Backstage (2022), and runs Final Draft [B/C]. Software challengers attack by becoming an employer of record themselves. Wrapbook is one: it 'serves as your workers' employer for the purposes of withholdings, payroll taxes, unemployment, and workers' compensation' [C, vendor]. It entered through commercials, indie and non-union work, where onboarding speed matters more than a studio master agreement. It raised about $151M, but its valuation fell from $1B (2021) to $750M (2024) [B]. GreenSlate is the third full-service house and is consolidating too: it bought Vancouver's Circus, the onboarding app that claimed 70% of Canada's film and TV workforce [C, vendor]. The layers below payroll are where startups get in, and they get bought. Onboarding (Circus), spend cards (RollCredits, a $3M seed in 2024 [B]) and 1099 freelancer pay (LÜK Network) each sit next to whichever house holds the payroll. Circus's exit to GreenSlate shows where that layer ends up. Canada is the same structure. EP Canada and Cast & Crew Canada (Toronto and Vancouver offices) both handle payroll and residuals and, because BC and federal credits are labour-based, tax-incentive administration as well. GreenSlate now owns the leading Canadian onboarding app. Incumbent vulnerability decides it: the studio relationship, guild signatory status and the residuals tail all stay with the employer of record. A new entrant needs the balance sheet to carry payroll float and workers' comp risk before the software matters. How this differs from its neighbours: 512110-video-production-pipeline-software is the creative asset pipeline (shot tracking, review), not money or labour. 541514-eor-aor-international-hiring is cross-border EOR for full-time staff, not daily-hire union crew. 541514-hrm-human-resource-management is the HR core for permanent employees, and none of its vendors handle guild fringes or residuals.
The buyer count is the problem: a few thousand studios worldwide run a pipeline department at all, the top tier writes its own tooling, and the incumbent is a line item inside an Autodesk enterprise agreement the studio already signs for Maya. A good product here reaches a ceiling measured in hundreds of accounts.
And what every business buys · 25 generic categories
Sold to every industry rather than this one, so they are filed against the software industry's own code. The same few vendors recur across most of them.
Companies in this industry · 12
Every company this research names that is filed here or beneath — the operators, and the vendors that sell to them — largest disclosed revenue first. The rank is within the company’s own six-digit industry.
| Company | Filed under | Revenue | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| AutodeskNASDAQ:ADSK | Motion picture and video production512110 | — | 1/12 |
| AYONPrivate | Motion picture and video production512110 | — | 2/12 |
| BacklightPrivate | Motion picture and video production512110 | — | 3/12 |
| CircusPrivate | Motion picture and video production512110 | — | 4/12 |
| Entertainment PartnersPrivate | Motion picture and video production512110 | — | 5/12 |
| Final DraftPrivate | Motion picture and video production512110 | — | 6/12 |
| GreenSlatePrivate | Motion picture and video production512110 | — | 7/12 |
| KitsuPrivate | Motion picture and video production512110 | — | 8/12 |
| LUK NetworkPrivate | Motion picture and video production512110 | — | 9/12 |
| OpenPypePrivate | Motion picture and video production512110 | — | 10/12 |
| RollCreditsPrivate | Motion picture and video production512110 | — | 11/12 |
| WrapbookPrivate | Motion picture and video production512110 | — | 12/12 |
Who works here
The occupations employed in Information and cultural industries, most concentrated in it first. The share is measured against the whole sector, not this industry — the published cross-tabulation stops there.
Concentrated in this sectorA
These jobs are mostly done here. An operator in this industry is competing for them against others in the same industry, not against the whole economy.
And the jobs every business has
Found across at least fourteen of the twenty sectors. But note the shape of this industry: 88% of establishments have fewer than ten employees, and at that size most of these roles are one person wearing several hats, or bought in from outside.