By Ginny Mumm
Fritzworks Printing has provided custom prints for some of the most popular television (TV) shows and big-screen productions.
Chris Fritzsche, owner of Fritzworks Printing in Burnaby and Langley, B.C., calls his shop “the house of yes.” Founded in 2006, this once-tiny space has quadrupled its size in the last five years, establishing its reputation as a producer of high-quality print products for the movie industry, as well as local businesses.
The shop has provided custom prints for some of the most popular television (TV) shows and major big-screen productions, including TV series The 100, The Man in the High Castle, and Lost in Space, and films such as Deadpool, Mission Impossible, Bad Times at the El Royale, and The Art of Racing in the Rain. Fritzsche even produced work for Academy Award-winning filmmaker Bong Joon-Ho’s 2013 science-fiction action film Snowpiercer.
Powerful production
In addition to demanding high creativity, the film and TV requests Fritzworks receives from the production facilities in Vancouver are almost always rush jobs.
Backlit graphics on the slot machines and signage make this casino, as seen in Bad Times at the El Royale, feel authentic to the period.
“It’s typical for us to get a project over the phone while the file is being uploaded electronically, and the client finishes the call by saying: our driver is on the way,” says Fritzsche.
With tremendous pressure to turn around finished products the same day, Fritzsche and his crew have a full range of production equipment on hand to create set work, props, and art department prints. Today, the shop boasts several computer numerical control (CNC) machines, 3D printers, dye-sublimation and direct-to-garment (DTG) printers, as well as 11 Roland digital printers, including a large-format inkjet printer, and its most recent purchase, a hybrid ultraviolet (UV) light-emitting diode (LED) flatbed printer.
“We pride ourselves on being a one-stop shop,” says Fritzsche. “Whatever the project may be, in nearly every case, we’re able to do the job.”
Of the company’s two locations, Burnaby is the larger facility, which is also growing.
“We just took over a new warehouse in Burnaby to expand our production; we were bursting at the seams,” Fritzsche explains. “That location remains open during renovations.”
