Halifax: In addition to winning the CFTPA Entrepreneur of the Year Award, Collideascope Digital Productions has a full slate on its hands heading into 2005. So full, in fact, that the Halifax-based toonco is adding a new animation studio to handle the workload.

The new studio, which should be up and running by Feb. 7, means the addition of 40 animators and staff, making Collideascope the largest animation house east of Montreal. It will be the company’s third animation studio and, according to COO Michael-Andreas Kuttner, it will primarily handle the heavy workload coming from a 22-episode animated series Collideascope is working on with New York-based Funny Garbage for a major American broadcaster, details of which Kuttner cannot yet disclose.

Meanwhile, Collideascope is in production on the first season of Delilah & Julius, a $1.2-million, 26 x 30 animated kids series produced with Toronto’s Decode Entertainment for Teletoon. The teen-targeted action-adventure series follows the escapades of two international spies who rove around the world fighting crimes of conformity.

The Halifax prodco is also finishing up animation work on Bromwell High, a Canada/U.K. coproduction from Decode and the U.K.’s Hat Trick Productions, which will air on Channel 4 in the U.K. and Teletoon in Canada. Also underway is animation for season two of Decode’s GirlStuff/BoyStuff for YTV.

The Entrepreneur of the Year Award, chosen by fellow producers, will be presented to Collideascope president and cofounder Steve Comeau at the CFTPA’s Prime Time in Ottawa convention on Feb. 4.

Comeau is chair of the Nova Scotia Film Industry Taskforce, a group composed of industry stakeholders including producers, broadcasters, labor groups, education and training organizations, funding agencies and government departments.

Among the taskforce’s first missions was conducting a study on the current state of Nova Scotia’s film and television industry. The resulting report, Nova Scotia Film, Television and New Media Industry: Impact Analysis and Long-Term Strategy, makes a series of recommendations to help grow the existing industry and encourage more production to come to the province. Recommendations include a stronger focus on business and skills development, encouraging more offshore production, and ensuring continued government support.

The report is available at www.film.ns.ca/ pdfs/integrated_report.pdf.