The CFTPA will hand out its annual industry awards at Prime Time in Ottawa on Feb. 4, starting at 12:30 p.m. at the Westin hotel. This year’s winners are Halifax prodco Collideascope Digital Productions and Toronto producer Stephen Ellis.

Collideascope will take home the CFTPA Entrepreneur of the Year Award. The prodco, founded by Michael-Andreas Kuttner and Steven Comeau in 1995, is renowned for combining traditional television with interactivity. A prime example is Olliver’s Adventures, a half-hour animated children’s series on Teletoon about a boy who uses his imagination to deal with school bullies and boring, unsympathetic adults. Ollieland.com, the series’ online interactive component, allows children to explore the character’s world through games, video clips and a character guide.

Olliver won a Gemini Award in 2001 for best animated program or series and a bronze Creative Summit Award the following year for its interactive website. Comeau also sits on the CFTPA board.

Ellis Entertainment president Stephen Ellis will receive the CFTPA-Kodak Lifetime Achievement Award. Ellis Entertainment, a leading independent Toronto television production and distribution company, was founded by Ellis’ father, Ralph C. Ellis, in 1964. The younger Ellis joined the company in 1973 and has led the business since 1986. He has produced documentary projects such as Profiles of Nature, which garnered more than 75 awards and citations, and Oh Baby! To Walk, coproduced with Kip Spidell, which was nominated for a Gemini in 2003.

Ellis has served on the CFTPA’s board of directors since 1980, contributing in the areas of regulation, copyright and legislation. In 1989, he cofounded the Canadian Retransmission Collective, a nonprofit society that collects and redistributes royalties on behalf of producers and rights-holders. In 2001, Ellis joined the board of directors of the A-V Preservation Trust, an organization that preserves the audiovisual heritage of Canada.

-www.collideascope.com

-www.ellisent.com