Vancouver: The Vancouver-based production Robson Arms, a series leveraging new writing and directing talent, is also stretching in other ways – through camera technology from Panasonic and P+S Technik.

Vancouver: Supernatural primetime drama The Collector doesn’t begin airing in Canada until June 2, but already the Vancouver-shot series is collecting kudos, including a record-setting 21 nominations at this year’s Leo Awards, taking place May 28 and 29 in Vancouver.

Vancouver: The sixth annual Leos will give out nearly 90 awards at the Westin Bayshore Resort & Marina in Vancouver on May 28 and 29. This year there were more than 900 entries, compared to about 435 in 1999, says Walter Daroshin, president of the Leo Awards.

The Canadian broadcasting success story continues, according to the CRTC’s annual report of broadcast distribution undertakings.

Vancouver: About 75 independent producers attended the exhibition and distribution trade event ShowCanada April 28 to May 2 in Vancouver, pushing year-over-year attendance up 21% and making the 17th annual gathering more than ever Canada’s feature film industry convention.

Vancouver: The coroner was beaten by the Grim Reaper in the nominations race in the 2004 Leo Awards, which recognize excellence by B.C. residents in the film and television industry.

CanWest Global says it wants out of international production and will soon offload its challenged subsidiary Fireworks Entertainment, producer of Canadian-content action-adventure series including Mutant X and Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda. The media company says it will, however, continue to produce programs for the domestic market.

With the help of more federal dollars, the Canadian Television Fund opened its wallet April 15 to the tune of $131.5 million, to be distributed among Canadian ‘casters through its Broadcaster Performance Envelopes for 2004/05.

The Canadian documentary that skewers corporate (ir)responsibility is doing blockbuster business – Vancouver-made feature The Corporation earned $1,026,000 in Canada over the April 16 weekend, becoming the most successful all-Canadian doc in history.

Micheline Charest, cofounder, former chair and co-CEO of scandal-plagued animation house Cinar, suddenly died April 14 while undergoing plastic surgery in Montreal. She was 51.

Vancouver: Producers of a new spec sitcom – the first U.S.-style, three-camera sitcom format to shoot in Vancouver – are hoping for divine intervention for the future of the project.
The concept for The Rev, according to the project’s publicist, came to its Canadian creator and lead actor John Carmen after 40 nights of dreaming.

Vancouver: The term ’emerging’ talent takes on new meaning when Monika Mitchell is on the set of Robson Arms. The promising young filmmaker is at the helm of episode eight of the new CTV series shooting in Vancouver until May 7, and is five months pregnant.
‘I still consider myself an emerging director,’ she says between takes. Mitchell is on location with Mark McKinney (Kids in the Hall) and William B. Davis (The X-Files) at an abandoned old folks home on Boundary Road, far from the West End Vancouver apartments it’s made to look like.