The Toronto International Film Festival Group is gearing up for growing audiences as it approaches the sixth year of its international children’s film festival Sprockets, running April 25 to May 4 at Famous Players Canada Square and various workshop locations.

In its sixth year, with 39 dramatic shorts to its credit, the Ontario Media Development Corporation’s Al Waxman Calling Card program is proving itself to be an effective catalyst for emerging filmmakers looking to make the difficult leap into feature film.

A French munitions ship exploded in Halifax Harbour on Dec. 6, 1917, initiating a chain reaction of catastrophic events, which many say took the city 80 years to recover from. The shock wave from the explosion, followed by a tidal wave, bulldozed the north end of Halifax. Then a massive fire swept through what was left of the city, and later that day, the worst snowstorm in decades descended on Halifax, making rescue efforts almost impossible.
This is the story that will be told through Shattered City, the two-part miniseries coproduced by Halifax-based Salter Street Films and Toronto’s Tapestry Pictures for CBC.

At last year’s American Film Market, Montreal-based Equinox acquired the indie hit of the year, but this year the Canadian distributor was hoping to sell it.

Buffalo Gal Pictures, part of the Minds Eye Entertainment group of companies, came away with seven wins at this year’s Blizzard Awards, hosted by the Manitoba Motion Picture Industry March 3 in celebration of the best in Manitoba film and television production.

Red Motel Pictures and White Iron Productions, both of Calgary, are coproducing Breakout for Craig Broadcasting, due to air in spring 2003. The pilot for a one-hour series captures a live performance by Canadian musician Sam Roberts, in which director Steven Goldman relies on fans and band members to act as impromptu cinematographers.

With the commercial production industry reeling from a thousand body blows and long-suffering Canadian directors still looking for the respect they deserve, On The Spot turned to one of the industry’s most prolific creative talents for his prescription to help alleviate what ails commercial production.
Throughout his career, Martin Shewchuk has been involved in the creation of well over 1,200 commercials, and has worked extensively as a director as well as on the agency side.

Craig Broadcasting Systems has been given 90 days to rework the broadcast schedules on MTV Canada and 30 days for MTV2 after a CRTC commission concluded the MTV-branded diginets are in breach of Craig’s broadcast licence.

Award-winning director Pete Henderson has left Toronto-based Spy Films after more than eight years to start his own production house financially backed by Toronto prodco Radke Films.
Henderson and executive producer David Cranor, who comes from a line producing background, are busy at work on new prodco Brown Entertainment’s first project, but of course it’s all very hush hush.

Workflow at three-month-old Trace Pictures has been so heavy that senior creative director Justin Stephenson, formerly of Toronto’s Cuppa Coffee Animation, hasn’t had time to organize a hard launch for the new Toronto animation house. The ambitious but successful business plan lies in creating unique visuals using hybrid animation styles and actively targets clients on both sides of the border.

Neither sub-zero temperatures nor theatres in the snow will keep Canadians away from a film fest that’s all about us. The National Screen Institute’s FilmExchange Canadian film festival presents its all-Canadian program March 4-8 in Winnipeg.

In the precious few hours of TV downtime after a hectic day at work, it’s often the music or sound design in a commercial that makes the viewer stop glancing through a magazine and look up towards the screen. So why, when advertisers are competing for the fleeting attention spans of audiences armed with remotes, PVRs and hundreds of channel choices, is audio an afterthought in spot production?