After wrapping a recent campaign for Canada Reconnect, it occurred to director Aubrey Singer that the talent could have put more of his head into it.

Michael Downing’s directing career took off when his first short film, Clean-Rite Cowboy, screened at the 2000 Toronto International Film Festival and secured him a scholarship at the American Film Institute in L.A., where he started studying in the fall of that year.

Quebec director Alexandre Franchi’s imagination is a little hyperactive. As a kid he always wanted to bring his toys to life, now as a director he’s been able to make it happen.

Montreal-based animator Christopher Hinton takes away two of the top prizes at this year’s Ottawa International Animation Festival (Oct. 2-6), making him one of the most decorated animators internationally of 2002.

In its new 14,000-square-foot Flash studio, Vancouver’s Studio B Productions is producing 52 11-minute episodes of Yakkity Yak for Teletoon entirely in-house. Using traditional animation, the labor-intensive animating process would usually be done overseas to cut costs, but creating the children’s TV series with Flash allows Studio B to keep work in Canada.

Just weeks into fall and already it’s been a very busy season for Minds Eye Pictures of Regina. The prolific Western Canada prodco celebrated the official opening of the Canada-Saskatchewan Soundstage, is moving its head office, hosted an international industry conference, is shooting a $4.3-million feature and recently sold another to Universal Studios in the U.S.
Universal will take The Unsaid, a $22-million psychological thriller starring Andy Garcia and coproduced with New Legend Media out of L.A. and Montreal. to English-speaking territories worldwide plus Japan.
‘Universal hasn’t given a date or told us how they’re going to release it, but we’re just very thrilled to be able to say that Universal Studios did a negative pickup on The Unsaid,’ says Minds Eye president and CEO Kevin DeWalt.

Halifax: Whether attending the gala screening of Marion Bridge, where director Wiebke von Carolsfeld described the film’s Halifax debut as its homecoming, bumping into Michael Moore over breakfast, or spending the night with a group of Newfoundland filmmakers who travel in a pack, taking in strays like family, the 22nd Atlantic Film Festival was a reminder of why bigger is not always better.

Building on the success of Trudeau, Chester, NS-based Big Motion Pictures is in development on a prequel to last year’s acclaimed miniseries. Trudeau: The Early Years will focus on the celebrated prime minister’s life before Ottawa, say BMP producers Wayne Grigsby and David MacLeod.
Unlike Trudeau, the prequel will be produced in both French and English, four one-hour episodes in each language, to air on CBC and Radio-Canada, respectively.
Grigsby says versioning for a French and English audience will increase production time and budget by about 40%, for a projected budget of $12 million.
Casting will also be difficult, as the project demands actors who are comfortable performing in both languages. Bilingual Colm Feore, who played Trudeau in the first miniseries, will return to play the younger Trudeau in the prequel. Guy Fournier (executive story editor on Trudeau) will cowrite the script with Grigsby, who is looking at bringing back Trudeau director Jerry Ciccoritti to helm the prequel.

Reduced advertising budgets may be a blessing in disguise for Canadian commercial directors, with workflow picking up slightly as agencies opt for homegrown talent over expensive imported directors, a move that may benefit the domestic commercial industry in the long run.
‘More and more, Canada is buying Canadian and I think it’s about time to protect our market and our talent,’ says Sylvain Archambault, director and partner at Montreal’s Jet Films, which, with 13 Canadian directors on its roster of 14, is an anomaly in comparison to big Toronto prodcos that tend to rep more imported talent than Canadian. ‘By keeping enough boards for Canadian directors, we are going to retain our talent and develop a real industry,’ he says

L.A.-based Coppos Films and Backyard Productions have partnered with Toronto’s Imported Artists Film Company for Canadian representation, causing a major restructuring of the Toronto production company’s directors roster.
‘We got rid of a lot of the directors we felt either weren’t serious about this marketplace, were unavailable, or who are more difficult to sell based on their style,’ says Christina Ford, owner and president of Imported. ‘What that in turn allowed us to do was make room for Backyard and Coppos.’
In the end, Imported comes out even – removing 14 directors and adding 14 new names to its roster.

After 10 days of glitzy galas, stargazing nights and oversubscribed media screenings, the 22nd annual Atlantic Film Festival, running in Halifax Sept. 13-21, offers a welcome respite from the hectic pace of the Toronto International Film Festival.
‘After the flurry of the Toronto festival,’ says AFF director Lia Rinaldo, ‘our festival often provides the first opportunity for filmmakers to really relax in front of an audience and they usually have access to some of the key folks out of Toronto in a smaller atmosphere.’
Recognized as a filmmaker’s festival – an event where directors, writers, producers, cast and crew can screen their films, small or large, in an intimate and celebratory environment – this year’s AFF lineup is a testament to the maturing film industry in Atlantic Canada.

As if a bamboo forest, Russian swings, a falling angel and a dancing firefly aren’t enough to round out the more than 50 performers and 150-person tour staff on Cirque du Soliel’s Varekai, add lighting rigs, dollies, 10 high-definition cameras, a mobile HD unit and an 80-person film crew to the mix and you’ve got a real circus.
Cirque du Soleil Images, the multimedia arm of the Quebec performing arts institution, has taken on the ambitious task of shooting for DVD and broadcast its fourth Cirque du Soliel production, Cirque du Soleil Presents Varekai, exec produced by VP multimedia Vincent Gagne with producer Martin Bolduc, and coproduced with U.K.-based Serpent Films. It is the first time since 1991 that a Cirque show has been filmed live in Canada.