* Coscient Group has announced the formal resignation of Richard Laferriere as president and chief operating officer. The terms of the agreement stipulate Laferriere and vice-chairman Laurent Goudreau have signed a production and distribution agreement with Coscient while Laferriere remains a…

The article ‘actra signs show deals,’ published in the previous issue of Playback, suggests that ACTRA Performers Guild is signing independent contracts with producers as the union negotiates a new collective agreement with employers. Instead, ACTRA Performers Guild (rather than ACTRA…

Wind Over Dark Tickle….

Montreal: Softimage founder Daniel Langlois of Terra Incognito is dedicating the state-of-the-art Ex-Centris complex to the future of alternative media, independent filmmakers and practitioners of new digital technology….

Toronto-based commercial animation shop Cuppa Coffee Animation made its first foray into long-form kids’ programming with the five-minute short The Adventures of Sam Digital, nominated for a Rockie Award in 1997. The company’s next venture, Crashbox, a 26 half-hour series for…

Vancouver: Texas Rangers – a feature by Miramax that is already in production in Calgary – is the first official signatory to the ‘Gold Book Interim Agreement’ being offered by ACTRA Performers Guild to producers hedging against a national strike that…

The 26th annual Daytime Emmy Awards, presented by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences May 15 and May 21 in New York, saw a handful of Canadian winners this year….

Montreal filmmaker Maurice Bulbulian is the recipient of the 1999 M. Joan Chalmers Documentarian Award for Film and Video. Bulbulian directed the National Film Board production The Nitinaht Chronicles. The Chalmers Awards, Canada’s largest national arts prizes, were handed out May…

The National Film Board’s Snow Cat, an animated short directed by Sheldon Cohen, is based on the children’s book by Dayal Kaur Khalsa, and is produced by Cohen, Kenneth Hirsch and Marcy Page….

W. Judson Martin is the new executive vp and cfo at Alliance Atlantis Communications….

Montreal: Production on the high-tech security miniseries Haute Surveillance has been shut down after filming was completed on the initial two hours of the six-hour production….

When Toronto producers Paul Jay and Sally Blake of High Road Productions were planning to shoot a doc on the behind-the-scenes world of wrestling, they had no idea an unprecedented battle in the wrestling arena would emerge. And no clue the…