The two chimps conducting Smarties i.q. experiments may be puzzling some folks as to how their engagingly lifelike antics were achieved. It was, as suspected, stop-motion animation, but according to MacLaren McCann producer Franca Piacente, a very unique version thereof. The…

Calendar 1996 was a blockbuster year for Alberta production, but there were no whoops of glee in celebration….

Rather than celebrating its 10th year on Alberta pastures planning future bumper crops of homegrown and produced product, Great North Productions is being forced to look to other provinces to shoot its programs and worries over the future of the Alberta…

As tv series, mow and feature production flocks to the West Coast, bringing monsters and mayhem as it goes, the commercial industry has dealt with its own demons of smaller accounts and ads fleeing eastward. Vancouver companies are now positioning themselves…

While Montreal’s commercial producers report clients are not expanding their advertising budgets, they say the problem is made worse by internationally induced demands for increasingly sophisticated work….

For the Toronto commercial production industry, it’s a classic good news, bad news scenario: budgets bite but a newly invigorated creative and work ethic has in many cases produced better spots; while globalization has taken away some of the work coming…

Axyz Animation is a new player on the Toronto field where numerous animation houses have cropped up of late. But with five jobs wrapped after only two months in the game, it’s clear partners John Stollar and John Coldrick have managed…

‘The tv business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs.’ – Hunter S. Thompson…

In the competitive world of commercial production, Vancouver’s Cactus Productions has evolved and expanded, adding new producers and directors to its roster, bringing the once-small regional company to a global scale….

The following chart is a summary of basic production costs, using average industry figures. Costs are based on a 30-second, English-only, sync-sound spot shot in one day in studio. Although averages are hard to arrive at with such a diversity of…

Newfoundland and Labrador has, with $1 million over five years from the Canada/Newfoundland Agreement on Economic Renewal, established the Nfld. and Labrador Film Development Corporation to direct the growth of the indigenous industry and market the province for location shooting. It…

It can’t be the climate or the food. It could be, as the u.s. trades suggest, that Canadian producers are building bridges with the Brits to help ward off the u.s. culture vultures, as per Minister Copps and this month’s mission…