New Saskatoon doc shop starts with drama

Winnipeg: For many in Manitoba, winter is a slow, cold season, but for Winnipeg’s Frantic Films, it has been busier than ever. The company’s live-action division currently has a feature and three doc series in post, and its doc/reality series Last Chance for Romance is now airing on Global.
Before Jamie Brown joined the company as CEO and executive producer in 2000, Frantic was focused on local, primarily commercial, animation and had eight full-time employees. Today the company has 70 full-time staff and has completed visual effects work for features including X2,

‘I just knew that it had potential to be a great cult film,’ says Toronto director of photography D. Gregor Hagey of the quirky sci-fi comedy feature Phil the Alien.

CSC announces nominees

There might still be a dearth of Canadian drama on TV screens, but it’s not for lack of effort on the producers’ side, at least if the volume of recent applications for the Cogeco Program Development Fund is any indication.

The Canadian Television Fund won’t be alone in awaiting federal renewal next year – each of the funders launched via the Canada Feature Film Fund in 2000 will either expire or be revived in 2006. Still, the need to campaign for renewal, to educate members of Parliament and cabinet ministers on the importance of preserving all the CFFF’s small but mighty offspring is a first of sorts for the Canadian Independent Film and Video Fund.

Sitcoms and dramas are set for an upswing in the 2005/06 season, following the springtime wave of broadcaster orders to the Canadian Television Fund that, pending approval, will bring back ratings winners such as Dominic Da Vinci and Brent LeRoy, while also making room for new titles from the likes of Howard Busgang and Teresa Pavlinek.

It has been busier than usual these past few weeks at the Canadian Television Fund. The March 1 deadline was looming, bringing in reams of paperwork from across the country and, on Feb. 14, an unflattering piece in The Globe and Mail touched a raw nerve about documentaries and Canadian content, sending fund boss Sandra Macdonald and her board of directors into full-on damage control mode.

Manitoba’s provincial budget for 2005 revealed a 10% increase to the province’s Film and Video Production Tax Credit – to 45% from 35%. Productions that started principal photography after March 8 will be eligible for the increased credit. Read the full story in the March 28 Playback.

Buoyed mainly by more foreign business, film and TV spending in Ontario jumped 7% in 2004 to $934.5 million, up from $874.1 million in ’03, according to a year-end report from the Ontario Media Development Corporation. The numbers appear to signal a turnaround in the province hit hard two years ago by the SARS outbreak in Toronto.

Chris Landreth’s Feb. 27 Oscar win for his animated short Ryan capped off 11 months during which he traveled around the world in support of the film, picking up nearly 40 awards. He says the Oscar provides the ultimate closure for his project.

The new federal budget was kind to the arts – earmarking more than $800 million for the five-year cultural program Tomorrow Starts Today – but made only passing mention of the film and TV industries, leaving many stakeholders unsure what to make of Ottawa’s plan for 2005/06.