Canon’s new XL2 miniDV camcorder builds on the manufacturer’s success with the XL1 and XL1S models, and, according to the company, is a far more filmmaker-friendly production tool.

The two major film stock manufacturers have new color negative stocks for filmmakers.

With each passing year, the image-capture options available to filmmakers expand.

Toronto director of photography David Greene (Siblings) has been nominated for a 2005 Independent Spirit Award for best cinematography. Greene got the nod for his work on the Toronto-shot FX Networks cable movie Redemption, starring Jamie Foxx, who received a Golden Globe nomination for his performance.

For Canadian news consumers, the devastating Boxing Day earthquake and tsunami in Asia and Africa has led to a flurry of media coverage that will likely continue until at least the end of January. More than two dozen Canadian journalists and supporting crew have been reporting from the affected countries since Dec. 26. And while the newsroom chiefs have kept an eye on the rising costs of the extensive coverage, the media outlets have been focused on the enormous human story and galvanizing relief efforts at home.

Now that he’s got it, Serge Bellerose still isn’t sure what to do with Toronto 1. But that’s okay, he says, no rush. There won’t be any real changes at the struggling station until fall, which gives him and the other brass at Quebecor a bit of time to figure out what went wrong and how to set it right.

Vancouver: Brightlight Pictures, one of the busiest service producers on the West Coast, is threatening to move almost US$100 million in feature productions to Ontario over the next few months because of that province’s newly improved tax credits.
The US$50-million videogame-turned-thriller Dungeon Siege, in the works for Boll KG of Germany, could save ‘hundreds of thousands’ by going east, says Brightlight partner Shawn Williamson.

Quebec jumped into the tax-credit ring late in December by upping credits for foreign productions to 20% from 11%, just a week after the Ontario government increased its Production Services Tax Credit to 18% from 11%.
The nine-point increase for foreign productions, announced by Quebec Finance Minister Yves Séguin on Dec. 30, boosts the province’s tax credit two percentage points higher than Ontario’s.

This month, three new comedy pilots featuring some of the top names in Canadian comedy, including Colin Mochrie, Mary Walsh and Peter Keleghan, will premier on CBC. And rather than relying solely on ratings and sample audiences to evaluate the pilots’ potential, the pubcaster is going straight to the source – the viewers.

Dramatically increased costs and concerns about organization have put NATPE on probation with Telefilm Canada, casting a shadow across the upcoming TV market, set for Jan. 25-27 at the Mandalay Bay Hotel & Convention Center in Las Vegas.

The Canada/U.K. suspense thriller White Noise, starring Michael Keaton, grossed US$24 million across North America over its Jan. 7 opening weekend, making it the second highest grossing film of the weekend behind Meet the Fockers, which generated US$28 million. By comparison, Resident Evil: Apocalypse, another Canadian film that opened wide in the U.S., brought in US$28 million over its first seven days in theaters.

CTV’s two-part MOW Lives of the Saints, starring Sophia Loren and directed by Jerry Ciccoritti, drew a very strong average of 1.45 million viewers over Jan. 2 and 3, according to Nielsen Media Research, playing well to stay-at-home post-holiday crowds after heavy promotion throughout December. Ratings dipped slightly on the second night, however, from 1.46 million to 1.42 million.