During his run for governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger told the voters of California he would ‘terminate’ a great many things: high car taxes, the state’s crippling deficit, the influence of special-interest groups, ‘politics as usual,’ and, not least of all, his embattled opponent Gray Davis.

Montreal: Producers in Quebec, along with the film and television industry’s two principal unions, recently joined forces to create Regroupement pour la formation en audiovisuel du Quebec (RFAVQ), a government-certified collective that will fund training and professional development programs for technicians and salaried staff at production companies.

Paul Hoffert is the chair of the Guild of Canadian Film Composers. He is also a veteran film composer and former chair of the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television.

Maureen Parker is the executive director of the Writers Guild of Canada, the national association committed to furthering the professional, creative and economic rights of its members. The WGC represents more than 1,700 professional screenwriters working in film, television, radio and new media in Canada.

‘Disappointment’ is the word of the day at Alliance Atlantis when speaking about the opening weekend of its much-hyped (and MuchHyped) feature Foolproof on Oct. 3.
Despite critical nods as fine escapist fare, and a big, expensive marketing push, the Odeon Films release only managed to gross about $230,000 on roughly 200 screens.

Halifax: First of all, yes, it’s shot in a real trailer park – a real neighborhood – and it will remain nameless lest we be the cause of any drunken pilgrimages.
It’s the fourth park the cast and crew of Showcase’s Trailer Park Boys (produced by Halifax’s Topsail Entertainment) have seen in the show’s four seasons. In this park, series creator/director Mike Clattenburg and his team have their own space as they shoot episodes of the popular series away from the rest of the park’s dwellers.

Israel ‘Izzy’ Asper, the founder and chairman of international media company CanWest Global Communications, passed away at St. Boniface Hospital in Winnipeg Oct. 7, aged 71.
Asper stepped back from much of the day-to-day operations of the media giant in 1999 to focus on philanthropic endeavors.

The CRTC wants to know what the public thinks about TV, and has put out a call for comments about how to boost production and viewership of homegrown English-language drama.

Stakeholders from across the television industry met in Ottawa Oct. 1, at the request of the Department of Canadian Heritage, to discuss the future of the Canadian Television Fund and English-language drama. The department was seeking comments before issuing its response to the Lincoln report, and spent several hours hearing from some two dozen broadcasting, production and union reps, including brass from the Canadian Association of Broadcasters, the unions, the Ministry of Finance, the cable companies, CFTPA, the CRTC and CBC. The meeting was hosted by Deputy Heritage Minister Judith LaRocque.

Vancouver: Low film and television production volumes in Canada have forced the consolidation of GVFX – Gajdecki Visual Effects, which has closed its Toronto and Los Angeles offices, but remains working in Vancouver.

It was a three-way tie for first place at this year’s DGC Awards, where three wins each went to David Cronenberg’s Spider, second-season eps of Degrassi: The Next Generation and to CBC’s Trudeau.

AS the fall TV season officially kicks off this week, one of the new series that jump-started with a summer debut has already made it into Nielsen Media Research’s top-20 list.