Fujinon, manufacturer and distributor of optics and lenses for video production, has opened a new office in Canada.

James Tocher is a digital cinematographer specializing in blowups to 35mm through his Vancouver company Digital Film Group, which includes Atanarjuat – The Fast Runner among its credits. Tocher’s DOP credits include the digital movies Evirati, Croon and Noroc.

It has been just under a year since work started at Great Lakes Studios, one of the two giant production sites currently in the works in Toronto. Out at the old R.L. Hearn Power House – a long-dead generating station on the unfashionable end of the lakeshore – dignitaries and partners broke ground on a two-year, $100-million effort to build one of the world’s largest soundstages.

The Bridge Studios fills gap with spots

Performance Solutions/Set Solutions, a Toronto-based outfit that provides physical F/X services and equipment rentals, has recently expanded its offerings with the acquisition of aerial rigging company Harcourt Rigging and physical F/X house Malivoire Pictures.

Montreal: When productions shooting in la belle province find the need to shoot in, around and under water, one of the F/X photography resources they can call upon is Montreal’s Aquamedias.

In his fifth decade on set, Ron Fawcett says he still enjoys being behind the wheel.

An application filed with the CRTC by the Canadian Cable Television Association to add U.S. premium services on a digital carriage basis only is meeting with fierce opposition from broadcasters.

Kevin Shea has been trying to rewrite the rules of Canadian TV advertising – filing an armload of paperwork with the CRTC that, if approved, will win his company, 49th Media, the rights to sell Canadian ads on U.S. specialty channels like CNN and A&E.

Over the course of what must have been two very long days in June, two platoons of TV execs – one from CHUM Television, another made up of their various competitors – sparred in front of a CRTC panel in Edmonton, arguing the pros and cons of the Toronto caster’s proposed move into Alberta.

The 28th Toronto International Film Festival will open on Sept. 4 with Denys Arcand’s Les Invasions Barbares.

Telefilm Canada is cutting its funding to the Ottawa International Animation Festival after having been the major government resource behind the event for nearly 30 years.