Responding to the following statement: ‘When faced with weak ratings, CBC programming director Slawko Klymkiw has responded that you can’t put ‘a price tag or a rating number’ on the perceived value of a public broadcaster – what is your opinion?’, 43% felt Klymkiw was simply putting a spin on a bad year, while 38.9% believe CBC’s cultural value transcends ratings and 18.1% voted that ratings should be CBC’s prime concern.

Soho on and in the court

Big Studios’ relationship with ABC Sports has grown significantly in the past year, with the Toronto-based design company handling the lion’s share of the master animation package for Super Bowl XXXVII. The fact that this year’s Jan. 26 title match between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Oakland Raiders drew nearly 138 million TV viewers, the second most in NFL history, didn’t hurt either.

Derek Diorio is a busy guy – having schlepped back and forth between Ottawa and the outlying farmland, every week for the past six months, to simultaneously direct season one of Francoeur for TFO and season two of Ottawa: Technically Funny for CHUM, both of which wrapped in February.
He’s also at work, through Ottawa’s Distinct Features, on a horror coproduction with New Zealand and a possible drama copro with Britain.

Montreal: DC Gothika Productions Canada producer Joel Silver and veteran Canadian producer Don Carmody are in preproduction at Mel’s Cite du Cinema on the psychological thriller Gothika. The film stars Halle Berry, Penelope Cruz and Robert Downey Jr. and will be distributed by Warner Bros.
French actor/director Mathieu Kassovitz is helming his first English-language movie, says Carmody, the film’s exec producer.

Vancouver: If 2003 is a year of redemption for the woebegone Vancouver production sector, the credit will be due to American feature films and the fading impacts of would-be strikes and terrorist attacks in 2001.
Either in front of the camera or close to it, Elf (New Line), La La Wood (Gold Circle), Miracle (Disney), Paycheck (Paramount), I, Robot (Fox), An Unfinished Life (Miramax), Chronicles of Riddick (Universal), Scooby Too (Warner Bros.), Scary Movie 3 (Miramax) and Connie and Carla Do LA (Spyglass) represent $500 million in production budgets, give or take.

‘You do know you’re a dinosaur, don’t you?’ asks David Cronenberg, looking across the stage at editor Susan Shipton. ‘I mean, we’re all dinosaurs here, because very soon there will be people in this business who have never even touched film.’

A great TV drama or doc is like a fine cognac – the mystery is in the assembly. And the four editors who won the last round of Gemini Awards speak to cutters’ oft-unsung contribution to this alchemy that makes up a TV program.

The rules of editing are changing, and Alex Shuper hopes Edge Codes will explain why. Since last summer, some time after finishing work on the improvised feature deadend.com for Travesty Productions, the Toronto-based editor started work on his directorial debut, a feature documentary about the finer points of long-form film editing.

The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film

Montreal-headquartered Lightworks has announced global sales of 80 of its Touch systems. Launched at IBC in September, Touch has been used for offline and online in PAL and NTSC on a host of different film and TV projects.

That cracking noise you’ve been hearing lately is the sound of film and TV producers trying to squeeze blood from fewer and fewer stones – B.C. Film funding dropped 83% in 2002; last spring, the U.K. hobbled coproduction by restricting sale-and-leaseback program; many of all but the biggest players have been left out in the cold by the Telefilm performance envelopes; and few people even seem to understand the CTF’s Broadcaster Priorities system.
‘Times are really tough,’ says producer Gavin Wilding. ‘Everyone is trying everything from the Rich Uncle Theory to maxing out their credit cards. But what’s really interesting is this new generation of product placement.’