Montreal: All drama, including animation and certain docudrama projects commissioned before or by April 17 that have started principal photography before or by June 30 and have a cost per hour of £500,000 ($1.2 million) will be grandfathered for tax-relief purposes in the U.K. The transitional ruling also states that applications for pre-certification of a film copro submitted prior to April 17 to the Department of Culture, Media and Sports will be treated as an application for certification.

‘We will have a digital world 10 years from now. To assume that we wouldn’t is to assume that we’d still be in the era of black-and-white TV,’ says Phyllis Yaffe, CEO of Alliance Atlantis Broadcasting. And she is not alone in this belief.

Who knows camera gear better than the directors of photography who actually use these tools to shape the visuals that drive storytelling in film and television? The answer, clearly, is nobody, and with this in mind, Playback approached four top Canadian DOPs and asked them to jot down their thoughts on any new piece of equipment of their choosing that has made them approach their craft differently or which has yielded innovative results.

When a production can’t afford to rent the equipment it wants, one solution is to muster all one’s technical ingenuity to modify the gear it already has, or come up with some altogether new gizmos. This kind of resourcefulness was put into action on Sleep Always, a low-budget feature from prodco Friendly Fire that wrapped recently in Toronto. The film also exemplifies the continuing love affair with small-gauge motion picture stocks in the face of digital video’s increasing popularity.

The DigiClam

Among the basic ingredients for a successful provincial film and television production industry are talented crews, a dollop of tax incentives and, as Saskatchewan is proving, purpose-built soundstages.

Before the 1990s, it was rare to find a film equipment supplier located within a studio complex, but as the one-stop shop has emerged as a coveted business model, an increasing number of studios have embraced the convenience of bringing equipment suppliers in-house.

To rent or own – it’s a question that hangs over the housing market, those in frequent need of a tuxedo, and production companies in search of a studio. Sure, it would be great to have rent-free year-round access to a 35,000-square foot, custom-built, clear-span soundstage with extra camera lockup and a wraparound blue screen. But owning property is expensive, risky and complicated. Is buying worth the hassle?

Barna-Alper’s interest in both docs and drama is satisfied with a diverse production slate with collaborators from coast to coast.
The Toronto prodco, along with Regina-based Minds Eye Pictures, begins shooting this week in Regina on the MOW Betrayed. (For more information, see Prairie Scene, p. 31). Meanwhile, the MOW Choice, about Dr. Henry Morgentaler’s decades-long challenge of Canada’s abortion laws, will go to camera in November for CTV. Montreal director John L’Ecuyer (Saint Jude) will helm from a script by Carole Hay and Suzette Couture (After the Harvest). Laszlo Barna, Barna-Alper’s prez and CEO, is co-exec producer with Kevin Tierney of Montreal’s Park Ex Pictures. Budget is $3 million to $4 million, with funding from the major agencies. Minds Eye International is the worldwide distributor.

Montreal: Quebec cultural funding agency SODEC and the Quebec operations office at Telefilm Canada have announced combined production investments in seven French-language feature films, an entirely diverse slate of pictures that includes comedies, auteur films and dramas.
In its third 2002/03 round of funding decisions, SODEC is supporting five ‘private-sector’ projects and two minority coproductions (among the 21 proposals filed for the April 26 deadline), while on July 10 Telefilm announced investments in six productions, four of which are coproductions with Europe.
Shooting on the new round of projects begins later this summer through to next spring. Budgets are in the $3-million to $7-million range.

On July 3, bright pink Cadillacs and Hollywood stars, including Shannen Doherty (Mallrats) and Parker Posey (Best in Show), descended on Winnipeg to begin shooting The Battle of Mary Kay, an MOW for CBS about the coveted cosmetics queen, played by Shirley MacLaine (Salem Witch Trials). Principal Canadian actors include RH Thomson (Road to Avonlea), Barry Flatman (Rideau Hall) and Rachel Crawford (Traders),
Alliance Atlantis executive Ed Gernon makes his directorial debut on the AAC production, which satirizes the rivalry between Mary Kay Ash of Mary Kay Cosmetics and Jinger Heath of BeautiControl Cosmetics, played by Posey. The MOW is coproduced with Howard Meltzer’s TurtleBack Productions of New York and AAC’s Ian McDougall. Patricia Resnick (Nine to Five) penned the script.

The need for greater flexibility is the central theme that emerged through the initial round of consultations headed by Francois Macerola, who just completed a whirlwind national tour to review Canadian film and television content regulations.
But it is a theme that could put the entire process on a collision course with Canadian talent and craft unions. This, in turn, underlines what will likely be the former Telefilm Canada executive director’s greatest challenge: harmonizing an entire scale of disparate and self-interested views in defining what makes a production Canadian.
According to Macerola, who held discussions between June 4 and 26 with industry representatives in Winnipeg, Regina, Edmonton, Vancouver, Moncton, Charlottetown, Halifax, St. John’s, Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto, there is a great deal of consensus in terms what issues need to be addressed. None has yet questioned the need for Canadian content or the value of the points system.