With SIGGRAPH 2002, the digital graphics industry’s premier trade show, fast approaching, hardware and software manufacturers are scrambling to be ready with their latest product and strategy announcements.

Several years ago, post-production and animation/F/X shops would pay large sums to acquire the industry’s premier hardware and software, and wear this like a badge of pride. Companies came to be known as ‘Maya shops’ or ‘Softimage shops,’ or they would promote their expensive infernos or flames. Shops that had the most cutting-edge gear would be perceived to produce the best work, they reasoned.

The battle among editing manufacturers for the hearts and minds of filmmakers is in full swing.

Stephen Barden is a supervising sound editor at Sound Dogs Editing and Design Group. The Toronto audio post shop’s credits include Men With Brooms, Treed Murray, Blizzard and Requiem for a Dream.

Montreal: DSI Datotech Systems of Montreal hasn’t set out to reinvent the mouse, just replace it – specifically in the area of 3D applications. The new tool is a multiple-point hand-based gesture interface called the HandGear touchpad.

Although this summer will not match the year 2000’s production frenzy, shooting in Ontario is warming up with the arrival of the sunny season.
On the series front, Toronto’s Fireworks Entertainment, L.A.’s Tribune Entertainment, France’s M6 and Germany’s Tele-Munchen started rolling in early June at Toronto’s Cinespace Studios on Adventure Inc., a new one-hour action drama. Previous collaborations between Fireworks and Tribune include Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda and Mutant X.
Adventure Inc. stars Michael Biehn (The Art of War, The Terminator) as a legendary explorer who heads up a team of thrill-seekers in Beauport, NC who take on any challenge that comes their way. Their various missions take them around the world, with future episodes to be shot in Marseilles, France, and the U.K. Cast also includes Quebec’s Karen Cliche (Galidor) and Jesse Nilsson (The Skulls).

Samuel, the first French-language drama to be produced in New Brunswick and Radio-Canada’s first major dramatic production made outside Quebec, wrapped 36 days of shooting on June 10.
‘This country is so multicolored with so many regions and it’s vitally important for people from New Brunswick and Acadians to see themselves on the air,’ says series producer Sam Grana, who cowrote the original story with Robert Hache. Guy Fournier penned the script with Mario Bolduc, Andre Melancon and Pierre Gang.
The $4.4-million miniseries (four one-hours), coproduced by Moncton’s Sam Grana Productions and Cite-Amerique out of Montreal, tells the story of a man who dreams of being a fisherman until a terrible storm claims his father at sea.

Vancouver: After the drama of a last-minute funding reprieve from Telefilm Canada, The New Beachcombers MOW goes into four weeks of production July 8.
The $3-million production, commissioned as part of CBC’s 50th anniversary and set to air in October or November, will return to the Sunshine Coast village of Gibsons 11 years after the Canadian classic series went off air, this time to save the famed Molly’s Reach restaurant from the evil doings of greedy condo developers.
While the characters created by the late Bruno Gerussi and Robert Clothier will not be recast, actor Jackson Davies (a coproducer with original series cocreator Marc Strange and Soapbox Productions’ Nick Orchard) returns as Constable John along with new addition Dave Thomas, who is the proprietor of Molly’s Reach. Vancouver actor Deanna Milligan is one of a trio of new younger characters that, with the success of the MOW, could provide the fresh blood for a new Beachcombers half-hour series.

Montreal: Cineflix is making definite headway in the U.K. with the opening of a new distribution office in London, Cineflix International, headed by managing director Paul Heaney, and the sale of the six-hour factual tripartite coproduction Mayday to Channel 5 and commissioning editor Dan Chambers. Discovery Networks Europe is expected to take a second window, says Cineflix president Glen Salzman.
Mayday explores the science of aeronautic technology and air safety through the recreation and investigation of near misses and major crashes. Cineflix’s Andre Barro is executive in charge of production. Bryn Higgins of Stone City Productions in the U.K. is series producer. The French producer is Bernard Vaillot of Galaxie Presse. Taping is slated to begin in September in North America and Europe. Mayday is a majority Canadian (51%) coproduction budgeted at $2.5 million.

It’s remarkably rare for the Supreme Court of Canada to hear a copyright case – it’s been 12 years since the last one.
Yet in this increasingly digital world, copyright, and who’s entitled to control it, has never been a more critical issue. So any guidance coming from our highest court needs to be heeded.
Ironically, the issue before the Supreme Court in Theberge v. Galerie d’Art du Petit Chaplain Inc. revolved around copyright pertaining to the static beaux arts – paintings and lithography reproductions – neither being digital by their very nature.

Banff, AB: As one cabdriver puts it: ‘If you don’t like the weather in Banff, wait five minutes.’ The same can be said about the topics being discussed at Banff2002. If you don’t like the subject matter…
Indeed, the themes of the Banff Television Festival are varied.
In the sessions, the talk ranges from the importance of public broadcasting, to the importance of Cancon, to the importance of John Cleese. But out on the veranda at the Banff Conference Centre and in the delegates lounge, it remains business as usual.
‘It’s the same every year,’ says VisionTV cofounder Peter Flemington. ‘It’s all funding; all deals.’

With Atom Egoyan’s support, distribution deals with Odeon Films and TFI International, a stellar cast featuring Sarah Polley, a non-union crew, some Hollywood-caliber gear, a $2-million budget and a little luck, writer/director Peter Wellington’s latest feature has the promise of something big.