Asked should Chum, CTV and CanWest Global be eligible for Canada Feature Film Fund support for movies they want to produce, 47.65% of poll participants responded yes, 52.35% said no.

Despite attempts to appeal it, the letter of the law in the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television’s rules and regulations has rendered the final two seasons (20 x 1 hour, equating to $25 million of production) of Salter Street Films/Cinar’s Emily of New Moon ineligible for Gemini recognition.

Vancouver: Despite uncertainty about its future as a government agency, Knowledge Network is forging ahead with its summer and fall schedules and has prelicensed 25% more projects for 2002 than last year.

* Montreal’s Just for Laughs Group has announced it has hired former Cinar Corp. co-CEO Micheline Charest as an international business consultant. Groupe JFL also announced it has hired former Videotron VP Robert Bourque as VP finances, and former Cirque du Soleil executive David Gilmour to manage sponsorship sales in the North American market.

If you’re wondering why Toronto bar patrons have been spontaneously breaking out into the chorus of ‘Good Morning, Good Morning’ from the original Singing in the Rain soundtrack, you need look no further than Taxi Advertising’s Alan Madill and Terry Drummond.
The creative team is responsible for the latest Viagra spot on TV, an ad that in one fell swoop takes the sex-joke raunchiness normally associated with the penis-proud drug out of the equation, and simultaneously pulls a fast one on the Canadian drug advertising regulators.

It happened in the middle of a shoot that Vancouver-based Palmer Jarvis DDB was doing for the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia. The spot revolved around the theme of auto theft, and the team filming the ad was perched up high on a building using walkie-talkies to direct the talent to simulate stealing a camper van.
As it happens, a conscientious member of the public saw what was going on, and thinking the vehicle was really being stolen, tackled the talent in the middle of a take and tried to make a citizen’s arrest.

These days the Quebec advertising market seems plagued by conservative choices and more translation from English than a meeting of the U.N. General Assembly. Yet that’s not the impression one gets looking at the work of Diesel Marketing’s Daniel Andreani and Philippe Comeau, one of the province’s top creative pairs.
Case in point is a current crop of TV ads for Guelph, ON-based Sleeman Breweries that evolved from a highly successful radio campaign the Diesel team was looking to build on.
‘As a relatively young company we don’t do as much TV in general,’ says Diesel art director Andreani. ‘We were looking for a way to boost the campaign and decided that it was a good idea to change mediums.’

Rarely do Canadian movies receive much recognition. Small budgets are partly responsible, but also distributors often don’t employ the right sort of marketing.

Vancouver: Service producer Legacy Filmworks of Vancouver may scare up its first episodic drama series if the one-hour pilot Haunted raises the right network interest.
Legacy chief Deboragh Gabler, who is normally busy with U.S. network MOWs, says the UPN/CBS/Viacom production is about a private investigator who survives a near-death experience only to emerge from the trauma with the ability to see dead people who can help him solve crimes.
Fourteen days of production began April 1. No cast was set at press time.

Air Canada just had its reputation shredded – again. Perhaps it wasn’t paying attention a few years back when Rogers Cable got slammed over its negative option billing practices.
This time the issue is privacy. Federal privacy czar George Radwanski has made Air Canada his first target in a war to wake up Canadian business. The negative option approach to obtaining consent is not an option for Air Canada, or for anyone else that collects, uses and discloses personal information.

In search of fresh sex adventurers, the Paperny Films documentary series Kink is moving production from Vancouver to Toronto for season two. The program focuses on the everyday lives – and kinky activity – of those in the underground cultures of sadomasochism, bondage, cross-dressing, fetishism and other fantasy games.
Preproduction will begin April 15, followed by 13 weeks of principal photography on the DV format commencing May 3. Field director Aerlyn Weissman (Forbidden Love) will shoot in Toronto and then return to Vancouver to edit the series along with codirector Dennis Heaton, who returns from season one. Also on board as field director is Winnipeg indie filmmaker Noam Gonick (Hey, Happy!). Stacey Offman is producing and David Paperny exec producing. Vancouver-based Paperny will set up a satellite office at Toronto’s Associated Producers facility.

Thom Best’s stock has soared in the past couple of years. The Toronto-based director of photography has shot perhaps the two most heavily promoted Canadian features: Ginger Snaps, for which he was nominated for a Genie Award, and the recent box office record-breaking curling comedy Men with Brooms.