So, they say the recession is over. And we barely felt it.

In the wake of St. Patrick’s Day, I’m left thinking about Ireland and all the Canadian entertainment companies that have set up shop there over the past several years. Well actually, what’s really got me thinking about the Celtic country is Alliance Atlantis jetting Ted Riley off to Dublin to open a new operations office – not that there’s anything peculiar about a man named Ted Riley taking up residence in Ireland. The truth is, while none of the the seniors at AAC, including Riley, were willing to talk to me about the move and the AAC spokesperson insisted that human resources and ease of travel were top of mind, it’s pretty clear that once again Ireland’s glorious tax incentives are the name of the game.

Riley relocates to Dublin

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.