In an industry based on whom you know and how you market yourself, everyone from college grads to professionals looking to make a career shift to top executives seeking fresh talent all benefit from good old-fashioned networking opportunities.

Late last year, Mississauga, ON-based W.K. Buckley, a cough and cold remedy manufacturer known the world over for its folksy ‘It tastes awful. And it works.’ positioning, rolled out a series of ads that were notable for the bargain-basement feel of the production.
That was something of a feat for a brand that puts low cost as a key criterion on its creative briefs.

In the last two years, it seems, Apple Box Productions has really come in to its own. One of a handful of Canadian-based commercial houses with multiple locations across the country (in this case, Toronto, Edmonton and Vancouver), Apple Box has made clients, ad agencies and competitors sit up and take notice.
One competitor – or rather a director at a competitive company – certainly did. The result? Christopher Gentile left Toronto’s LTB Productions to join ABP in December, and is looking forward to a lucrative future at his new home base. Apple Box will represent Gentile across the country and in the U.S.

Montreal: Canada’s principal distributors association, CAFDE, says Canadian feature films should benefit from the same ‘on-screen’ flexibility afforded European films and films from other countries.
CAFDE president Richard Paradis says European producers are casting stars from other countries and winning unprecedented market share. ‘They are working two markets at a time, and we’re not allowed to do that; we are not even allowed to use non-resident Canadians, which is unbelievable.’

Vancouver: Attendance at NATPE 2002 was down as much as 40% and, in general, action on the floor of the Las Vegas Convention Center was dead, but they didn’t really notice at the Canada Pavilion.

Audio and picture post-production house Theatre D Digital has purchased the historic Regent theatre in uptown Toronto and will relocate its facility into the building, maintaining the movie palace’s exhibition business. The move gives filmmakers, editors and sound mixers what they’ve always said they wanted – the ability to gauge the progress of post work on an actual theatrical screen instead of a small monitor. On a bigger scale, Theatre D envisions its new building as a centre for Canadian filmmaking.

Tim Turner is executive producer and general manager of Circle Productions in Toronto. For the past 13 years, Turner has recruited and worked closely with a host of Canadian, U.S. and international directors and director/cameramen.

Canadians score at IBA

Montreal: Andre Turpin’s Un Crabe dans la tete (produced by Qu4tre Par Qu4tre and distributed by Film Tonic) leads all films in this year’s 4th edition of the Prix Jutra with 10 nominations, including best picture, best direction and best screenplay.

In the next five months, two international events will take place which could help drag commercial production out of its current state of malaise: the Winter Olympics and the World Cup of soccer.

Bob Kennedy is a senior partner in Flashcut Editing, Toronto, and chair of the PVR subcommittee for CPAT.

With the majority of Canada’s distribution operations falling under the control of Alliance Atlantis, the time is more than ripe for a player as well backed and prolific in international sales as Chum Television International to enter the field of third-party distribution.