* Louise Baillargeon has been promoted to senior VP of the CTF. Baillargeon joined the CTF in 2000 as senior director, French policy and Montreal corporate affairs.

Stornoway president and CEO Martha Fusca maintains that her company is here to stay, but a recent restructuring that led to the layoff of half its stable of production and technical-support staff in early February suggests that the broadcasting upstart has been in over its head.

Technology has made special effects a regular component of spot production. However, in these cost-cutting times, special effects, often perceived to be too expensive, may be the first thing slashed from a commercial budget.
The economic slowdown may cause producers to shy away from using effects that will dramatically increase their budgets. Therefore, offering the most for the least amount of money is more important than ever in a competitive market. Effects houses are using creative problem-solving techniques to keep the business coming their way.

Montreal: Hailed as the new wave in Quebec cinema, Andre Turpin’s Un Crabe dans la tete won seven Prix Jutra at the 4th edition of the Quebec film awards. Un Crabe (produced by Qu4tre Par Quatre and distributed by Film Tonic) won in most of the primary award categories, including best picture, while Turpin took individual honors for best screenplay, best direction and best cinematography. Un Crabe’s main competition, Pierre Falardeau’s historical drama 15 Fevrier 1939 (ACPAV/Christal Films Distribution), won four Jutra, including best male lead for busy actor Luc Picard and best female supporting actor for Sylvie Drapeau. Emmanuel Bilodeau won for best supporting actor for his role in Un Crabe.

Montreal: Alliance Atlantis Motion Picture Distribution will open the Paul Gross romance-comedy Men With Brooms in Canada on 175 screens in some 150 venues on March 8. The film’s P&A marketing campaign, at a cost of $1.5 million or more, may well be the biggest in Canadian film history.

Montreal: This year’s 20th edition of the International Festival of Films on Art fully reveals the diversity of international documentary art film production, with more than 200 films from 30 countries on the program. The event’s honorary patron is Canada’s Governor General, the Right Honorable Adrienne Clarkson.

So… Turns out your latest idea for your new automotive client involves transplanting the Arc de Triomphe right smack in the middle of University Avenue in Toronto, with the spot culminating in a swooping shot of their 2002-1/2 sports car driving through the main arch, over The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier towards Queen’s Park Circle.
No problem, you think, just another special effect.
And you’re right: there isn’t much one can come up with these days that an established vision, careful planning, a little bit of technical ingenuity and a few hours painstakingly spent piecing everything together cannot take care of.

Ask most production service providers whether their contributions are essential to a commercial production and you invariably get an affirmative.
And the truth is that most of them are right.
While agencies and clients demand greater efficiency and consistent high quality work for ever-declining budgets, services are often the target of their demands to find savings.
But where exactly do you cut? Productions need a director, a DOP, a crew, craft services, makeup, hair, props and sets.

FilmExchange: NSI’s Canadian Film Festival, held Feb. 23 to March 2 in Winnipeg, reports attendance as nearly double from last year.

Having launched last fall, Toronto production company 49th Parallel, headed by Noah Segal, Steve Hoban and Philip Mellows, has several projects moving forward.
Nothing, the third feature by Cube director Vincenzo Natali, will go to camera in Toronto for about four weeks in May. Segal describes the comedic fable as ‘Withnail and I in space,’ with a couple of dead-end schmoes who subsist on ketchup sandwiches wishing away the rest of the world. Script is by The Drews (a.k.a. Andrew Lowery and Andrew Miller, of Boys and Girls). Miller will star alongside David Hewlett (Treed Murray), and longtime Natali DOP Derek Rogers will lens, but the F/X-laden production has yet to choose between 35mm and high-definition video.

Vancouver: We may have lost Arnold, but we got Arnie.
The US$170-million blockbuster Terminator 3: The Rise of the Machines briefly lighted upon Vancouver, bringing with it the promise of the biggest feature in B.C. history. But alas.
Officially, studio space opened in Los Angeles, where T1 and T2 were shot. Officially, it has nothing to do with runaway production lobbies or the political aspirations of star Arnold Schwarzenegger, who fancies the comfort of California’s gubernatorial chair.
Officially, it means that Universal Picture’s production costs just increased substantially and the studio has asked for its booked stages in Vancouver to be sublet.

Montreal: This year’s movie slate from high-rolling producer Richard Goudreau of Melenny Productions includes La Louve, an ambitious $20-million Canada/France coproduction with Yves Simoneau signed to direct, and La Balade des dangereux, a $6-million crime-caper comedy from Les Boys director Louis Saia.
La Louve (working title, translation, She-Wolf) tells the haunting story of the legendary 18th century Quebecoise La Corriveau, accused under the Old French regime of murdering two husbands and later hung by the English.