Guy Maddin has served as his own director of photography on the six-minute short The Heart of the World and on some of his features, and for that he won’t apologize.

Fujifilm Canada is marketing a new film stock that it is calling the world’s first high-speed, daylight-balanced color negative film. The Reala 500D (35mm: 8592 & 16mm: 8692) complements Fuji’s F-500 tungsten-balanced stock and its E.I. 64 and 250 daylight stocks.

Montreal: It’s celebrity watch time all the time these days. A local publicist: ‘Me and my girlfriends are going to start hanging around hotel lobbies waiting for Brad and Matt. Brad Pitt and Matt Damon,’ she adds, picking up on the slow uptake. A handout printed in oversized letters for local crew on the George Clooney feature debut Confessions of a Dangerous Mind strictly prohibits any and all photos. Montreal Film Commissioner Andre Lafond tells the host of an early morning CBC radio show the sets of all the U.S. movie shoots in town are closed. Security is tight, but that’s not the problem, he says. The bigger concern is the freelance snoops with telephoto lens targeting unsuspecting stars (at play) from as far away as two city blocks.

Montreal: A growing wave of Montreal producers, including primetime French-language suppliers, are trying their hand at English TV drama as a way to diversify.

Vancouver: Not only does Vancouver get to host the action picture Ecks vs. Sever because of international security concerns, but now we get to play ourselves.
The mid-range-budget picture – starring Lucy Liu and Antonio Banderas as rogue agents out to get each other – was originally set in Bangkok. But after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the production was moved back to North America to be closer to Los Angeles.
Directed by Kaos, a Thai making his Hollywood debut, the film is being shot with wide angles and old-fashioned physical effects – meaning that the location is integral to the story and computer graphics will not be used to enhance, for instance, the explosions.

First Jackie Chan, now Chow Yun-Fat. Yun-Fat, who confirmed his status as one of the world’s most popular action stars with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, is coming to Toronto to film MGM’s Bulletproof Monk, an action flick based on a comic-book miniseries.
The F/X and martial-arts-laden movie tells the story of a nameless, ageless monk (Yun-Fat), who has protected an uber-powerful ancient scroll for decades. His search for a successor leads to a streetwise kid named Kar, played by Seann William Scott (American Pie). James King (Pearl Harbor) is on board as a Russian princess sidekick named Bad Girl.

St. John’s-based Kickham Productions’ founder Anita McGee (New Neighbours), a staple of the Newfoundland production community, is set to direct and produce a new feature film called The Bread Maker, penned by Sherry White (Beyond Zerba, Blue Blazes) who will also star.
The Bread Maker is about a woman who is a bread maker by day and romance novelist by night. When a personal relationship interferes with the quality of her writing and book sales, she must find a way to win back her waning audience.

Regina-based Minds Eye Pictures is in development on a feature film called End of the Soo Line from writer William Boyle (Now & Forever). The film is set during the prohibition era when much of the bootleg alcohol sold in the U.S. was made in southern Saskatchewan and transported on the Soo rail line to Chicago.
The story is about a trip taken by legendary mobster Al Capone to Saskatchewan to escape the heat in Chicago.

Vancouver: Overall attendance at NATPE this month in Las Vegas is down about 40% from last year, but Canada’s participation has more than doubled.
According to Beth Braen, senior VP of marketing for the trade show, running Jan. 21-24, exhibiting companies are down to 535 from 800 last year and overall attendance will be about 12,000 compared to 20,000 a year ago.
The effects of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the consolidation of the television industry have contributed to the lower participation, she explains. Braen insists, however, that while NATPE’s long-term viability has been questioned in the media and former exhibitors are organizing a concurrent event at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas, the 39-year-old market is not going away.

By the old broadcast model, the digital rollout appears to be in early trouble as 50-odd channels vie for a miniscule slice of viewers.
But many of those behind the new channels are quick to point out the broadcast model for digitals is much closer to magazine or radio. Viewed in that light, the numbers may not be nearly so bad.
Either way, with a four-month free preview period ended Jan. 7, Canadian broadcasters will have their work cut out for them in the coming months.

Despite his international success creeping out audiences for more than a quarter century, David Cronenberg remains fiercely independent, grossly perverse and as resolved as ever to continue shooting in Canada. Starting with 1975’s Shivers, almost every foot of film the director has shot has been locally.

In an anticipated move that reflects its commitment to reduce its primetime production volume and augment its broadcasting division, Alliance Atlantis has laid off 80 employees and consolidated its content production and distribution activities, creating the new Entertainment Group, headed up by Peter Sussman. The layoffs are expected to reduce annual operating costs by $7 million.
Calling the cutbacks ‘a stand-alone action,’ Michael MacMillan, AAC chairman and CEO, says, ‘This isn’t anything to do with Sept. 11 or the economic situation.’