Halifax’s imX communications is heading into the holiday season with a full plate.
The first new project to speak of is Julie Walking Home, a feature film coproduction between imX, Toronto’s The Film Works, Germany’s ART OKO Film and Poland’s Studio Filmowe TOR.
The $8-million film, which wrapped shooting Dec. 10 in Halifax, is about a woman who watches her young son succumb to cancer while her marriage falls apart. She travels to Poland to find a cure for the boy, but comes away with much more.

Calgary-based Fresh Cut Entertainment is currently in production on Little Italys, a six-episode, half-hour travel and lifestyle series for Corus Entertainment-owned Telelatino Network. Hosted by Peter Ciuffa, Little Italys offers a look at Italian life in cities not associated with having large Italian populations.
Produced by Fresh Cut partners Jeff Hohn and Doug Hodgson, the series introduces viewers to the Italian communities in Calgary, Boston, Montreal, Seattle and Kelowna. The first set of episodes wraps with the yet-to-be-shot program on the Italians of Honolulu, Hawaii.

Vancouver: The godfather of the Vancouver independent film scene is lending his expertise to local producers who self-distribute.
Leonard Schein, founder of the Vancouver International Film Festival, finished his three-year management contract as president and CEO of Alliance Atlantis Cinemas in September. (He sold his Festival Cinemas, including the Fifth Avenue in Vancouver, to Alliance Atlantis in 1998.) Since then he has been acting as a consultant for Anagram Pictures’ feature Mile Zero, about a father who kidnaps his son.
‘Most producers don’t have a clue how to distribute,’ says Schein, operating under the name Starr Schein Enterprises.

Howard Rosen is CEO/executive producer of Roadhouse Productions in Toronto, where he oversees the development, production, financing and servicing of feature/cable films, television series, multi-camera live events, commercials and broadband interactive projects.

Vancouver: In a significant shift in position, the minister of Canadian heritage has put the issue of foreign ownership of Canadian broadcasters up for debate – albeit with a strong warning.
Sheila Copps, testifying Nov. 8 in Ottawa as the first witness in the 18-month review of the Broadcasting Act by the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, said: ‘I think the intent of the foreign ownership requirements is to ensure that there is a diversity of voices. If there is another way of achieving those objectives, I don’t think we should preordain that review, but I think [the standing committee] should be reviewing that.’
To date, she has opposed any initiatives that relax foreign ownership restrictions.

Montreal: Higher caps on big-budget drama series and significantly more money for program development are among the major changes to Canadian Television Fund guidelines in 2002/03.
The new CTF guidelines also introduce a series of incentives for small and medium-sized production and distribution companies, worth more than $11 million. One of the biggest changes in Equity Investment Program regulations permits broadcast-affiliate distributors to distribute on EIP-supported projects, subject to a number of safeguards.

Montreal: The producers of the coming-of-age fantasy series Galidor: Defenders of the Outer Dimension say advances in matching green-screen HD photography with digital special FX are helping create wide vistas of magical worlds more often associated with motion pictures than TV.

As media owners increasingly initiate convergence-style communications campaigns, there is a possibility that both agencies and production companies caught flatfooted could find themselves on the outside looking in.
By definition, convergence strategies are driven by content produced for and promoted across multiple media platforms.
In some cases, that content will be a feature film as is the case with Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, which was produced by Warner Bros. and which parent AOL Time Warner is promoting across its media channels, including magazines, cable outlets and Internet properties.

‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house…

Agency creative directors have long found directing spots a logical next step as they change careers. The transition is as old as the medium itself.
Those who have made the jump from agency to commercial directing include Bill Irish, Greg Sheppard and Randy Diplock.
There is, however, a new breed of creatives who rather than jumping to spot production completely are straddling both and finding the balancing act extremely rewarding.

In the midst of the consolidation rush that has seen a cluster of media giants on a buying spree for the past couple years, operations are beginning to take precedence and media conglomerates like Corus Entertainment are starting to trim the fat, centralizing departments and doing away with inevitable synergies.
‘The time has come that Corus will stop acquiring for a while and start operating. John Cassaday has made that clear, but this makes my job less rather than more,’ says Patrick Loubert, recently resigned cofounder of Corus-acquired Nelvana.
Despite corporate clashes or synergies, Loubert says Corus respected that it bought a 31-year-old company with a distinct culture. ‘We were largely a production company and [Corus has] left the production side alone, but times are tough – either you centralize or decentralize.’

Commercial directors spill on their careers, accomplishments and the ideas that propel them to new advertising heights. This month we check in with…