Hawk, a teen drama series (13 x 30) to be pitched at Banff’s Market Simulation ‘is like the concept of Are You Afraid of the Dark?,’ says producer Darlene Mulligan of Chikak Communications, Winnipeg. …

Guest columnist Kathy Barthel fills in this issue while Samantha Yaffe is away on her honeymoon.
Filming is underway in Toronto on the Alliance Atlantis Communications TV movie The Jenifer Estess Project (working title), a two-hour, event movie for CBS. The US$5-million film tells the true story of a young New York theatre producer Jenifer Estess (Laura San Giocomo – Just Shoot Me), who contracts Lou Gehrig’s Disease, and with the help of her sisters Valerie (Jane Kaczmarek – Malcolm in the Middle) and Meredith (Annabella Sciorra – The Sopranos), begins a foundation to speed research for a cure.
But it’s not a typical ‘disease-of-the-week movie, ‘ according to Ed Gernon, executive vice-president, movies and miniseries, Alliance Atlantis Television Production. ‘The film takes the disease-of-the-week formula and flips it on its ear,’ he says. ‘This is a lady with a ribald sense of humor and [it’s also] a strange kind of love story. This movie is about a woman who discovers love in the twilight of her life.’

A man sneezes and what pours forth from him looks like tiny marines rarin’ to take a beach on …

There’s a hippo in the bathtub at Halifax’s Cage Digital, but this one won’t be slipping down the drain out of sight of Canadian children. Cage president and CEO Jan-Peter De Souza assures they’ll know all about The Hippo Tub Co. come fall.
The Hippo Tub Co., a 3D animated kids show to air on CBC, coproduced by Cage and Evening Sky of L.A., is based on the popular children’s album by Canadian crooner Anne Murray.

Montreal: The Banff Television Festival continues to develop excellent relations with various Asia Pacific industry players, clearly manifested this year with the addition of the new NHK President’s Prize of $25,000 to be awarded annually to the best program in the…

Montreal: The Banff Television Festival continues to develop excellent relations with various Asia Pacific industry players, clearly manifested this year with the addition of the new NHK President’s Prize of $25,000 to be awarded annually to the best program in the…

PSST. Wanna buy a hot idea?
Probably one of the most common legal claims in the film and television industry is that someone ‘stole’ an idea for a series or a motion picture from somebody else.
It’s a problem that affects people on both sides of a pitch. The ‘pitchers’ are afraid of pitching a great idea to someone only to have the other person use it to produce a show without them. ‘Pitchees’ are afraid that if they have a successful show they’ll have to deal with false accusations of stealing ideas.

Montreal: In its most direct form, formatting is a way of transferring expertise. Sellers provide prepackaged recipes and a licence to reproduce a formatted concept within a particular country. From smash ratings game shows to entire network and specialty concepts, the…

Vancouver: There was no distributor to shield the freshman filmmakers behind child welfare feature Protection as they ventured into Vancouver and Toronto theatres June 8. …

Montreal: Jeffery Bear, panel chair of the BTVF Aboriginal Voices seminar, says Zacharias Kunuk’s Camera d’Or win for Atanarjuat – The Fast Runner at this year’s Cannes Film Festival underscores the need for Native filmmakers to defend their original languages and…

The relationship between director and director of photography is ‘somewhat of a marriage,’ says Toronto-based cinematographer David Greene.
The Victorious Films feature Century Hotel marks the first time Greene has worked with Canadian director David Weaver, and the getting-to-know-each-other process consisted of watching many films together prior to preproduction.
‘That was an important starting point for me, because you really have to click with one another in order to do good work,’ the DOP says.

This year’s field of 86 nominees for Rockie Awards includes only five Canadian-connected contenders. Nominations were winnowed from a field of more than 1,000 program entries and include such international luminaries as Friends, Frasier, The Sopranos and The West Wing….