Proving once again to be one of the fastest growing sectors of the Canadian economy, the film and television production industry is looking healthier than ever with a 12% growth to $4.4 billion in 2000.
As announced at the recent CFTPA/ APFTQ conference in Ottawa, Profile 2001, compiled by PricewaterhouseCoopers, reports that Canadian-certified production increased to $1.8 billion nationally in 2000.

Vancouver: Until the Canadian Television Fund picks the survivors of this year’s edition of The Great Canadian Funding Challenge, domestic broadcasters are hedging comments about the coming fall season’s renewals.
Nonetheless, there are long-form, serial shows that seem to have immunity.

Moments after arriving at the U8TV headquarters on Richmond Street West in downtown Toronto, I’m greeted by fashionably clad cofounder Lili Shalev, who ushers me directly up to the fledgling enterprise’s high-tech production facility on the second floor….

At press time, Spy Films announced the departure of founding partner William Cranor. Cranor will be joining former TBWA/Chiat/Day Canada president Steve Hancock’s ‘digital based, e-media start-up, adbeast’ on April 1. Cranor will keep a financial interest in Spy, but will have no more involvement in the management of the company.
Earlier, Spy announced Joni Dick has joined the shop as an assistant executive producer. The move follows a long resistance by Spy honchos Carlo Trulli and Cranor to bringing another executive on board.

Vancouver-based commercial director Nick Racz has been getting a lot of attention lately for a spot called ‘Bad Cats.’ Never before have cat owners seen what really goes on when they leave their unfixed pets alone and their windows open. Client PETA is hopeful this incredibly lewd but funny ad will make cat fanatics sit up and take notice.
The spot is the product of collaboration between Racz and the Vancouver branch of Saatchi & Saatchi. It features cats…well… doing it in such a way that would make John Holmes blush. Of course, the spot is really about awareness, splicing facts about the multiplication rate of cats versus how many are put to death each year in amongst the bawdy visuals.

Martin Beauvais wants to see the Canadian advertising industry take some chances, and he wants to see it soon.
The VP, creative director at PNMD Communication in Montreal believes Canadians are ready to accept advertising that is a little more risque than they are used to. He says we should look to places like Brazil, London and Melbourne to see the kind of advertising we are missing out on.
Beauvais has been in the ad biz for 14 years, starting out as an art director at Tamtam in Montreal, now Tamtam TBWA. After a stint as a creative in Australia, Beauvais moved back to Montreal to take a job at TAXI Advertising, where he worked his way up to creative director. He joined PNMD three years ago as executive art director and was appointed creative director last June.

The Players Film Company is getting into the Internet game with PlayMedia, the Toronto-based company’s newly launched interactive arm. Headed up by general manager Harjot Dhatt and creative director James Starr, Playmedia is designed to help agencies and clients bring another dimension to their product by using the many facets of interactivity. Through this interactive consulting and practical Web-design company, Dhatt is hoping clients can expand their marketing and branding initiatives.

Canada proved its ad acumen once again at the Mobius Awards in Chicago, bringing home more statuettes than any country other than the u.s. Out of a field of 6,000 entries from 31 countries, Canucks pocketed 30 wins (down from last year’s 31), eight of them in the field of television commercial production.
The Mobius Awards, presented in tv, radio, print and package design categories, were handed out Feb. 8 at the Chicago Cultural Centre and the Museum of Broadcast Communications.

There’s more to Edmonton than world-class malls, oil barons and hockey. Just ask the multi-talented, multi-tasking Frame 30 director Michael Hamm. He’ll tell you ‘there’s incredible talent here [in Edmonton],’ and challenge you to look past the 416/905 area code for your commercial production.
Hamm started off in that bloated area code as a writer of long-form scripts. In 1978, he had an offer to take his pen west. The young writer accepted, and in doing so, opened up a new world of opportunity for himself on the Canadian plains.

Marc Dube, executive producer of GearHead Entertainment, says the Vancouver-based spot shop is undergoing some changes. With a few new directors expected to create interest, Dube says GearHead is shifting its focus from the U.S. market to Canada.
‘We’ve been doing a lot of local marketing lately,’ confirms Dube. ‘Over the last year and a half we’ve really focused on the U.S. market, but in the last three weeks we’ve been doing a lot of screenings with all the local agencies. We decided to hit up a lot of these guys in our own backyard that we’ve neglected over the last couple of years.’

Less than a year old, Guru Animation Studio recently completed its first campaign, a series of six Hershey’s Kisses ads for Ogilvy, Mexico. For the crew at Guru, scoring the Hershey’s assignment was a bit of a coup….

With CTV and Global Television heading into licence-renewal period, the CRTC is prepping for its first opportunity to evaluate the private broadcast groups against provisions of the new TV policy.
To foster open and informed public discussion, the commission has decided, by majority vote, to publish previously unreleased information on the two broadcasters, including: a comparison of Canadian and foreign program viewing levels for the years 1997 to 2000; total annual revenues for each of the three years; Canadian programming expenditure data; and current information about the actual and potential audience reach of each network.