The Ontario District Council of the Directors Guild of Canada – ever caught up in the cause of gaining work for Canadians on imported jobs – is wondering whether it should be representing Canadian commercial directors, even to push their cause…

Membership in l’Association des realisateurs et realisatrices du Quebec, representing French-language film and tv directors, has increased to 320 from 250 last year. Indie tv producers in the apftq are now ‘automatically’ deducting union dues (3%) from directors’ salaries at source,…

The great Russian novelist, Leo Tolstoy, claimed that ‘All happy families resemble each other, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.’ Through countless tales, Tolstoy’s aristocrats fought their passionate generational battles between father and son and committed tragic…

Following is the complete list of this year’s Gemini nominees as supplied by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television….

Montreal: Acting on a complaint, a carload of agents with Citizenship and Immigration Canada raided the Pointe Claire, Que. set of a General Electric commercial shoot on Sept. 13 seeking information about five u.s. actors. The action was based on information…

While Canadian entertainment and media companies have been scurrying to gain presence on the global market by way of mega-mergers – a la Alliance and Atlantis, Corus and Nelvana, bce and ctv – one Toronto-based producer/distributor has managed to remain independent…

Corus Entertainment has announced a $554 million cash and stock deal in which Corus, a Toronto-based media company, will pay $48 per multiple voting and subordinate voting share to buy cartoon heavyweight Nelvana. Because Corus already owns 675,000 subordinate voting shares…

The Canadian Association of Broadcasters, along with a gaggle of other industry lobby groups, is calling on the Heritage Ministry to reinvent the structure that governs the Canadian Television Fund. The cab wants to eliminate the ‘Telefilm Canada-style’ approach to funding…

The focus of this regular section is on agencies in Canada. Looking for agency business strategies and creative teams’ secret weapons? We tell all in Ad Missions….

Derek Vanlint, the veteran director/cameraman responsible for the cinematography on Alien, Dragonslayer and innumerable commercials, has signed with Toronto’s The Big Film Company for representation as a director and dop. Vanlint, who is repped for longer-form work by Sesler & Company,…

Toronto commercial production company Jolly Roger is no more. According to Jolly Roger executive producer James Davis, the company is being dissolved and reformed by himself and Peter Davis under a new name. The new shop retains the same roster of…

Established commercial directors are the subject of this regular feature. Each issue we will profile their careers, accomplishments and the ideas that propel them to new advertising heights….