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Mischel joins Technicolor
Former main man at Mainframe to lead animation and interactive division
Tricon beefs up sales team
Shuffle comes as Toronto shop looks to take on more scripted content
The Small Screen: Rogers seeks new identity for Citytv
Have you heard the rumors about what a fiasco the Rogers takeover of the Citytvs has been? Terrible!
The Establishing Shot: Producers, casters ready to talk terms
I hope you’re all having a relaxing summer, because it’s about to get really busy. In case you didn’t know, this industry is at a crossroads, and upcoming events will go far in steering the future course of independent production in this country.
The Big Screen: Selling an urgent message of tolerance
It took Indian-born filmmaker Parvez Sharma six years to shoot A Jihad for Love, a documentary about gay, lesbian and transgender Muslims in a dozen countries – and six minutes to realize work would be needed to fill houses for its Toronto theatrical run.
Digital Media: Op-Ed — Online broadcasting: time to tame the Wild West
Bill Roberts is the president and CEO of broadcaster S-VOX, parent company of VisionTV
Cookie Jar takes Shortcake, Care Bears
A deal to buy American Greetings’ Strawberry Shortcake and The Care Bears properties for $195 million has cleared the way for Cookie Jar Entertainment to acquire Los Angles-based brand management giant DIC Entertainment.
Five series wannabes on CBC’s pilot slate
After finding ratings success with Sophie, Heartland and The Border last season, CBC has ordered five new pilots with comic-driven concepts, including a marriage done on a dare and four curling babes.
People
• Corus Entertainment president and CEO John Cassaday is temporarily stepping in atop Corus Radio, and will replace outgoing John Hayes on Sept. 2. Doug Murphy, meanwhile, becomes president of Corus-owned studio Nelvana and EVP/GM of Corus Kids on Aug. 5, while his predecessor Scott Dyer takes over as CTO. Dyer will oversee Corus’ planned move to its new corporate headquarters and broadcast facility next year.
Sold!
• The formats for The Next Great Leader and Trade Up have gone overseas, following a series of deals at Distraction Formats. The political reality show, originally developed by CBC, has gone to Pyramedia, a TV production company that operates in the Middle East and north Africa. The game show Trade Up has gone to MasMedia in Sweden. Distraction has also sold The Last Word to Spain’s Tri Neo Films, while Dirty Rotten Cheater went to TV4 in Poland. A deal was also reached for reality show You Be the Judge, to air on Direct Sight in Ukraine.
The Burning Question
Blame it on Just for Laughs, but a lot of comics chimed in following a recent report that found Canadians trail the developed world in cell phone ownership, raising questions about how quickly we will take to 3G features like video and wireless Internet. And so, hoping to get at least a few straight answers, we ask:
Correction
Technicolor in Toronto provided front-end services and dailies to the production of Kit Kittredge: An American Girl. Incorrect information received by Playback ran in the July 21 issue.
Nadda, Iron shoot ‘impossible’ movie
Writer/director Ruba Nadda instinctively knew Daniel Iron was the right man for the job when she approached him to produce her latest feature Cairo Time, a sweeping romantic tale set in the Egyptian capital.
Côté fronts cop comedy
The $6.7-million film that Cinémaginaire’s Denise Robert is billing as next year’s big Quebec summer release is an action-comedy about a bickering father-and-son cop team starring three of the province’s most beloved comic actors.
Lundgren directs for Insight
Swedish action hero Dolph Lundgren will be doing double duty in Vancouver this October when he directs and stars in Icarus, a $6-million action thriller backed by Vancouver’s Insight Film Studios.
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