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People
• Sandra Collins is joining the Canadian Television Fund, and starts on June 25 as its VP of corporate services and administration. Collins was previously at Alliance Atlantis Communications and the University of Western Ontario, and will be responsible for CTF finance, administration and human resources.
Peter Simpson 1943-2007
Veteran producer Peter Simpson – maker of some 40 movies and TV shows including The Eleventh Hour and the Prom Night franchise – died June 5 in a Toronto hospital from complications due to lung cancer. He was 64.
Tony Roman 1942-2007
The family and friends of Tony Roman gathered in Montreal June 14 to pay tribute to the Quebec film producer, scriptwriter and singer, who died June 8 after a battle with cancer.
Correction
Showline Harbourside Studios is owned by its operators, and will not relocate as part of the City of Toronto’s waterfront revitalization plan, although that is expected to happen to Showline Trinity Studios. Incorrect information appeared in the April 30 issue.
Where Canadian casters are at with digital media
So, Banff. Seemed to me the festival this year was hijacked by the new media types.
Niv Fichman has no fear of flying
There’s no bigger cheerleader for Canadian production than Norman Jewison. He was reading through his morning newspaper recently, he told me, when an item caught his attention. It was an article about how Rhombus Media producer Niv Fichman crisscrossed the globe in order to secure the movie rights to Nobel Prize winner Jose Saramago’s novel Blindness, which goes to camera in Ontario in late July with an eye to a spring 2008 release.
Lack of net neutrality threatens online economics
Broadcasters and producers take note: net neutrality – or, more specifically, the lack of it – could have a big impact on your emerging content distribution models.
Michel Côté Cruising again with Ménard
Women beware: nearly two decades after wreaking havoc in Montreal’s nightclubs, the motley crew of male seducers of Cruising Bar are getting ready to hit the singles scene again.
Les Boys back at it
Quebec’s best-loved hockey team is lacing up its skates once again, but this time Les Boys will be looking to continue their remarkable winning streak on the small screen, and are now shooting a 20 x 30 series for Radio-Canada in Montreal.
Rozema goes American
HBO Films and Picturehouse have put Patricia Rozema (I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing, Mansfield Park) in the director’s chair for the first feature adaptation of an American Girl book.
Song recast in jPod
CBC has put Larry Sugar and J.B. Sugar of No Equal Entertainment to work on a jPod series, working from the Douglas Coupland novel and the pilot shot in 2006. Working under the banner of I’m Feeling Lucky Productions, the Sugars (The Collector) exec produce with Coupland, looking to take the Vancouver-shot 13 x 60 to air in January. Steph Song (Dragon Boys), seen in the pilot as a sexy office worker, is back alongside David W. Kopp (Freddy vs. Jason) and Emilie Ullerup (Sanctuary).
Insight servicing National Lampoon
Insight Film Studios has three new projects shooting in B.C., including its first service shoot, National Lampoon’s Ratko: The Dictator’s Son.
Whizbang bound for Bosnia
Movie Central and The Movie Network are sending two limited series and a fourth round of ReGenesis to camera this summer.
Rebels, visionaries, mentors and moguls who changed our screens forever
Back in the 1950s, there was still no such thing as funding for independent movies or TV shows in Canada. There was a national broadcaster in CBC/Radio-Canada and a world-class documentary and animation engine in the National Film Board, but virtually no money for those who wanted to create their own indelible cinematic mark. Indies had no voice.
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