✖
Innoversity reaches out to mid-career professionals
The fifth annual Innoversity Summit will highlight aboriginals and the disabled in the workplace, while also looking to improve the development of media career professionals when the event returns to Toronto Oct. 23-24.
That ’70s crisis
Karine Vanasse in CBC’s October 1970. The 8 x 60 mini by Big Motion Pictures and Barna-Alper Productions airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. (beginning October 12), recounting that year’s troubles with the Front de libération du Québec.
Why this business is still so exciting after 20 years
It was 20 years ago – on Sept. 29, 1986, that the first issue of Playback appeared. During that span, in which we have published more than 500 issues, nothing less than a technological revolution has taken place in the field of communications, transforming the distribution and consumption of filmed entertainment. Fluctuations in the economy, the exchange rate, and government financial support have also added greatly to the challenges faced by the Canadian broadcast, production and interactive sectors.
Frank turns to crime
Ilana Frank has reteamed with some of her Eleventh Hour coworkers to make Would Be Kings, a crime mini now shooting in Hamilton, ON for CTV.
CBC enters Mosque
So much could go so very, very wrong with Little Mosque on the Prairie. But its producers insist that the forthcoming CBC sitcom – about a Muslim family living in rural Saskatchewan – is not a show about ‘Muslim humor,’ despite the title.
Rhombus wrapping Silk
Toronto-based Rhombus Media has sent François Girard’s latest feature film, Silk, into post-production in Montreal, with plans to have a final cut ready by March.
Briefly
* The police drama Sous les vents de Neptune (2 x 90), a copro by Montreal’s Transfilm and France’s Passion Film for France 2, has wrapped after four weeks in Montreal.
Sold!
* L.A.-based distributor Program Partners (Da Vinci’s Inquest, Cold Squad) has picked up Degrassi: The Next Generation for broadcast syndication in the U.S., again via its partnership with Thunderbird Films in Vancouver.
Can it save CBC?
Tumisho Masha and Thami Ngubeni star in the medical drama Jozi-H, which was set to launch Oct. 13 on CBC with hopes of reviving the net’s failing ratings. The 13 x 60 is a copro with South Africa from Toronto’s Inner City Films. Inner City and Milagro Films of Montreal recently announced plans to copro Black Code, a six-hour mini about the history of black Canadians.
Easy… Eeaassy…
Wendy Crewson stars as virologist Rachel Woods on ReGenesis, now shooting its third season (13 x 60) in Toronto and Hamilton, ON for Shaftesbury Films. Crewson (Away from Her, 24) has joined the regular cast, working in the lab alongside star Peter Outerbridge. Shaftesbury also recently wrapped The Robber Bride, an MOW starring Mary-Louise Parker (Weeds) and based on the Margaret Atwood novel
C.R.A.Z.Y. best Canuck film of last 20 years
It may not have the Academy Award statuette of Denys Arcand’s Les invasions barbares, nor the record-setting box office of Bon Cop, Bad Cop, but Playback readers have voted Jean-Marc Vallée’s Quebec drama C.R.A.Z.Y. the best Canadian movie of the past 20 years.
Balancing bleeding-edge technology and the human element
Back in 1986, Ladi Horak, a film editor who cut CTV’s Live It Up!, opened the doors to Toronto’s CreativePOST in a 580-square-foot rented space in downtown Toronto.
Technicolor Toronto turns to local production
Amidst a corporate reshuffling and a slow year in foreign service production in Toronto, post giant Technicolor is relying increasingly on Canadian productions.
Northwest Imaging & FX gets animated
After more than 15 years in the post-production industry, Vancouver’s Northwest Imaging & FX has launched an animation production division to bring greater stability to the company.
The definitive CDN broadcast and production resource.Over 5,000 company listings!
