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Pitches good, not great
The Toronto Documentary Forum got off to a heavy start this year, opening with pitches about state-sponsored assassination, crippling poverty, life in Afghanistan and a submarine full of drowned Russian sailors who, so the proposed story goes, were sent to the bottom of the ocean by a U.S. submarine and left there to die for the sake of Vladimir Putin’s political career.
People
* Nelvana’s interim president Paul Robertson has moved up to parent company Corus Entertainment, as president of television, passing control of the animation house to Corus boss John Cassaday.
Jump Cuts
CanWest loses $211M
New production tax rules less than what industry wanted
Satya Poddar is national director of tax policy services at Ernst & Young L.P.
TFC-CAA deal a head-scratcher
There’s a minor controversy that’s been brewing for more than a month now that doesn’t seem to want to go away. It’s got me scratching my head. It’s this whole Telefilm Canada-Creative Artists Agency deal under which the L.A.-based talent agency will package pics for Canadian producers.
Giants step back, new players rise in ’03
Canadian film and TV production and development spending was down nearly 7% in 2003 compared to 2002, in the latest phase of a three-year slide. While dramatic shifts in the domestic production industry have driven the overall decline, some prodcos are seeing new opportunities emerge.
Canadian companies’ production & development spending in 2003
The following is a chart indicating where independent production companies spent their money in 2003.
Bilking the system one ep at a time
Montreal: The lovable rogues are back. Les Bougon, the hit series about an irreverent clan who milk Quebec’s social assistance programs, started shooting its second season on April 19.
Broadcast
Selling Innocence in Edmonton
Youth
No, the other kind of Genie
Rivard takes high-def plunge out west
Winnipeg production company Les Productions Rivard, formed in 1995 by Louis Paquin and Charles Lavack to enhance the voice of francophone communities in Western Canada, continues to pursue this goal with five projects currently in production including the company’s first sojourn into the HD format.
Documentary
Reach for the top
Features
‘Killers killed
Banff finances hit rock bottom
The Banff Television Foundation dropped the biggest bombshell of its 25-year history in April when it filed for bankruptcy protection in a Calgary court – blaming SARS and mad cow, openly criticizing the management of former CEO Pat Ferns and warning that, if certain legal and business proceedings did not go forward, its landmark festival would die just two months short of its silver anniversary.
On April 12, Madame Justice Horner of the Court of Queen’s Bench of Alberta appointed the accounting firm Richter, Allan & Taylor as the foundation’s trustee in bankruptcy and a deal has been struck with a Toronto company that is expected to keep the festival afloat.
Market abuzz as formats take over
Cannes, France: With ‘super formats’ Survivor, Big Brother and The Apprentice firmly entrenched in the television landscape, buyers and sellers went to the south of France for the 2004 edition of MIPTV March 29 to April 2 in the hopes of grabbing the rights to the next big thing. Canadians were right in the thick of it.
But the activity took on an almost surreal quality in Cannes, as buyers looked beyond the reality shows that have become synonymous with the format craze to comedies and dramas.
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