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Saddest Music plays for Sundance
When the prestigious Sundance Film Festival gets underway in Park City, UT Jan. 15-25, Canada will be well represented with 13 films already selected, not including selections for the Shorts program.
Animation Hothouse nurtures six shorts
The National Film Board of Canada is turning up the heat on six young Canadian filmmakers. The NFB’s Animation Hothouse, an intensive 12-week mentoring program in Montreal, provides the tools, resources and guidance so that each filmmaker can create an animated short ready for release.
On the Corner wins at Whistler
After screening a total of 47 films, the four-day Whistler Film Festival wrapped Dec. 9, with director Nathaniel Geary’s feature On the Corner, about young siblings trying to survive Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, winning best Canadian film.
People
* Toronto-based Mara Di Pasquale has been named CFO and COO at Peace Arch Entertainment Group, replacing Juliet Jones. Di Pasquale is a 15-year veteran of the entertainment business, with past stints at Gullane Entertainment, Lions Gate Entertainment and Catalyst Entertainment. Jones is still with the company as a director.
New show on the block
Global is set to import more reality-ish TV from Down Under, now that it has the format rights to The Block – a popular home renovation series. The show takes real-life couples and moves them into a condominium complex, where they are given a set time and budget to redo their units. The condos are then sold at public auction and whichever couple brings in the highest price, wins.
Invasions batting two for two
In what may or may not be a harbinger for Oscar time, Denys Arcand’s The Barbarian Invasions was selected best foreign film of the year by the National Board of Review in the U.S. The NBR, an association of teachers, actors, writers and movie-production workers, is traditionally the first ‘best movies of the year’ announcement in the U.S.
A brief thank you at 200
Douglas Barrett is a partner at the Toronto law firm
Stars in our eyes
Twice in the pages of Playback in about a year – in September 2002 and again last February – producer Robert Lantos threw down the gauntlet, challenging Canadian producers to step up and begin making audience-friendly feature films.
Correction
Jennifer Jonas is among the producers for Rhombus Media’s Childstar, but not Sari Friedland as reported in the Nov. 24 issue.
News footage leads strong demand for stock
Despite a decline in high-end film and TV production over the past couple of years, and perhaps in part because of it, stock footage houses report healthy sales. The main reason is the proliferation of new specialty outlets and diginets requiring numerous but inexpensive shows.
Suppliers mixed on HD offerings
While some stock footage companies are preparing for high-definition TV, others are standing pat.
Veer off the beaten path with full design package
While many stock footage houses provide producers raw material to shape as they see fit, Calgary’s Veer looks to offer a more all-inclusive product line.
Audio shops’ stock on the rise
What do This Hour Has 22 Minutes, Hockey Night in Canada, NYPD Blue, The Practice and Saturday Night Live have in common? Well, aside from all being TV shows, they all use stock audio.
AmiWare: new kid on the stock scene
Broadcasters and producers looking for backgrounds with Canadian themes can now turn to Markham, ON-based AmiWare for its royalty-free animations.
NABA forecasts 2012 for DTV switchover
For the past five years, the prevailing wisdom has been that by 2006/07, U.S. broadcasters would have switched over to digital television, and Canadian ‘casters would follow 18 to 24 months thereafter. But today, the North American Broadcasters Association is pushing that forecast by up to six years.
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