The Prairie production community is about to get louder. The Manitoba, Alberta and Saskatchewan industry associations, or the ‘IMPIAs’ as they collectively refer to themselves, are forming partnerships that will give them a unified voice on national issues. In addition, they are working together to launch Prairie-wide film awards, a production guide and a screenwriting competition.

Canadian drama, according to some pundits, is at death’s door and the livelihoods of those who work in the industry are on the critical list. More professionals in the film and TV industry are looking for short-term financial assistance than ever before and the situation is only going to get worse, says the executive director of the Actors’ Fund, an organization that helps those in need.

Despite their brush with funding disaster earlier this year, Semi Chellas and company have just wrapped season two of The Eleventh Hour and gone to post in anticipation of a January debut on CTV. The drama, about investigative reporters, got off to a rocky start last season – what with low ratings, a misfired marketing campaign and the CTF meltdown – but its cocreator is optimistic that the second go-round will improve on the first.
The next 13 hours will be ‘more kinetic, less passive,’ says Chellas, by nudging the focus off the newshounds and onto their subjects. A host of guest stars including Jennifer Dale, Tom McCamus, Gordon Pinsent and Matt Frewer will make appearances and each ep will open with a grabby prologue, a la Law & Order, she says.

High art and pop culture come together in Bloomsday Cabaret, a music-driven, POV documentary from St. John’s, NF Rock Island Productions that will have Joyceans singing.
Rosemary House, who writes, directs and produces, says she was struck by the central role popular music played in the life and writings of James Joyce. Using the simple music of his day, House seeks to give audiences a glimpse into the complex world of the great modernist writer.

Vancouver: On Jan. 12, Brightlight Pictures starts production of its eleventh project since starting business two years ago. The Long Weekend is a Canada/U.K. copro with Gold Circle Films (My Big Fat Greek Wedding), the company that involved Brightlight in the Vancouver production of La La Wood earlier this year and, more recently, was coproducer of U.K./Canada copro White Noise, starring Michael Keaton.

Deborah Osborne is a production manager, associate producer and post-production supervisor whose credits include The Republic of Love, Soul Food, Attack of the Clones (Imax version) and Nero Wolfe: The Golden Spiders. She has taught seminars on post-production for the Directors Guild of Canada, the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television, the Guild of Canadian Film Composers, Film Training Manitoba and Humber College.

The folks at the Washington, DC-based National Association of Broadcasters are sure working hard for your registration dollars for NAB2004 in Las Vegas, April 17-22. The organization’s latest initiative is the Individual Creative Excellence Awards, for those in the post and production fields.

Montreal: William F. White International’s Quebec affiliate Groupe Moliflex-White has applied to Quebec Superior Court for bankruptcy protection from creditors owed $23.4 million. WFW is also the largest unsecured trade payable, owed close to $5.8 million.

If you want cash for a TV show next year, odds are you’ll go through a broadcaster to get it. The Canadian Television Fund this month revealed its newly overhauled set of rules for the coming fiscal year and, as previously reported in Playback, will funnel most of its money through a system of broadcaster envelopes, allocating funds to ‘casters that, in turn, will dole out to producers on a per-genre basis subject to CTF approval.

Producers across the country responded very positively to proposed changes to the Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit announced Nov. 14 by John Manley, the minister of finance, and Sheila Copps, minister of Canadian heritage.
Highlights include an increase in the base rate for qualifying labor expenditures, from 48% to 60%, and a policy ruling that treats government equity, including profit-participation loans and investments, in the same manner as other forms of government assistance.

Montreal: Production representatives of the Hollywood studios in Canada say they could boycott Quebec as a location if they are obliged to work under conditions set out in collective agreements signed by the Quebec producers association, the APFTQ.

The government’s lukewarm official response to the Lincoln report on the Canadian broadcasting system has left many in the industry shaking their heads, fearful the two-year, 872-page study will end up a victim of bad political timing.

The CRTC this month shot down controversial proposals put forth by the cable companies and advertising upstart 49th Media, coming down on the side of broadcasters who had vigorously argued that both plans stood to undermine the Canuck TV trade. At the same time, the reg left the door open for 49th Media to reapply.

Vancouver: CHUM Television chopped 34 jobs at its Vancouver and Victoria stations Nov. 12 in a cost-cutting move to merge operations and rationalize news delivery and expenses.

CanWest Global’s Canadian television group had a close to 15% increase in operating profit, moving from $191 million last year to $220 million this year, but according to CFO John Maguire, bottom-line figures for fiscal 2003 are lower than overall strong operating results would suggest.