Montreal: Successful DVD and videocassette distributor Imavision is actively looking for product for the North American market, says CEO Gabor Kertesz.

Vancouver: Keystone Entertainment, producer of a menagerie of animal features such as Air Bud and the upcoming snowboarding chimp feature MXP: Most Extreme Primate, is hoping for some cost savings on its new feature Spymate by previewing eight action sequences with ‘animatics’ – or animated storyboards.
A new-ish trend in production, animatics was used in Panic Room by director David Fincher to turn static storyboards into full-motion previews of how the action and camera would move through various scenes.

CWIP expands beyond the West

A French munitions ship exploded in Halifax Harbour on Dec. 6, 1917, initiating a chain reaction of catastrophic events, which many say took the city 80 years to recover from. The shock wave from the explosion, followed by a tidal wave, bulldozed the north end of Halifax. Then a massive fire swept through what was left of the city, and later that day, the worst snowstorm in decades descended on Halifax, making rescue efforts almost impossible.
This is the story that will be told through Shattered City, the two-part miniseries coproduced by Halifax-based Salter Street Films and Toronto’s Tapestry Pictures for CBC.

Montreal: Alliance Atlantis Vivafilm’s market share in the first three months of this year is hovering around the 40% level, partly fueled by the remarkable achievement of Charles Biname’s historical epic Seraphin: Un homme et son peche (Cite-Amerique), which had box-office receipts (minus taxes) of $7,857,944 in its sixteenth week of release.

Jennifer Ward is executive producer of Toronto- and Los Angeles-based Syndicate Music and Sound Design and David Logan Music, which create original music and sound for games. Credits include X-Men: Mutant Academy, Pac-Man World 2 and Twisted Metal 4. Here she reports from the recent Game Developers Conference.

With war between America and Iraq a near-certainty, Canada’s national networks have, for several weeks now, been mobilizing to cover a second conflict in the Persian Gulf. Covering the war will be very expensive for all three nets – not just because reporters on the scene need insurance, hazmat training, satellite feeds, hotels, translators, and god-knows-what-else – but because all will go commercial free for at least the first 24 to 48 hours of the conflict, leaving a costly, Iraq-shaped dent in their monthly ad revenues.

While overall international sales markets remain in decline for broadcast product, Canadian participation in the upcoming MIPTV in Cannes March 24 -28 is up – testimony to the success of the Canada Pavilion marketing strategy at foreign markets and the crucial need to maintain a presence even in the tough times.
This year, 65 Canadian production companies are en route to the French Riviera compared to 52 that participated last year, a 25% increase.

Friends in high places may be a bonus, but today what Canadian producers really need to finance homegrown content are friends in other provinces. For better or worse, the interprovincial coproduction model has become an essential element of indigenous production over the last seven to eight years, meaning increased production in regional centres, more money per project, but less for individual producers.

At last year’s American Film Market, Montreal-based Equinox acquired the indie hit of the year, but this year the Canadian distributor was hoping to sell it.

It probably won’t oust Daredevil or Chicago from the box office Top 10 anytime soon, but David Cronenberg’s Spider bowed to strong numbers in the U.S. and Canada following its Feb. 28 debut. Coming out of that weekend, the arty thriller with Ralph Fiennes and Miranda Richardson brought in a per-screen average of US$11,087, besting all of the U.S. wide releases. (Daredevil did US$4,099 and Chicago US$4,311.)

Award-winning sound editor and designer Jane Tattersall has left her position as president and CEO of Toronto picture and audio post house Tattersall Casablanca, citing the desire to return to a more hands-on role in her craft. March 7 was Tattersall’s last day at the company.

Film and TV producer Jon Slan and Scientific Games CEO Lorne Weil have launched Slanted Wheel Entertainment, a Toronto-based company whose sole focus is the adaptation of literary works into films for the big and small screens.

For the third consecutive year, CBC has scored an extra $60 million from the Ministry of Canadian Heritage. Sheila Copps, the heritage minister, confirmed in Toronto earlier this month that the funding, for special cultural programming, would be tacked on to the $997.5 million already allotted for the network in the recent federal budget.

Montreal: Quebec Finance Minister Pauline Marois’ March 11 budget allocates an additional $20 million in discretionary program funding for the film and A/V sector – bringing total 2003-04 credits to an unprecedented $36.9 million.