Billy Barnes is a perfectly normal kid…that is until two aliens erupt into his life through the family toilet. In a time when presales are hard to come by, the far-out premise behind Decode Entertainment’s hybrid live-action/CGI children’s series draws on universal themes and characters, which have already secured The Blobheads extensive distribution deals worldwide, including Nickelodeon International’s largest multi-territory deal to date.

Sparks Productions in Toronto has added Laura St. Amour to its team as artist representative, a new position the prodco created using the management design of a record company as a reference point. Sparks seeks to distinguish its directors in a saturated marketplace by focusing on developing directors’ reels. Amour will guide the directing roster as well as advise agency producers of how best to approach Sparks’ lineup. One of her aims at the company will be to help directors build and design effective reels.

Andrew Tolomizenko is corporate counsel for a large

Vancouver: The bottom-line impact of budget cuts at British Columbia Film – which opted out of television production funding earlier this year – is starkly outlined in the society’s report for fiscal 2002/03, just released.
Compared to the year before when there were 46 B.C. productions sharing production funding of $3.5 million, fiscal 2002/03 lists only eight projects – all features – sharing $1.3 million. By title, that’s an 83% drop in volume and, by investment dollar, it’s a 63% drop.
Even the lucky features, which were funded through a special feature film fund granted by the previous provincial government, are down 27% by title and 11% by investment in the current year.

There’s not enough money to go around at the Canadian Television Fund, and applicants to the fall round of both its Equity Investment Program and Licence Fee Program have been warned that the programs have been ‘oversubscribed’ by some $23.2 million.

Paul Gross could soon be back on TV. The former Due South star, seen most recently in the Alliance Atlantis curling comedy Men with Brooms, is currently in development with writer John Krizanc on a new show for CTV.

CHUM Television has made its first move into the home territory of rival Craig Broadcasting. The Toronto-based heavyweight recently applied to the CRTC to open stations in Calgary and Edmonton, both of which are home to Craig stations. If approved, CHUM could go on the air in Alberta as early as fall 2004, entering a new phase of a bitter turf war that has seen CHUM and Brandon, Calgary-based Craig compete for viewers and licences in Toronto and British Columbia.

Lions Gate sells Mandalay

To borrow from Chapter One, paragraph one, of the Handbook of All-Purpose Cliches in a Post-Recessionary Economy: The year past has been a roller coaster ride. Except in the case of commercial production it’s been an inverted roller coaster: all the exhilaration came when the ride was going up.

Montreal: Incendo Media has added an important element to its product mix by signing a multiyear output agreement to distribute movies from L.A.-based Revolution Studios in the Canadian TV market.

Atom Egoyan’s Ararat brought in an estimated $211,130 on a limited platform release of six screens in Los Angeles, New York and Toronto, averaging $35,188 per screen over its opening Nov. 15-17 weekend. Alliance Atlantis Motion Picture Distribution is distributing in Canada. Miramax Films is the U.S. distrib.

SHOTS & Chasers submission forms are now available online at: www.playbackmag.com/onthespot.

Montreal: The impact of industrialization is the overriding concern of documentary filmmakers in Canada according to a newly released industry survey of 80 filmmakers, conducted in person and online. Most of the survey respondents, particularly those in Quebec, claim the documentary system is worse now than it was five years ago.

Demonstrations that have bedeviled film and TV shoots in Toronto will continue and possibly escalate, says Teamsters Local 847, as the union enters its sixth week of protests against the Directors Guild of Canada and the CFTPA, claiming those groups have interfered with a membership drive.

The early part of 2002 may have been about surviving, but the latter part has been about adapting to the changing marketplace. Canada’s commercial production industry emerges from one of its most difficult years, anticipating a brighter, busier 2003 with a more developed sense of the role strong homegrown talent will play in the collective future of the industry.