Vancouver: The Nov. 1 appointment of a new B.C. film commissioner by the B.C. Ministry of Competition, Science and Enterprise suggests that longstanding plans to maximize efficiencies by amalgamating marketer BC Film Commission with funder British Columbia Film have lost to the status quo.

* At Vancouver-based Bardel Entertainment, Christine Larocque has been named VP of production and is currently engaged in the final stretch of production on Bardel’s first made-for-television property, The Christmas Orange. Larocque has more than 30 years of executive animation experience for major studios such as Fox Feature Animation, MGM, Sunbow and Columbia Pictures.

Vancouver: Leaders at Vancouver’s largest production support unions are recommending members ratify new three-year master collective agreements that are expected to contain costs and make Vancouver more competitive for producers.

FOLLOWING are the 2002 Gemini Award winners as provided by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television.

Hey actors, if you’re pudgy, 40-ish and balding, maybe you’ll get to play Canada’s answer to Sherlock Holmes in Tracking the Hunters. Portfolio Entertainment (Stolen Miracle) has secured the rights to the life story of Washington sniper investigator Dr. Kim Rossmo, and has tapped Jerry Ciccoritti (Trudeau) to direct the script, now in development with writer Lila Rose (RoboRoach).
Rossmo invented ‘geographic profiling’ – a revolutionary system for catching serial criminals based on the locations of their crimes. The former Vancouver beat cop has had great success with his technique, and now travels the world investigating violent crimes, including the recent shooting spree near the U.S. capital.

Montreal: In the new Denys Arcand film Les Invasions barbares, a revisiting some 15 years later of the principal characters of The Decline of the American Empire, family and friends, old and new, gather at the bedside of the gravely ill Remy, whose days may be numbered.
The setting seems perfectly suited for a caustic and insightful Arcand discourse on the state of health and palliative care, pain, church, state and the justice system.
The 50-day shoot wraps Nov. 14 followed by an additional week of second-unit photography. Locations include Montreal, which also stands in for Baltimore (a medical facility) and London, and Lake Memphamagog in the Eastern Townships.

Saint John may not seem a likely place to recreate the biggest city in North America, but on Sept. 30, the New Brunswick city became the location for the six-week shoot of Jericho Mansions, a $10-million feature set in a New York City apartment building.
Producer Suzanne Lyons says the architecture turned out to be a great match for New York, because after an 1877 fire wiped out much of Saint John, architects rebuilt in a style similar to Boston and New York apartments, leaving several city blocks that closely resemble the Big Apple.
Lyons, who along with partner Kate Robbins runs L.A.-based Snowfall Films, was born in New Brunswick and is thankful for the opportunity to work on a feature at home, something she’s dreamed of doing since leaving Canada 13 years ago.

By year-end, almost 600,000 Canadian households will have HDTVs, with that number doubling in each of the next four years.

Ian MacLean is VP of the Media Experts iTV Lab, a Montreal- and Toronto-based organization with a mission to understand, anticipate and explore the change digital technologies are bringing to TV and, in particular, their impact on advertising.

You won’t hear a Canadian broadcaster dismiss the notion that digital broadcast means better pictures, better sound and a window to a host of interactive possibilities. What is holding up broadcasters’ widespread adoption of digital television is rather their concern over the complication and cost of upgrading to an all-digital operational infrastructure.

‘From Winnipeg to the World.’ The phrase – taken from the title of a CanWest Global-sponsored book marking the company’s silver anniversary – summarizes the big dreams and even bigger accomplishments of Israel H. Asper, who started raising capital for what was intended to be a merchant banking company 25 years ago. The company name, Asper stipulated to his partner, would have to include the word CanWest, and so when the financing for the undertaking was complete, the CanWest name was born on July 7, 1977.

CanWest’s recently intensified push to encourage Canadians to think nationally makes its countrywide philanthropic vision no surprise.

News has always been important at CanWest, but in the past few years, its importance has intensified. This is attributable to the acquisition of the Southam papers and the explosion in potential uses and sources of news across the company’s multiple media platforms.

1974: Israel H. Asper works with a Winnipeg investment group to rescue the Global Television Network from near bankruptcy. He applies for a licence to launch CKND, a Canadian voice to replace U.S. border station KCND-TV.

Graduating from film school is, of course, just the beginning. Directors, producers, editors and moviemakers of all stripes will – if they want to get ahead in this business – quite likely return to school more than once, putting in time with any of several professional-level institutes, such as the National Screen Institute or the Canadian Film Centre, in hope of further honing their skills to land better jobs. Or even development deals.