Few Canadians tuned in to see how to Escape from the Newsroom.

Montreal: Andre Turpin’s Un Crabe dans la tete is Canada’s entry in the best foreign-language film category at the 2003 Academy Awards.

A recent deal between Alliance Atlantis Communications and CBC stands to boost independent television production by consolidating licence fees and, perhaps, reviving TV dramas. Both companies announced on Oct. 29 that a three-year agreement has been struck to co-commission more television projects, including children’s programming and dramatic series.

The upcoming edition of the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television’s Speaker Series features a three-part presentation by Telefilm Canada executive director Richard Stursberg on the general subject ‘The ABCs of Audience Building in Canada.’ The 90-minute midday program includes lunch followed by a presentation by Stursberg and a question period.

Ouch. Asked to rate the promotion of Canadian TV by the Gemini Awards, 42.7% of Playback readers answered that they did not watch any of the three-night awardathon that aired Nov 2-3 on local cable and Nov. 4 on CBC. In terms of it’s ability to promote Canadian television 34.6% rated it ‘poor.’ The Geminis got ‘adequate’ marks from 15.3% and only 7.2% thought it was ‘excellent.’

In the Oct.14 issue, The Incredible Mrs. Ritchie was identified as a Minds Eye Pictures production. The feature is produced by Calgary-based Nomadic Pictures and Anafi Productions of the U.K., a subsidiary of Visionview Films.

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.