What happens when an independent contractor turns out to be an employee in disguise? Or maybe not an employee, but something like an employee?
A recent Ontario court decision suggests that in some circumstances the law will impose ’employment-like’ rules even where the parties are independent contractors.
Independent contractor relationships are popular throughout the film and television production and broadcast industries. The attraction of the independent contractor relationship, of course, is that it is not an employment relationship and that it is not subject to legislation and case law governing employees.
For example, the engagor doesn’t have to pay employee benefits and withhold and remit the amounts required under employment and income tax legislation. The contractor’s pay is not reduced by source deductions and the contractor can deduct business expenses when calculating income tax.
And it’s a flexible arrangement when the parties want to limit their commitment to a certain time period or a specific project.

It seems Leslie Nielsen (Men with Brooms) just can’t get enough of Ottawa animation house Amberwood Entertainment. And vice versa. The 76-year-old comic – narrator of both Katie & Orbie and the preschooler series Pumper Pups – is set to make his debut as a cartoon character in Zeroman, a superhero spoof Amberwood is currently developing with Teletoon.
‘I think it’s going to be highly saleable in Europe,’ says Amberwood president Sheldon Wiseman. ‘Leslie is very popular over there.’
The traditional 2D animated comedy, aimed at a very broad family audience, will star the voice and caricatured image of Nielsen as a bumbling, super-powered crime fighter. Producers Wiseman and Mark Edwards are working with RoboRoach scribe Dan Smith on this one and, if they get the go-ahead from Teletoon, will go into production in January, aiming to air in March 2004. Each ep is expected to cost about $460,000.

‘Young people today have come a long way from watching Popeye,’ says Roger Monk. ‘They are used to watching pretty fantastic motion pictures in the theatre, so when you see a basic stereo production it becomes pretty bland. They expect it to have big sounds and things flying around the room. Saturday morning cartoons have jumped realms.’

Digital special F/X are a given in this day and age. That’s why Richard J. Anobile, for one, can’t understand why more productions don’t go the step further and do all their picture post-production in the digital domain. The associate producer on Cypher (formerly Company Man), the US$7.5-million Pandora thriller directed by Vincenzo Natali and starring Jeremy Northam (Gosford Park) and Lucy Liu (Charlie’s Angels), recently pushed for the movie to be posted at Toronto’s Command Post/TOYBOX using the shop’s Cinema HD process.

Chris Miller is one of the audio crew at Thillaye Productions, a Toronto studio that has done sound design work for more than 15 years, specializing in large-format 2D and 3D films, features, documentaries and special installations. It is headed by Peter Thillaye, who has worked on more than 25 IMAX films.

With more productions becoming aware of the benefits of posting film-originated material on video, there arises the challenge of ensuring a proper transfer back to film for release prints. That’s where media services provider Sonic Foundry comes in.

As goes the local production biz, so go the post-production shops. But the consensus is that volume is on the upswing, which gives heart to Images Post, the latest Toronto house to open its doors amidst a very competitive marketplace.

Full-service audio and video post house Magnetic North has a new roommate, as Niagara-on-the-Lake, ON F/X studio Keyframe Digital opened a satellite office in Mag North’s Toronto facility on Oct. 1.

Live-action tween series continue to be a premium category in the international kids market.

Telefilm Canada reports 67 companies will be grouped under the Canada Pavilion umbrella at MIPCOM 2002, a major increase from the 35 companies last year and 16 in 2000.
The Canada Pavilion is the largest in terms of surface area at the fall program market and the second most important stand in terms of human traffic after Media – the European Union Programme. This year’s MIPCOM runs Oct. 7-11.
Lise Corriveau, Telefilm’s manager of festivals and markets, says, ‘Branding has made a big difference to many of the companies, creating a big buzz around Canada. The pavilion projects a dynamic image and that brings in a lot of clients.’

Just weeks into her new job as president and CEO at the Canadian Television Fund, Sandra Macdonald has inherited a growing organization that is being buffeted by external industry changes that are affecting drama and documentary investment.
As evidenced in the CTF’s annual report for fiscal 2002 (ended March 31), released this month, documentaries are surging, while drama volume is waning. For instance, in fiscal 1998, drama hours trailed documentaries by 36%. In fiscal 2002, documentaries generated 1,121 hours, nearly double drama’s 624 hours.
The impact of the recently licensed specialties and their need for information programming, along with the difficulties in developing and financing drama, accounts for the ‘differentiation’ in demand, says Macdonald, adding that, as a reflection of the current industry, there is little the CTF can do about how its $241 million is dispersed.

Da Vinci’s Inquest leads all dramatic programs with 10 nominations for the 2002 Gemini Awards. The Vancouver-shot crime series, entering its fifth season, is nominated for a total of 10 trophies, including best dramatic series. The program, produced by Haddock Entertainment and Barna-Alper Productions and broadcast on CBC, has taken that prize in each of the last three years.
The challengers aiming to unseat Da Vinci’s in the dramatic series category include: rival Vancouver cop series Cold Squad, with nine noms; the Showcase Original Series Bliss, an erotic women’s anthology from Montreal’s Galafilm and Toronto’s Back Alley Films; Dice, a small-town thriller series coproduced by Montreal’s Cite-Amerique and the U.K.’s Box TV; and Foreign Objects, a series of six half-hours from Rhombus Media about a documentary director, written, helmed by and starring Ken Finkleman. The last three productions chime in with two noms apiece.

The success of Da Vinci’s Inquest, highlighted by a drama-series-leading 10 Gemini nominations, has the show’s creative team thinking big. Like big screen.
Show creator/executive producer/writer/director Chris Haddock has been hatching the idea for a Da Vinci’s feature with lead actor Nicholas Campbell and head writer Alan DiFiore since the Vancouver-shot crime series’ early days. Haddock expects that in addition to at least a couple more seasons on the small screen, the adventures of coroner Dominic Da Vinci, played by Gemini Award winner Campbell, will be coming soon to a multiplex near you. DiFiore expects the movie may go into production as early as next year.

TVA Films will distribute three pictures by three of Canada’s top filmmakers next year, bringing new works by Guy Maddin, Francois Girard and Don McKellar to screens with a heavy P&A push. The Montreal distributor acquired all Canadian rights to all three films – with total budgets of roughly $17 million – from Toronto’s Rhombus Media and announced the details at a press conference on Sept. 12.

With the number of Canadian dramas dwindling, producers who manage simply to keep their series on the air face good odds to get Gemini nominations. And so the nominees for the 2002 awards, announced Sept. 24 at simultaneous press conferences in Toronto and Vancouver, include many familiar faces.