When people consider the impact digital technology has made on the TV industry, what might first come to mind is the increasing popularity of digital origination, or perhaps how DVDs are taking up ever more shelf space at the corner video store. But it is also proving a boon to networks that install all-digital broadcast systems such as those from Montreal-based MaestroVision.

When the greatest asset of a film or TV craftsperson is his or her credits, the digital domain provides a big advantage. The speed and ease with which video, audio and text can be manipulated and hard copies can be authored allows for the efficient assembly of a reel that can be distributed on a compact DVD. Reelsuite has recognized this and launched a service that helps craftspeople of every stripe to promote their skills to the rest of the industry.

Montreal: ‘Financing productions is [currently] very difficult, and in most cases you have to have a partner who can bring some money to the table. Presales are next to impossible. So everybody is looking for what we call at the bank [Comerica Entertainment Group] ‘tax-related money,” says Laura Polley, president of Toronto-based Independent Film Financing.

Montreal: Canadian television producers use the CRTC coventure formula to do deals with U.S. production partners and broadcasters, otherwise they quickly find themselves offside on a content basis, says International Film Financing president Laura Polley.

Montreal: Sandy Mackay-Smith says the budget threshold for transitional TV coproduction using a U.K. tax component is very high at $1.2 million per hour and should basically help only MOWs.

Montreal: Broadcaster-affiliated production companies may immediately access the English-language selective component of the Canada Feature Film Fund. The new measure, announced July 10 by Telefilm Canada executive director Richard Stursberg, is being introduced on a pilot basis for the period 2002 to 2004.

This year the Academy Award stage was swamped by award recipients thanking their mothers and peers with non-American accents. Of the five films nominated for best picture, three were made outside of the U.S. For the past few years, American filmmakers have been bad-mouthing Canada for what they see as taking the bread out of crews’ and casts’ mouths as the U.S. film industry finds it cheaper and financially beneficial to shoot in Canada. Now the Hollywood studios are finding new incentives to shoot off the North American continent all together. Many countries offer excellent financial benefits and European governments have cultural departments that offer generous tax breaks. This, combined with digital technology, means a film can be shot and post-produced almost anywhere in the world.

Industry aids Copps’ campaign

Asked should the CTF’s ‘Visibly Canadian’ criteria be scrapped for next year, 77.55% of poll respondents voted yes, 22.45% voted no.

Contrary to information in the July 8 B.C. Scene, Jeff Bear and Marianne Jones are producing the second season of Ravens and Eagles, an aboriginal arts documentary, not Big Red Barn Media Group.

* CTV has named Jordan Schwartz its new VP of daytime programming. Schwartz, formerly executive producer of Canada AM, will oversee CTV’s daytime slate and report to Susanne Boyce, CTV’s president of programming and chair of the CTV Media Group. Schwartz’s executive producer credits include The Dini Petty Show, The Camilla Scott Show and House & Home, and previous employers include NBC News, ABC Daytime and CNN.

BBR Productions development VP Rebecca Yates died the morning of July 16 surrounded by family members after being diagnosed with an especially virulent form of cancer only weeks ago.

Montreal: All drama, including animation and certain docudrama projects commissioned before or by April 17 that have started principal photography before or by June 30 and have a cost per hour of £500,000 ($1.2 million) will be grandfathered for tax-relief purposes in the U.K. The transitional ruling also states that applications for pre-certification of a film copro submitted prior to April 17 to the Department of Culture, Media and Sports will be treated as an application for certification.

‘We will have a digital world 10 years from now. To assume that we wouldn’t is to assume that we’d still be in the era of black-and-white TV,’ says Phyllis Yaffe, CEO of Alliance Atlantis Broadcasting. And she is not alone in this belief.

Who knows camera gear better than the directors of photography who actually use these tools to shape the visuals that drive storytelling in film and television? The answer, clearly, is nobody, and with this in mind, Playback approached four top Canadian DOPs and asked them to jot down their thoughts on any new piece of equipment of their choosing that has made them approach their craft differently or which has yielded innovative results.