With Canadian and foreign producers beginning to realize the production potential of the East Coast, the Atlantic region has emerged as a viable and desirable location, generating big numbers in annual industry revenue.

Allison Outhit is the VP, television and business affairs, of Collideascope Digital Productions, a Halifax-based convergence and iTV production company. In this article she talks about how Canadian producers, particularily on the East Coast, can weather the storm of economic uncertainty

Alliance Atlantis Communications’ acquisition of Salter Street Films may have sounded some alarm bells regarding the future of the Halifax prodco and the overall well-being of the East Coast production industry. However, as the dust settles on the change of hands, business is marching forward with little detriment and some new advantages.

The popularity of shooting and posting in the high-definition format continues to rise throughout the province.
A recent example is Scar Tissue, a production of Shaftesbury Films in association with CBC. The MOW was shot on three sets at the CBC’s Toronto studios and on location at a farm in Hockley Valley, Jan. 28 to Feb. 14. What is unique about the $1.9-million project, lensed by vet spot shooter Henry Less, is that it used a three Sony 24p HDCAM setup, provided by Sim Video Productions. This multi-camera technique, inspired by Alan Rudolph’s The Moderns, enabled the crew to complete production of the two-hour movie with quality and efficiency.

Montreal: American university film schools are among the most active users of the World Affairs Television profile series The Directors. All 46 hours of the collection can be licensed online at reduced rates as part of a telecourse curriculum program offered through PBS’s Adult Learning Service (www.pbs.org/als) in Alexandria, VA.
Season four of The Directors, 11 hours comprised of 10 new profiles, is hosted by Dateline NBC’s Keith Morrison and Geoffrey Korfman. The series tapes in Montreal, Toronto, New York and Los Angeles and is a ‘mind-boggling’ logistical exercise of rights clearance, post and editing, travel and hotel arrangements, says exec producer Larry Shapiro. Sessions can cost as much as $20,000 to produce or as little as $7,500.

Canadian film and TV companies rarely place help-wanted ads in the classified section of the local newspaper, which would only lead to their fax machines then being gummed up with an onslaught of applications.

In an industry based on whom you know and how you market yourself, everyone from college grads to professionals looking to make a career shift to top executives seeking fresh talent all benefit from good old-fashioned networking opportunities.

Late last year, Mississauga, ON-based W.K. Buckley, a cough and cold remedy manufacturer known the world over for its folksy ‘It tastes awful. And it works.’ positioning, rolled out a series of ads that were notable for the bargain-basement feel of the production.
That was something of a feat for a brand that puts low cost as a key criterion on its creative briefs.

In the last two years, it seems, Apple Box Productions has really come in to its own. One of a handful of Canadian-based commercial houses with multiple locations across the country (in this case, Toronto, Edmonton and Vancouver), Apple Box has made clients, ad agencies and competitors sit up and take notice.
One competitor – or rather a director at a competitive company – certainly did. The result? Christopher Gentile left Toronto’s LTB Productions to join ABP in December, and is looking forward to a lucrative future at his new home base. Apple Box will represent Gentile across the country and in the U.S.

Montreal: Canada’s principal distributors association, CAFDE, says Canadian feature films should benefit from the same ‘on-screen’ flexibility afforded European films and films from other countries.
CAFDE president Richard Paradis says European producers are casting stars from other countries and winning unprecedented market share. ‘They are working two markets at a time, and we’re not allowed to do that; we are not even allowed to use non-resident Canadians, which is unbelievable.’

Vancouver: Attendance at NATPE 2002 was down as much as 40% and, in general, action on the floor of the Las Vegas Convention Center was dead, but they didn’t really notice at the Canada Pavilion.

Audio and picture post-production house Theatre D Digital has purchased the historic Regent theatre in uptown Toronto and will relocate its facility into the building, maintaining the movie palace’s exhibition business. The move gives filmmakers, editors and sound mixers what they’ve always said they wanted – the ability to gauge the progress of post work on an actual theatrical screen instead of a small monitor. On a bigger scale, Theatre D envisions its new building as a centre for Canadian filmmaking.

Tim Turner is executive producer and general manager of Circle Productions in Toronto. For the past 13 years, Turner has recruited and worked closely with a host of Canadian, U.S. and international directors and director/cameramen.

Canadians score at IBA

Montreal: Andre Turpin’s Un Crabe dans la tete (produced by Qu4tre Par Qu4tre and distributed by Film Tonic) leads all films in this year’s 4th edition of the Prix Jutra with 10 nominations, including best picture, best direction and best screenplay.