Montreal: Both sides, producers and performers, agreed to put a little water in their wine in the latest IPA negotiations. With the prospect of a deepening recession and already reduced production levels in Canada, the negotiators for ACTRA and the producers associations kept the list of issues to a minimum, delivering a renewed Independent Production Agreement in a remarkably short five days.

Vancouver: In the mid-1990s, ACFC West seemed to be in its death throes – its Toronto affiliate ACFC had succumbed to the onslaught of the rapidly expanding IATSE union and it was waging its own war against IATSE Local 891 at home. Then IATSE 891, Teamsters Local 155 and IATSE Local 669 combined to form the BC Council of Film Unions, secured an exclusive territory of high-end production, and effectively squeezed the undercapitalized ACFC into the low-budget market.

NABET 700’s business manager Ross Leslie says the biggest issue currently facing the union’s approximately 1,250 film technicians is the general slowdown in the production industry.

Vancouver: A prime example of IATSE’s culture of home rule – where each of the approximately 25 locals works autonomously and implements its own initiatives – is a new promotional campaign by IATSE Local 667, eastern Canada’s camera unit.

Seeking a united voice and a strong, consistent collective agreement for all its district councils, the Directors Guild of Canada is currently in negotiations on a four-council collective agreement, spanning Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario. DGC president Alan Goluboff hopes the new agreement will be ratified by February 2002.

Executive director of the Writers Guild of Canada Maureen Parker says Canadian screenwriters are like ‘the canary in the coal mine,’ or the first indicator of troubled business. ‘The future is actually very bleak for all of us,’ she says. ‘Writers aren’t working and it will trickle through the system.’ Parker says the danger is a direct result of the decline in indigenous, live-action drama production.

Howard Rosen is CEO/executive producer of Roadhouse Productions in Toronto, where he oversees the development, production, financing and servicing of feature/cable films, television series, multi-camera live events, commercials and broadband interactive projects.

Cannes, France: The atmospherics at this year’s MIPCOM were odd, occasionally emotional, more than a little freaky, with a slight hint of panic made worse by insomnia, indigestion and daily news reports from beyond the balmy resort town on the Cote d’Azur.
Beyond the absolute requirements of quality, novelty and broad appeal, there were the usual contradictory predictions for programming trends. Early reports, prompted by those with the right catalogues, hailed a return to cozy, family fare and light entertainment, only to be qualified by the obvious appeal of military docs and anything topical, namely past or potential acts of great terror, the FBI in action, any travel show related to dirt-poor Afghanistan, Islamic architecture and history…

Vancouver: Nearly 30 years later than planned, CHUM Limited has a television station in Vancouver. On Oct. 15, the CRTC approved without an oral hearing CHUM’s $130-million purchase of CKVU from an arm’s-length subsidiary of CanWest Global.
In rubber-stamping the application, the commission once again turned a blind eye to the issue of common ownership, a regulatory policy that is supposed to prohibit one company from operating two television stations in a single market.
But since 1999, when the CRTC upheld the ideal that dual ownership undermines the diversity of voices within a market, the commission has approved all three of the requests for exemptions.

A blow-up Edvard Munch ‘Scream’ doll, resting placidly on a pale wood shelf in Trina McQueen’s office, where little is out of place and all is serene, is a perfect reflection of the industry turmoil that plagues the ever graceful and controlled CTV president and COO.

Even before Sept. 11, North America was feeling the effects of an economic slowdown. Subsequent to the events of that day, it is widely perceived that we are in a full-blown recession. And due to increased news coverage preempting season premieres of popular TV shows, and the expensive commercials slated to run with them, there is a backlog of commercials waiting to air on both sides of the border.
According to Hugh Dow, president of M2 Universal, the media arm of agency MacLaren McCann, Toronto, many of these spots will still air, unless their content has been deemed controversial or insensitive relating to the recent terrorist attacks.

The Eatons ‘aubergine’ TV campaign, best described as a mini-movie, is the winner of On the Spot’s Top Spots 2001 competition as Canadian commercial of the year. In terms of both ambition and execution, the three-spot campaign, consisting of ‘Dilemma,’ ‘Discovery’ and ‘Big Finish,’ represents a milestone in Canadian ad history.
The commercials, adding up to a four-and-a-half-minute narrative in the style of a 1950s musical, have already racked up craft awards in numerous ad competitions, and according to the Top Spots judges, could not be beat. The spots were directed by New York- and Toronto-based Floria Sigismondi of The Partners’ Film Company, with creative from Ammirati Puris, Toronto. The spots’ elaborate score, by Pirate Radio & Television’s Mark Hukezalie and Chris Tait, also captured the win in the music category.

BBDO Canada’s Craig Cooper can’t understand why it takes so much money to make a 30-second commercial. Based in Toronto, the agency’s senior VP and creative director (a title he shares with Scott Dube), says he is ‘personally shocked’ by how much it costs to execute even the simplest ideas. He adds that he wouldn’t be so vocal about the budgets if the money went to making the spots the best they can be.

In both a reactionary and precautionary response to an increasingly slumping ad market and to the integration of more than a dozen stations and services over the past three years, which has increased its workforce by 40%, CTV has eliminated 150 positions, laying off roughly 125 employees. About 25 positions were already vacant due to a hiring freeze imposed this summer.
With such purchases as NetStar, CKY Winnipeg and CFCF Montreal, and the launch of seven new digital channels this fall, CTV’s staff has grown by 1,000 to 3,500 over the past three years. ‘We never really took a forensic look at the situation, at the overlapping and duplication. At the areas we could cut back on,’ says CTV president and COO Trina McQueen. ‘We didn’t move the NetStar people in with CTV until this summer and we’re still not finished. The ability to have our people in one single location also [spurred the restructuring].’

Vancouver: More than 140,000 people attended the nearly 300 films screened at the 20th anniversary Vancouver International Film Festival, ended Oct. 12, generating box office of more than $800,000. Both attendance and revenues are new records, say organizers.
‘The festival began on Sept. 27, just 16 days after Sept. 11,’ says festival director Alan Franey. ‘Approximately 15% of the over-300 scheduled guests decided to cancel their plans to attend, but we were able to transfer their tickets to other filmmakers and business people. Amazingly, only two film prints needed to be cancelled outright.’