Sony Electronics’ theme for NAB2001 is ‘Anycast, Anywhere, Anytime.’ This kind of catchphrase, conjuring up notions of metadata, HD and integration, is definitely de rigueur among product exhibitors this year. …

Back Alley Film Productions is graduating from teenage, hip-hop programming to female sexuality with the development of Exposed, a new 13-part, half-hour, dramatic anthology series based on erotic fiction written by women.
‘It challenges the stereotypes attached to women’s sexuality,’ says coproducer Adrienne Mitchell. ‘It takes women out of the victim position and shows them as empowered.’
One segment, for example, demystifies women’s role in infidelity, highlighting the empowerment women can derive from forming their own extramarital relationships.

Vancouver: Documentary producer David Paperny has drawn back the curtain to reveal Vancouver inflagrante delicto: sadomasochism, cross-dressing, gender switching, fetish parties, dungeons, masters and slaves, and other forms of sexual expression.
Kink, made for Showcase’s Fridays Without Borders bloc, chronicles (rather intimately, one might say) the lives of people who aren’t shy about talking about and demonstrating their nocturnal pursuits.

Halifax’s Ocean Entertainment and Toronto’s Northern Lights are championing their new documentary series Reinventing Ritual. The three one-hours are being produced for Vision TV by Ocean’s Johanna Eliot and Northern Lights’ Luc Bourgon and Ian French . A deal is pending in the U.S.
‘What we are doing in each episode is looking at a different rite of passage, the big transitional periods in one’s life, and trying to see how North Americans are handling them today,’ says director Sonya Jampolsky. ”Reinventing’ is the apt word, because most people have some historical knowledge or have some family history of rituals and they are just adapting them for the times. It is really fascinating when you start to explore ritual and what it actually is.’

By now everyone is very familiar with domain name suffixes that either end in .COM, .NET, .ORG, .CA or similar country codes. In fact, the companies you work for have likely already chosen, registered and promoted their own domain names for their websites and e-mail.
Well, don’t get too comfortable yet – get ready for the next round of disputes over the latest ‘top-level domain names’ (or ‘TLDs’).

Montreal: The new Luc Dionne drama series Le Bunker is one of the season’s most ambitious shoots, filming over 90 days in St. Hubert and Montreal locations, beginning the second week of March through to mid-August.
Le Bunker, a Zone 3 production for Radio-Canada, is an unusual satire where rumor and innuendo take on a life of their own among the characters who use and abuse political power. The series’ title refers to the governmental complex in Quebec City where the premier and top staff hold out, an opaque, virtually windowless structure which serves as the province’s political nerve centre.

Toronto-based cinematographer Dylan MacLeod says director Clement Virgo threw him for a loop upon their first meeting. MacLeod says he went into it very excited, believing he was going to be involved in a visually striking film, characteristic of Virgo’s previous work. But the director had something different in mind for Love Come Down, the cameraman’s first theatrical feature.
‘He said, ‘I don’t want to do the stylistic thing for this one,’ ‘ MacLeod recalls.

The filmmaking world has lost one of its shining lights with the passing of Polish cinematographer Piotr Sobocinski, March 26 in Vancouver. The 43-year-old DOP died in his sleep of heart failure one week into production on 24 Hours, a ransom…

‘Get over here, man. You’ve got to see this.’
The Players Film Company president Philip Mellows motions a newcomer on the set to join him and a dozen or so others crowded around the monitor to watch the biggest shot of this particular shoot. The Players crew is about to detonate a tank holding 1,800 pounds of water, which will spill down through a one-quarter-scale subway tunnel model, simulating a major washout.
The monitor thing seems somewhat odd. After all, just yards away a humongous water tank is about to explode – full scale. But Mellows’ childlike excitement wins the day and all gather around the small screen.
The glass holding the water in the tank is being sacrificed today for Toronto agency Ammirati Puris and client Clarica. This is the second of two spots being shot over the course of four days, with Players director Gary McKendry at the helm. Creative for both spots has been provided by APL cocreative directors Stephen Jurisic (art director) and Angus Tucker (copywriter) and continues the Clarica theme, ‘There’s a lot to be said for clarity.’

Founded by longtime freelance commercial producer Goff Martin, Vancouver-based Quixote Films has been ramping up into full-force spot production since its launch last summer. In November, Martin brought Carmen Ruiz y Laza on board as producer and head of sales. Since then, the company has been hopping.
According to Ruiz y Laza, Quixote ‘has two parts to the company: one is the production arm, providing service work, and the other is representing directors.’ The producer goes on to explain that Martin’s established group of local and international clients has given the company a head start.

Jeff Finkler recently left a cushy job at Leo Burnett, Chicago, to return to Toronto where he has taken an executive VP, creative director post at Saatchi & Saatchi.
Finkler had spent nearly his entire career at Burnett, first in Toronto (where he’d risen to the post of executive VP, chief creative officer), then in Chicago (as vice chairman, executive creative director), before first reporting to Saatchi in early March. He says the decision to come back to Toronto was not a difficult one to make.

Whether the CRTC will soften, reform or maintain its policy on cable ownership is yet to be seen, but submissions on the subject have been flooding the commission’s gates since it put out a call in early December.
Several of the submissions are in favor of the status quo while many, including that of the CFTPA, suggest the CRTC should have a public hearing so the cable industry can demonstrate the public benefit of its suggested policy changes. However, the commission will decide how to proceed based on the amount of information acquired through the two-part submission process.

Montreal: Two of the most contentious issues raised at last week’s CRTC hearings into Quebecor’s acquisition of Groupe Videotron and subsidiary Groupe TVA were the real cost of Quebecor’s purchase of TVA and the associated benefits package, along with the ongoing delay in selling off the Television Quatre Saisons network.
The benefits package is tied directly to the acquisition price, a hot and complex issue the CRTC is obliged to sort out, while Quebecor has been ordered by the Competition Bureau to sell off TQS. The hearings were also called to examine the renewal of TVA’s broadcast licence.

Results in the Canadian Television Fund’s much-anticipated Licence Fee Program sweepstakes, announced mid-March, show that although more producers are dialing for dollars, more are also cashing in.
Despite increased demand in each of the three categories being considered in this first funding round in 2001, the LFP funded all drama applicants in both English and French funding envelopes, and all English variety/performing arts applicants. Because LFP monies for children’s programming are given out on two occasions during the year, with 70% allocated in the spring round and 30% in the fall, not all children’s applications were approved.

Established commercial directors are the subject of this regular feature. …