July - August 2009: Reel West Magazine

JULY/AUGUST 2009 $5.00

FILM, VIDEO, INTERNETAND DIGITAL PRODUCTION

IN WESTERN CANADA

Richard de Klerktakes on Cole...

Looking back at the making of Carl Bessai’s COLE

A Q+A with DirectorSAM MENDES

Producer Kevin DeWalt

sings a LULLABY FOR PI

Vancouver post-productioncompany CIS

JulyAug2009-1:Layout 1 7/16/2009 3:32 PM Page 1


3REEL WEST JULY/AUGUST 2009

ON THE COVER: COLE’S RICHARD DE KLERK IN THE TITLE ROLE. ABOVE: DE KLERK AND KANDYSE MCCLURE STAR IN CARL BESSAI’S COLE

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4 PRODUCTION UPDATE

5 BITS AND BYTES

10 BEGINNINGS

11 EXPERT WITNESS

12 BEHIND THE SCENES

14 QUESTION AND ANSWER

29 LEGAL BRIEFS

30 FINAL EDIT

CONTENTS

16 PRAIRIE LULLABYSaskatchewan-based Kevin DeWalt and Parisian filmmakers Jean-Charles Levy andBenoit Phillippon combined with noted US indie producer Christine Vachon to make NewYork-set Lullaby for Pi in the streets of Winnipeg and the studios of Regina.

20 COMPETITIVE EFFECTS Vancouver’s visual effects community has come a long way in a short time. Onceconsidered to be the one element of a movie or TV show that would have to be farmedout to Los Angeles, a tax credit and a strong crew base have allowed the city tocompete on the world stage. Leading the way is CIS Vancouver, formerly known asRainmaker Visual Effects, which is working with some of Hollywood’s most respecteddirectors in several countries.

24 COLE’S NOTESRichard de Klerk moved to Los Angeles to find work but decided to return to Vancouverto play the title role in Carl Bessai’s Cole. His diary on the making of the movie looksback at the character, the Interior locations and his approach to turning off-screenfriendships into realistic on-screen relationships.


REEL WEST JULY/AUGUST 20094

Eclectic production mixhits VancouverFilm and television productionscoming to Vancouver during springand summer featured a former fic-tional Mountie turned fictional gun-slinger, a former fictional hockeyplayer turned fictional scientist, oneof the world’s leading mainstream di-rectors, a cartoon dog and an Oscarwinner turned head hunter.

Former Due South star Paul Grosswas in BC in May and June for thefilm Gunless in which he played ahardened American gunslinger whomoves to a western Canadian townduring the late 1800s and finds thatthe locals are too friendly to becomeinvolved in a traditional showdown.The film is being executive producedby Stephen Hegyes, ShawnWilliamson and Niv Fichman withCynthia Chapman as line producer,William Phillips directing, GregMiddleton as DOP, Matthew Bud-geon as production designer, Paul

Lukiaitis as production manager,Emily Alden as production coordi-nator and Rick Mielnicki as locationmanager. Jak Osmond was specialeffects supervisor.

Here in July and staying until Sep-tember is the feature Marmadukewhich is based on the Brad Ander-son comic strip of the same nameabout a gargantuan Great Dane. Theexecutive producers are Jeff Stottand Derek Dauchy while the pro-ducer is John Davis, the director isThomas Dey, the production man-ager is Drew Locke, the productioncoordinator is Eva Morgan and thelocation manager is Bruce Brown-stein.

Director Chris Columbus, whosefilmography includes two HomeAlone films, two Harry Potter films,Mrs. Doubtfire and Stepmom is hereuntil August with Percy Jackson,which tells the story of a boy who dis-covers he’s the descendant of a Greekgod and sets out on an adventure to

settle an on-going battle between thegods. The film’s co-stars includePierce Brosnan, Uma Thurman andKathleen Keener. The executiveproducers are Tom Hammel, GregMooradian and Mark Radcliffe andthe producers are Michael Bar-nathan, Mark Morgan, Guy Osearyand Karen Rosenfelt. The DOP isStephen Goldblatt while the pro-duction designer is Howard Cum-mings, the production manager isWendy Williams, the productioncoordinator is Patricia Foster andthe location manager is Katou Kear-ney. Tony Lazarowich is the effectssupervisor.

The television movie StonehengeApocalypse was here in June and tellsthe story of archaeologists working atStonehenge who accidentally start achain of events that could end theworld. The executive producers areTom Berry and Lisa Hansen whilethe producer is John Prince, the di-rector is Paul Ziller, the DOP is An-

thony Metchie, the production de-signer is Bob Bottieri, the produc-tion manager is Gilles LaPlante, theproduction coordinator is Jim McK-eown, the location manager is KarenZajac and the special effects super-visor is Al Benjamin.

The miniseries Alice, stars KathyBates as a Red Queen who is goingafter the head of an independentyoung woman lost in a city of twistedtowers and casinos built out of play-ing cards. Matthew O’Connor, LisaRichardson and Robert Halmi Sr.are the executive producers whileMichael O’Connor and Alex Brownare the producers. Nick Willing di-rects with Rob McLachlan as theDOP, Michael Joy the productiondesigner, Holly Redford the produc-tion manager, Lucy MacLeod theproduction coordinator, TraceyRenyard the location manager andDavid Barkes the supervisor of ef-fects. It wraps in August after twomonths.

Prodigal son Josh Jackson re-turned to Vancouver in late Junewith a television series. Fringe hasthe former Dawson Creek and TheMighty Ducks star playing a scientistforced to work with a female FBIagent in order to quell a storm ofphenomena. The executive produc-ers are J.J. Abrams, Joel Wyman,Jeff Pinkner, Bryan Burk, and JoeChappelle while the producers areAlex Kurtzman and Bob Orci. Theline producer is Reid Shane, theDOPs are Tom Yatsko and DavidMoxness, the production designeris Ian Thomas, the productionmanager is Michael C. Young, theproduction coordinator is JaredHowitt, the location managers areJohn Alexander and Scott Waldenand the visual effects supervisor isBob Comer.

PRODUCTION UPDATE

What’s coming. What’s shooting. What’s wrapped.

CANADIAN ACTOR JOSH JACKSON, SHOWIN HERE IN THE 2005 FILM AURORA BOREALIS, RETURNS TO VANCOUVER FOR THE FILMING OF THE TV SERIES FRINGE



DVS Wins at BanffThe recent Banff World Television Festival gave its 2009 Deluxe Outstanding Tech-

nical Achievement Award to DVS Digital Video Systems AG in recognition of the

company’s technical innovation.

“There isn’t a post facility in the world that doesn’t count on DVS Systems to

provide solutions that work, while also setting the benchmark,” said Nick Iannelli,

vice president of Deluxe Postproduction. “With over 20 years of technical excel-

lence to the film and television post community, DVS Systems is most deserving

of this award,”

A Banff spokesperson said that DVS was founded in 1985, “providing image

processing and video coding applications. It later succeeded in developing ground-

breaking products for video graphics, animation, broadcast and post production

facilities. DVS is a pioneering manufacturer of cutting-edge, high-quality technol-

ogy for professional film postproduction. Highest quality and usability are distin-

guished features of DVS’s turnkey systems and video boards. DVS’ dedication to

the field of postproduction prepared the company for the migration to HDTV in the

broadcast sector.”

DVS’s Tony Fox accepted the award on the company’s behalf. Past winners

of the Deluxe Outstanding Technical Achievement Award recipients include ARRI

(2008), da Vinci Systems (2007) Quantel (2006), Panasonic, Japan (2005),

Steadicam, USA (2004), Sony CineAlta, Japan (2003), Bang & Olufsen, Denmark

(2002), Royal Philips Electronics, The Netherlands (2001), Discreet, Canada (2000),

and Avid Technology Worldwide Inc., USA (1999).

Sony Makes Optical Additions Sony of Canada Ltd. recently announced that it introduced new additions to the

XDCAM® HD422 series of optical disc products. Spokesperson Mike Martin said

the line delivers “enhanced flexibility ideal for motion picture and TV episodic pro-

duction, as well as for ENG/EFP applications.”

“As new CineAlta® family members, the PDW-F800 camcorder and PDW-

F1600 deck expand the capabilities of the XDCAM® MPEG HD422 codec first of-

fered in the well-established PDW-700 camcorder and PDW-HD1500 and deck,”

said Martin. “The new PDW-F800 and PDW-F1600 both offer a native 23.98P

frame rate in 1080 4:2:2 HD mode and multi-format recording flexibility as stan-

dard – including support of legacy formats (MPEG IMX®, DVCAM™ and 4:2:0

HD content).

Martin said the new line also provides multi-format recording, as well as HD/SD

conversion and cross-conversion during playback.

Kodak Unveils Vision Eastman Kodak Company recently unveiled the latest product offering in its Vi-

sion3 technology platform. A company spokesperson said Kodak Vision3 250D

Color Negative Film 5207/7207 incorporates “all of the advancements and imag-

ing characteristics unique to the Vision3 family of films, optimized for an exposure

index of 250 in daylight.”

“We introduced Kodak Vision3 technology in response to our customers’ re-

quests for an expanded range of capabilities from capture all the way through

postproduction and distribution,” says Kodak Entertainment Imaging Division gen-

eral manager Ingrid Goodyear. “By extending the Vision3 portfolio, we continue

to raise the bar by giving our customers more workflow efficiencies combined

with all the existing advantages of film – image quality, resolution, unrivaled dy-

namic range, flexibility and archivability. We are very proud to now offer Vision3 in

both 500T and 250D speeds, enabling more creative options in a wider variety of

lighting conditions.”

Goodyear said he newest addition to the family is designed to retain “the rich-

ness in colours and contrast” that are characteristic of Kodak Vision3 technology

with more details in the extreme highlight areas. “Like Kodak Vision3 500T

5219/7219, the new film also incorporates proprietary Advanced Dye-Layering

Technology (DLT), which renders finer grain images in underexposed areas and

produces cleaner film-to-digital transfers for postproduction.”

She said that the new medium-speed, daylight-balanced emulsion offers “ex-

ceptional imaging” in natural daylight, artificial daylight, and a variety of mixed light-

ing situations, while maintaining flesh tones and colour reproduction.

BITS AND BYTES

Canadians SuckThe Vampire movie The Twilight Saga: New Moon hasadded several Canadian actors. The Twilight sequel,which was shot in British Columbia and Italy over thelast few months, stars Americans Kristen Stewart andRobert Pattinson but should give several westernCanadians a high profile. The list of actors who work inthe west includes renegadepress.com alumnus BronsonPelletier, Sanctuary’s Christopher Heyerdahl,Squamish’s Daniel Cudmore, Victoria native CameronBright and Vancouver’s Noot Seear. According to a spokesperson, the film will follow Stew-art’s character Bella as she finds herself moving awayfrom her affiliation with vampires to befriend were-wolves, the ancestral enemies of the vampires. Seear,Bright, Cudmore and Heyerdahl will be playing mem-bers of the Volturi, a coven of vampire enforcers. Pel-letier will play a Native American who has the power toturn into a werewolf.

The film, which is scheduled to be released in Novem-ber, was directed by Chris Weitz with Wyck Godfreyand Mark Morgan producing, Javier Aguirresarobe asthe DOP, David Brisbin as production designer, Bar-bara Kelly as the production manager, Catherine Ir-chas as the art director, Lesley Beale as the setdecorator and Tish Monaghan as the costume designer.

Hills AliveA George Ryga novel about a youngman who revisits the Alberta hillcountry where he came of age hasbeen adapted for the screen by Van-couver-based screenwriter GaryFisher. The film was shot in May inSaskatchewan by Regina-based di-rector Rob King.

“Ryga’s timeless story ofperseverance and redemption hasbeen a sixteen-year journey forGary Fisher,” said a spokesperson.“It’s a dream shared by award-

winning director Rob King who haschampioned the project alongsideFisher for the last decade.”

Hungry Hills stars KeirGilchrist, Alexander De Jordy,John Pyper Ferguson, GabrielleRose, Alexia Fast and CavanCunningham and was produced byKing, Fisher, Rhonda Baker andAvi Federgreen. The co-produceris Gerard Demaer while JenniferJonas and Leonard Farlinger ofNew Real Films are the executiveproducers.

CANADIAN ACTOR BRONSON PELLETIER (3RD FROM LEFT) PLAYS JARED IN THE ANTICIPATED TWILIGHT SEQUEL, NEW MOON




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Short stories writtenFour local filmmakers will receive world premierescreenings of their completed film after their scriptswon the Whistler Stories competition. According toWhistler Film Festival spokesperson Jeanette Miller,the four winning screenwriters will start pre-production on their scripts immediately.

Miller said this year’s winners’ list included Whistlerresident Nicole Fitzgerald’s The Turning Season inWhistler, the story of how Whistler Olympic Park’scross country trails will be converted into newmountain bike trails as a legacy of the 2010 Olympicsand Whistler resident Peter Harvey’s Growing UpWhistler, a profile of three young Olympic hopefuls,Julia Murray, Robbie Dixon and Mercedes Nicoll.

Also winning was Legends of Whistler from Squamishresident Christian Begin and Whistler resident LeslieAnthony. Miller said their film will look at the historyof Whistler. The 2009 Whistler Film Festival will runfrom December 3 to December 6.

WINNING SCREENWRITERS WILL HAVE THEIR FILMS SCREENED AT THE2009 WHISTLER FILM FESTIVAL AND AGAIN AS PART OF THE 2010 CULTURAL OLYMPIAD

Jerome runs againThe late Vancouver runner HarryJerome will be the subject of a newNFB documentary. According tospokesperson Helen Yagi, HarryJerome started shooting last April atthe Harry Jerome Awards, held an-nually in Toronto. She said the filmexplores the turbulent life and ca-reer of the record-setting African-Canadian track and field star, andmember of the Order of Canada.The film was inspired by Albertafilmmaker Fil Fraser’s book RunningUphill and is being directed byCharles Officer and produced bySelwyn Jacob of the NFB’s Pacificand Yukon Centre in Vancouver.

“Twenty-seven years after his un-

timely death at 42, Harry Jerome’s ac-complishments as an athlete and so-cial activist embody the perseveranceof the human spirit,” said Officer. “Hewas, at one time, the fastest man onthe planet.”

Jerome’s athletic talents catapultedhim onto the world stage during the1960s. He held world records in boththe 100 yards and 100 metres, andcompeted in three Olympics, winninga bronze medal. Yagi said the movieincludes archival footage, personal in-terviews with those closest to him,stylized re-enactments and a contem-porary soundtrack to tell Jerome’sstory. She said the production wrapsthis September, with the premiere ex-pected to be held in the fall of 2010.

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Sci-fi showsdominate LeosTwo science fiction television shows and a movie set in Ireland during the“troubles” dominated the two most high profile categories at the recentLeo Awards. Stargate: Atlantis won a total of nine awards including bestdramatic program, best director (Robert Cooper), best screenwriter (AlanMcCullough) and best cinematography (Michael Blundell) while a newseries, Sanctuary, won four prizes including acting awards for the show’sstar and co-executive producer Amanda Tapping, Ryan Robbins andGabrielle Rose.

The television movie Stargate: Continuum won three prizes in the fea-ture film category including best lead actor for Michael Shanks and bestdirector for Brad Wright while the show’s producers, Wright and RobertCooper, were winners of a lifetime achievement award, as was veteranstuntman Jacob Rupp.

Other winners in the television categories were Tyler Labine, who wonbest lead actor for Reaper, Eva Harlow, who won the best supporting ac-tress award for The Guard and Benjamin Arthur who won the best sup-porting actor award for the Manitoba-filmed series Less Than Kind.

The IRA drama Fifty Dead Men Walking, which was produced by Van-couver’s Shawn Williamson and Stephen Hegyes, won the best movieprize and best score (Ben Mink) while Babz Chula was named best ac-tress for Mothers&Daughters, Lauren Lee Smith was named best support-ing actress for the drama Helen and Chang Tseng was named bestsupporting actor for Dim Sum Funeral. Anne Wheeler won the best direc-tor prize for Living Out Loud while the best cinematography prize was wonby Iron Road’s Attila Szalay.

The short films The Anachronism and Paul Pontius battled it out for Leosupremacy with Anachronism winning for best program, screenwriting(Matthew Gordon Long), overall sound, musical sore, (Matthew Rogers),production design (Dusty Hagerud and Long) and costume design (DerekBaskerville) and Paul Pontius winning for direction (Jesse McKeown),cinematography (Catherine Lutes), editing (Jason Schneider) and maleperformance (Nick Campbell.) Emily Tennant of Valentines won for bestfemale performance.

Other category winners included Kid vs. Kat (best animation program),The Stagers (best information or lifestyle series), My Son the Pornographer(best history/biography/social or political documentary), Carts of Dark-ness (best nature, environment, adventure, science or technology docu-mentary), Ultimate Engineering (best documentary series), Corner Gas(best music, comedy or variety program or series), Damian and Ende (beststudent program) and Morphine (best music video).

THE TV SERIES SANCTUARY WON FOUR PRIZES AT THE RECENT LEO AWARDS.

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Scotland invited NewlandVeteran Vancouver animator MarvNewland is scheduled to take his lat-est film, Postalolio to two prestigiousinternational film festivals in Juneand July. The film has been invited tothe Edinburgh International FilmFestival where it was slated to runJune 20and 21 and the Anima MundiInternational Animation Festival inBrazil. The Rio de Janeiro dates are

July 10 to 19 and the Sao Paulo datesare June 20 to 26.

According to Newland, Postaloliowas hand-animated and then tracedonto blank postcards, painted andmailed. He said every frame ofPostalolio traveled through the inter-national postal service. Newland saidan exhibit of postcards that are notpart of the film opened in June inSergnan, France.

Westerners dominateNSI FestThe Winnipeg-based National Screen Institute recentlyunveiled the 28 short films that will be seen during the heNSI Online Short Film Festival. It will roll out on the NSIwebsite over the next three months. The list includesseveral western Canadian films. The Manitoba produc-tions are Rob Huynh’s Red Birds of Happiness, TysonKoschik’s Buttonpushers, Eric Warwaruk’s Voice-Over,James McLellan’s Tucked and Faded Away, Sam Vint’sRun For Your Life, Caroline Barrientos’ loss studies andJeremy Guenette’s The Bunker, Nicholas Humphries’ AGreat Day for Death and Lenny the Racoon Slayer,Kryshan Randel’s Glimpse, Doris Cheung-Joseph’s Vin-tage, Beth Miller’s Letter to Myself and BenjaminSchuetze’s Damian and Ende. Alberta’s Adolfo Ruiz willhave Kisses & Tears in the festival.

A spokesperson said this is fourth official selection offilms in the NSI Online Short Film Festival. She said theA&E Short Filmmakers Award of $2,500 for the best filmwill be announced shortly.

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Knowledge Partneringwith FestThe Knowledge Network’s docu-mentary section, Storyville, will begoing to the Vancouver InternationalFilm Festival’s Film and TelevisionForum this year. According toKnowledge CEO Rudy Buttignol,Storyville Vancouver will attempt tostimulate the co-financing and co-production of the long-form docu-mentary. He said pre-selecteddocumentary projects by Canadianfilmmakers will be pitched to keycommissioning editors visiting theForum.

“Knowledge is committed to cre-ative documentaries through ourStoryville programming initiativewhich develops, licenses and ac-quires films from the independentproduction community,” says Buttig-nol. “We are proud to be partneringwith the Forum on Storyville Van-couver, which will attract the world’sleading broadcasters to this city to

help local filmmakers develop long-term strategic relationships and en-hance their projects, so that thesedocumentaries can be made not onlyfor Canada but also the internationalmarket.”

Said the Festival’s Alan Franey“This is big news for documentaryfilmmaking in Canada. Rudy Buttig-nol is a highly respected interna-tional figure in the world of qualitybroadcasting and—now that he hasmoved here—a real asset to BritishColumbia. I thank Rudy for recog-nizing the opportunity that VIFFprovides to bring some of the mostimportant players in the business toVancouver. Our aim is to make themwelcome and productive this year,regular VIFF guests in future, andkey ongoing facilitators for our tal-ented documentary community. “

The 2009 Trade Forum will runfrom September 29 to October 2.The Festival will run from October 1to October 16.



received my first and onlyrejection letter when I wastwelve years old. I sent out asample of my drawings to

Walt Disney. The rejection letterwas sweet and inspirational. I wasproud of the work I sent them andlooking back now, it must havebeen pretty funny. I have never,over the course of my producingcareer, received original drawingsfrom an elementary kid asking fora job. After years of buying comicbooks, pencils, papers, erasers and

constantly drawing every minute ofthe day it was inevitable what I wasgoing to do after graduation. In myteenage years the only thing on mybrain, besides boys, was to be acomic strip artist or political car-toonist. That was up until my par-ents sat me down and voiced theirconcerns on the practicality ofbeing an artist. My dad was wor-ried that I would end up selling myartwork in Stanley Park and livingon the streets. Arguments andwords of encouragement ensued

and I majored in business. Soon after landing a full time po-

sition at a transportation companyI started a family. It was obviousmy career choice had been set.However, two months before my26th birthday a colleague who I hadnot seen in a few years was shockedto see me still working at the samecompany. She laughed and said Ihad “settled.” I drove home thatnight and realized that even thoughI had a good paying job with a pen-sion plan and two kids to support I

wasn’t happy. I walked into workthe following day and resigned andhaven’t looked back since.

Now what? I couldn’t quite fig-ure out how to get into the anima-tion business. So without zappingall my savings, I picked up a coupleof bookkeeping jobs to help pay thebills. While I was watching my sonplay lacrosse one afternoon I had adiscussion with a mother who justpurchased a home and wanted todesign a cartoon on the wall in heryounger son’s room. When she

BEGINNINGS

Colleen Pollock“In my teenage years the only thing on my brain besides

boys was to become a comic strip artist...”

I



asked me if I would be interested, Inervously told her that I had neverdrawn on a wall before. After somediscussion, I nervously acceptedthe challenge. With the addressand supplies in my little blue car, Idrove up to the address and foundmyself on this long driveway withthis amazing estate in view. Thiswas the house? This was a housefor rich people…not me! I wasmore nervous about my car leakingoil on their driveway than ruiningtheir walls. Well, after one week ofdrawing and painting, the clientsloved the design and so did the fewother clients I picked up throughword of mouth. After working ona nursery room in Vancouver, myclient informed me about a new an-imation school that was opening inVancouver. I don’t know if I heardher say anything after that. I prettymuch ran out of the house.

My first day of class….I lookaround and I am the oldest. Yikes,I try to be cool, but it’s awkward,especially since I am at least 10years older than all these kids. Theinstructor walks into class and he isa few years older than me, whichsettles me down perfectly. Unfor-tunately, the school was in theprocess of setting up while classwas running, so there were a lot ofdelays. I worked full time in theevenings for a transportation com-pany and finally had to quit anima-tion school due to a scheduledsurgery and time that would bemissed. Devastated, I thought myanimation opportunity was over.

A few months later, I received aphone call from a former studentwho informed me that she washired as a junior animator for an an-imation company (Natterjack Ani-mation) which just opened. Sheexplained that they needed an officemanager and already suggested mefor the job. It wasn’t drawing but itwould allow me to be in the indus-try. It was love at first sight withthe animation studio. I took on theoffice manager job and loved every-thing to do with animation. Therewas a condition, which to this day Iregret. I agreed that I wasn’t hiredas an animator, therefore my desireto one day be an animator neededto be put aside. I couldn’t just be anoffice manager! I had to learn thebusiness from the bottom, so I wasquickly jumping into shooting ani-mation scenes and before I knew ita couple of years had passed.

It was after we landed a big Dis-ney interactive project and moved

the studio into a larger facility thatmy producing opportunity came tolight. The producer that the stu-dio wanted to hire was not availablefor another couple of months andwe needed someone as soon aspossible. The studio’s director andgeneral manager suggested that Itake the position of producer andsee if I could manage the projectuntil I either screwed up or didwell. I think all went well as I havebeen doing just that ever since. Weworked on over 15 Disney interac-tive projects and then jumped intocommercials with both live actionand animation combination work.It was awesome. We worked 24/7and my kids ended up growing uparound the studio. I don’t knowwho was worse, the artists playinghockey with my son or my sonplaying hockey with the artists. Ei-ther way, the animators were likefamily and have been like familysince then.

My boss and good friend SteveEvangelatos, founder of NatterjackAnimation, decided to close thestudio. I was shocked when hewalked into my office and an-nounced that he sold the studio andwas happy. What was I going todo? Work for another studio? Icouldn’t do that. I basically lovedworking for Natterjack and weirdlyenough felt like it was mine. Wehad an NBA campaign and eventhough we sold the building andclosed the studio, we still had aproject to complete. It was prettymuch set, I would open a studio.

Ooga Booga Studio Inc. officiallyopened in November 2003. Westarted with a small project andhave been working on small proj-ects since. I initially wanted to staysmall with the luxury of working onprojects without a huge overhead.All went well for us and over theyears projects came our way andwent. I think I learned a lot aboutpeople and how much I love this in-dustry. After a few years workingon commercials, it was inevitablethat I would start creating cartoons.

We have officially opened up anew company called “Bubble GumAnimation” which is our develop-ment series company. We nowhave three projects in developmentand are excited to move forward. Istill think about my drawing book Isent to Mr. Walt Disney and amglad that I have that memory andencouraging letter which kept mydream alive even though I wasn’tanimating. ■

“I didn’t really think about it. I don’t think that hard about those kinds of things. I kind

of find my way through it. Nick (Cassavetes) brought this script to me and it was a

wonderful script so I didn’t think about it in terms of what it would mean to my career.

I thought about what it meant to the story and who this woman was and what her life

experience was and what was happening to her. But I didn’t think ‘oh my god! How

will playing the mother of teenagers affect my career?’ It didn’t phase me.” – Actor

Cameron Diaz on playing the mother of two teenagers and an 11 year old in My

Sister’s Keeper after a career of playing femmes fatales.

There was a cut of Notebook that my producer, Mark Johnson, wasn’t happy with. He

was talking all around it and I knew he was dissatisfied but I couldn’t understand what

his point was. Finally, he said ‘I didn’t cry in the movie.’ And I said ‘Mark, is the whole

idea of this movie that we should cry?’ and he said ‘yes, you idiot.’ So I said alright and

we adjusted the film and made it more emotional.” – Director Nick Cassavetes on di-

recting the tearjerker The Notebook.

“When anyone asks me ‘when are you going to leave The Office to break away to

film?’ I tell them ‘you don’t leave The Office.’ I am not looking for a ‘breakout film role’

because a show like The Office is the rarest thing to be a part of. I have been lucky

enough to work on movies like this rather than be offered movies where I would think

‘I would rather shoot myself in the face than work on this movie, but I have to break

into movies.’ So I have the best of both worlds. I just don’t want to say it too loud or

the other shoe will drop.” – Actor John Krasinski on his lack of interest in leaving

his day job to seek movie stardom.

“Before The Pianist I was looking to find a leading man role so I could transition and

not be seen as a character actor. But the right kind of leading role wasn’t being offered.

If I had been offered the part of the leading man in King Kong back then I would have

done it immediately because there was action involved and yet he was not superficial.

He had a depth of intelligence and sensitivity and that is rare for an epic film. After The

Pianist I chose to do The Village which was the antithesis of what people were telling

me I should do because it was more in line with the choices I had made before The Pi-

anist. But I didn’t want to just change (career directions) because people felt I should.

I actually had to make that decision without my agents reading it because I promised

Knight (The Village director M. Knight Shalaman) that I wouldn’t show that script to

anyone. It was a very difficult decision in that respect because my agents wanted to

read it but I had made a promise.” – Actor Adrien Brody on the impact the winning

of an Academy Award has on the choosing of projects.

Excerpted from interviews done by Reel West editor Ian Caddell.

EXPERT WITNESS



Photograph by Phillip Chin



BEHIND THE SCENES

13

f you’re old enough to remember the 1967 film The Graduate, you prob-ably recall its most famous line, one coming from a conversation be-tween Benjamin Braddock and a family friend in which the friend tellsthe recent graduate how best to attain a secure career. “I just want to say

one word to you, Benjamin. Plastics. There’s a great future in plastics.” He mayhave been right but that hasn’t stopped people from looking at Corry Laycocka little strangely when he tells them what he does for a living.

“I usually get a lot of inquisitive looks,” says Laycock, of plastics supplierSabic Polymershapes. “But when I give them examples of where our productshave been used it allows for a better understanding of the diversity of our lines.”

The list of films and television shows that have called on Sabic Polymer-shapes includes the upcoming Tron 2, Smallville, Stargate and The X-Files.Most famously, the company was involved in the making of the clear prisonused to lock up Magneto (Ian McKellen) in The X-Men films. “I find it excit-ing to point out to family and friends that our products are showcased inscenes in movies and television,” says Laycock.

Laycock says Sabic Polymershapes was formed from two companies, Com-mercial Plastics and Cadillac Plastics. Both competed in the worldwide plas-tics field. Several years ago they merged through an acquisition by US giantGeneral Electric and became GE Polymershapes. (The merged company be-came Sabic Polymershapes in 2007.) Laycock says the current company is anindustry leader in the distribution, conversion and fabrication of plastic prod-ucts and associated materials. He says that working with architects, engineers,fabricators, designers and installers, Sabic provides one of the best and broad-est selections of plastic sheet, rod, tube and film.

The current company has 72 Branches worldwide, with nine in Canada.That, says Laycock, gives them an advantage when it comes to filling ordersquickly and efficiently. “We are able to draw on a vast inventory base” he says.“We know when we get the call that we need to supply material immediately.”

He says having diverse product lines has made a big impact on the com-pany’s bottom line. “I think there is a tendency to think of the company asbeing a place to find Acrylic and Lexan” he says. “But over the years we haveexpanded into LEDs, tapes, silicones and a number of really unique materials.Diversity is the key and we like to see ourselves as a one stop shop for the ma-jority of needs.”

Laycock says that dealing with the film and television industry is a differentexperience from working with most industries. “It’s not the same as workingwith your standard customers. You can’t just show up on a set to do a sales call.And most of the people we deal with just don’t have the time for sales appoint-ments. So a majority of our business comes through word of mouth. And thisis where I believe we shine. Through an extensive product line and exceptionalcustomer service we’ve maintained relationships with a number of buyers anddepartments, some of which have lasted decades.”

Laycock can also speak in terms of decades when he talks about the peo-ple customers will be dealing with when they call Sabic. He says that whilesome faces have changed the people on the front lines have an astonishingamount of combined experience. “Our core team of Steven Porter, NorbertHelmhold, Kim Logan, Mark Nilson and myself have been here since the earlydays,” he says. “Combined we have almost 100 years of experience with plas-tics and customer service. We service the industry but we create relationshipsthat will be carried on to future productions. I like to think that if we don’thave it, we can get it quickly. If we can’t get it, we’ll find out who has it. Becausein the end, customer satisfaction is what we strive for and I believe that is whatwe deliver.” ■

I

“Plastics”Sabic Polymershapes takin g

plastics to the future



am Mendes won anAcademy Award for di-recting his debut film,American Beauty. He re-

cently released a fifth movie andcan count a total of 17 Oscar nom-inations for the four previous films.The most recent of these, Revolu-tionary Road, which was releasedin December of 2008 was one oflast year’s most acclaimed films andwon Mendes’ wife, Kate Winslet,over a dozen awards. (She won theOscar for another film, TheReader.)

His latest film, Away We Go, wasreleased in June and could be con-sidered to be the final part of a tril-ogy on modern marriage. WhileAmerican Beauty and Revolution-ary Road’s couples could barely tol-erate one another, the protagonistsin Away We Go (The Office’s JohnKrasinski and Saturday Night Livealumna Maya Rudolph) are deeplydevoted. In fact, much of the moviehas elements of a traditional ro-mantic comedy. However, as theytour North America looking for aplace to raise their unborn child

they run into several couples whoare less loving. Mendes talked toReel West in Los Angeles in May.

The first half of Away We Go issurprisingly funny and is some-what reminiscent of romanticcomedies. Then you change it upa bit when the couple meets upwith friends and family whoselives are less content. Did youmake that change on purpose? “Yes, and I think Away We Go isvery much like American Beautybecause if you stop American

Beauty after 30 minutes you wouldsay ‘this is a comedy’ because it is.Then there is a pivotal scene in thatmovie and everything stops beingfunny and becomes more serious. Ihave always liked that shape but Ilike a gradual shift because if youput some of the early scenes againstthe last few scenes in this movie itwould be a terrible clash. If youlead an audience there gently andcalmly and with a sense of purposethen it becomes possible to makethat shift and I think that works inthe theatre as well.”

QUESTION AND ANSWER

Going Awaywith Oscar winner Sam Mendes

S



It’s unusual for a film with a widerelease to cast actors who are notknown for making movies in thelead roles. How did your distribu-tor, Focus Films, react when youinformed them of your intentions?“I have always cast the people Iwanted but I have never been told‘cast who you want.’ AstonishinglyI didn’t get a suggestion fromFocus. It’s God’s honest truth. Theynever said ‘can you find a part for

James Franco?’ It was amazing. Soeventually I said ‘these are the peo-ple I have and they said ‘great, welove that. Bye.’ And that was it.” The writers (Dave Eggers andVendela Vida) have said youasked them to change the endingof Away We Go. Did you tell themwhat you wanted? “No, not really. I said ‘what do youthink of the ending?’ and theyrewrote it. I didn’t tell them what itshould be. I just said ‘do you thinkyou should change it?’ They saidyes and I was amazed that theypulled it off.”Revolutionary Road was an earlyfavorite to win several Oscarnominations but it only wonthree. Was that a disappointmentfor you? “I didn’t entirely enjoy the processof releasing it because the pressurethat goes on to things like that inawards season is disproportionateto the experience of the making ofthe movie. But once the dust settledand I had the thing in hand mymemories became almost unbro-kenly good memories. I had a greattime making it and releasing it andI am very proud of it. The otherthing was that I was directing a playat the time so I wasn’t sittingaround and obsessing about itwhich was very helpful. I didn’tdrive myself insane reading everyreview and response. I just didn’t

have time so I think that washealthy.” You made just three films in eightyears and you have had two re-leased in six months. You havesaid that you wanted to spendtime with your family. Whatchanged? “For one thing it took me awhile tofinish work on Revolutionary Roadso they weren’t literally right upagainst each other. If I had finished

Revolutionary Road as fast as I hadfinished Away We Go it would havecome out the previous year. Butyes, the kids are older now and I amthrough the period where I wantedto be with them during the day be-cause they were home all day. Nowthey are in school and I don’t wantto sit there twiddling my thumbs.”Four of the five films you havemade have been modern storiesand the only period piece (Roadto Perdition) was set in the 20th

Century. However, you have beenrumoured to be involved in an-other film, Middlemarch, basedon the George Eliot 19th Centurynovel. Is that accurate? “It was one of those IMDb thingswhere you spend months saying ‘noyou shouldn’t have put it on.’ It wasreported in Variety that I wouldlove to develop the script and thatis true and then it went from thereto IMDb. I felt like doing it becauseI had become involved in a routinein that movies had become veryprepared and organized and Ithought ‘screw all that I am justgoing to do it and see how it turnsout and operate on instinct.’ Some-times it is good for me when onething runs into another becauseyou don’t over think it so there wasa conscious effort to break thatrhythm a bit. Because it was a smallmovie I felt that I could approach itlike a play.” ■

“If you lead an audience theregently and calmly and with asense of purpose then it becomespossible to make that shift...”

– Director Sam Mendes on gradually shiftinga film from from funny to serious

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Kevin DeWalt may be one of Canada’s mostprolific film and television producers, but it tookhim 23 years of working in his chosen careerbefore he was able to make a movie that re-flected the aspirations of his youth. It was musicand not film that had inspired DeWalt when hewas growing up in Saskatchewan. Before hefounded Minds Eye, the company throughwhich DeWalt has produced dozens of pro-ductions including the Gemini winning mini-se-ries The Englishman’s Boy, he had planned todevote his life to his music.

Prairie LullabyBy Ian Caddell




Although the script is set in New York and Phillppon and Levy are French,Levy’s experience working on Walled In with Minds Eye had been memorableenough that he felt he could easily go back to western Canada to work with De-Walt. This time they worked in both Winnipeg and Regina with the studiowork done in the Saskatchewan capital and the exteriors shot in Winnipeg’sExchange District.

“Walled In had gone extremely well,” he says. “So since there was an op-portunity to do this movie in Canada I made a call to Kevin and asked him tobe our partner. The first time we came (for Walled In) I was surprised at thequality of the crew that works with Kevin. It is a family who know each otherand they work well together and they are very experienced and very talented.I think they are very motivated because they mostly do television (in Regina.)So when movies come in they are very enthusiastic and they do very goodwork and that really impressed me.”

DeWalt admits he had some concerns about casting. Since the film is set inan American city and tells the story of the making of a musical it required amulticultural cast. He knew that neither Regina nor Winnipeg had an abun-dance of actors who could fit with the script but says that his casting director,Regina-based Carmen Kotyk, worked miracles and brought actors from everycity in the country in order to fit the movie’s needs. .

“There are a lot of secondary roles and supporting roles in this film so thechallenge for Carmen was to find Canadian actors who could dance and singand, for the most part, are black. We had many big scenes in Regina with bigaudiences and half that audience had to be multicultural. You needed blackand Hispanic audience members. So casting wise it was a huge challenge forher and she came through with amazing quality.”

DeWalt is so confident in the film and its ability to find an audience that heisn’t particularly concerned about having it ready for this year’s Toronto Inter-national Film Festival. He says that unlike most movies, the filmmakers didn’tgo looking for a Canadian distributor before they made it.

“We are confident enough that Minds Eye has kept Canadian rights,” he

DeWalt was enrolled in the music program at the University of Regina. Heplays piano and was a voice major. So when French producer Jean-CharlesLevy approached him about coproducing a film called Lullaby for Pi that tolda love story through the use of original music it seemed like a perfect fit.

“I have a deep passion for music,” he says, “so having a project that usedcompletely original music as a storyline, one that revolved around someonewho has given up music because he has lost the love of his life, was very inter-esting for me as a filmmaker. The idea of getting your life back together andgetting your emotions together and allowing yourself to bring music back intoyour life really resonated with me. I had worked with Jean-Charles on a moviecalled Walled In and we had wanted to work together again so it just made alot of sense to make this movie.”

The script that Paris-based writer/director Benoit Phillippon brought to Levytells an unusual love story. It stars British actor Rupert Friend as Sam, a prom-ising musician who has lost his passion for jazz following the death of his wife.He has become a recluse in a rundown hotel, with only the hotel manager (For-est Whitaker) as a friend. His last chance for happiness may be the mysteriousgirl (Clémence Poésy) who has camped out in the hotel room’s bathroom.

Levy says that although he could see that there were odd elements to thecharacters and the plot he could also see, as DeWalt had, that there were re-latable aspects in the screenplay.

“What was great about the script,” he says, “was that while it is a very uniqueworld and environment that Benoit has described, at the same time it is a greatlove story that examines whether you have a second chance to love once youhave lost your first love. It is a universal theme, which is why I liked it. I alsoliked the way he weaved in music elements. I felt the way he brought in the jazzelement was really very interesting and I thought it was also interesting that be-fore doing anything he came up with a storyboard and a very detailed presen-tation of the musical references he had. Benoit has a vision of what he wantsto do and despite being a first time director everything was very clear. Thescript was very good and we all liked it.”



they would be in serious trouble. “I think it’s a very tough assignment for a young actor like Rupert, who is

in his 20s, and is in the forefront of this film in terms of acting to also be ex-pected to play the piano despite the fact that he has no training as a musician,”says DeWalt. “The fact that he was able to come into the movie and pull it offwas remarkable. Obviously we were worried about it until he got here be-cause at the end of the day if he couldn’t perform we didn’t have a movie. Itdidn’t matter how good the rest of the acting was or the relationship betweenour leads. If the music didn’t work the movie wouldn’t work. So it was quite

gratifying. In fact I was blown away as was Jean-Charles the first time we sawhim perform. It was so natural. We both came to the conclusion that the guycould make it singing and performing and we have no doubt that when theCD with our original music comes out he will be considered to be a star juston the basis of the music.”

Phillippon agrees. “It was a real collaboration from the moment that Ru-pert received the script,” he says. “He had a lot of ideas and brought a lot ofquestions about the why and how in terms of creating the final shape of the

says. “Normally it would be suicide to produce a film in this country and nothave Canadian distribution rights locked in but I really think we will be justfine. We won’t be ready for Toronto but more than likely we will be at eitherBerlin or Cannes. I am not sure we will do Sundance because it is not a Sun-dance movie. It is a very commercial film and I think based on the fact we havea very hot upcoming director, Berlin or Cannes might be the best place to be.”

The script attracted several hot actors. Poésy won praise for her perform-ance in the critically acclaimed In Bruges while Whitaker is a recent Oscarwinner. DeWalt says that being able to bring in The Last King of Scotland starwas a major coup that will help themovie immensely when it goes outto distributors.

“From my perspective, havingsomeone of that stature who has areputation of choosing very interest-ing movies and has a very good trackrecord in terms of picking projectsthat do well adds real credibility tothe movie. I think that when he cameon board it took things to a wholeother level. That challenged us asproducers to deliver a high quality ofmovie on a Canadian budget whichis always a great motivator. I was particularly thrilled since he actually commit-ted after we had been shooting. So he got involved based on what he had beenshown of the film.”

While he is happy with the other actors, it is Rupert Friend for whom De-Walt reserves the most praise. Friend, who is perhaps best known for periodpieces like The Young Victoria and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas was castby Phillippon even though he was aware that he had no training as a musi-cian. DeWalt says he and Levy knew that if Friend was the wrong choice

“We were worried about it until he got here becauseat the end of the day if he couldn’t perform, wewouldn’t have a movie... If the music didn’t work,the movie wouldn’t work.”- Kevin Dewalt, on casting Rupert Friend for the lead, despite the fact he had no musical training



tions of the two characters without having to deal with a physical relation-ship. I felt that if we could bring in music it would work. It was very impor-tant to me not just to have a normal story but to be able to tell the storythrough the sets and the camera and visuals. It is not a normal film becauseeverything works like a fable or a tale. So it was important to use poetic el-ements and music to tell the story.”

Phillippon came to his directing debut with the understanding that almosteveryone he would be working with would have more experience than himself.He says that rather than being particularly sensitive about the script or his di-rectorial vision, he welcomed collaboration and input from everyone involvedin the making of the movie.

“From the moment that you get out of your room with your script in yourhand and you decide to involve other people in the process of turning it intoa movie everything is a surprise. I always told everyone ‘it is not my film. It isour film from now on.’ I really feel as though everyone brings something tothe film from the director of photography to hair and makeup and the actors.They all bring something in terms of the way they interpret the script so webuilt everything together. And there were a lot of surprises. If there was some-thing that happened that was not what I had in mind I would correct it butmost of the time it was something different and better in a way. It was alwaysabout crossing over from what I had in mind to what we could create together.”

One of the biggest surprises for Phillippon was the way his script was inter-preted by the cast and crew. He says that when he arrived in Regina hebrought a screenplay but when he left he had a movie.

“When you write a script you picture a place and then the production de-signer starts to shape things and that is true with everything. When an actorcomes along it is not exactly what you pictured because on paper it is still a fic-tional character and then they say the dialogue and it sounds different and ittakes a shape that could only happen with that actor. And it is like that witheverything. I would say that I brought the skeleton and everyone else broughtthe flesh and the skin and then it became a collectively designed body.” ■

character. That was important because only Rupert could have brought thischaracter to life.”

Phillipon was also convinced that he had the right female lead in Poésywhom he had seen in In Bruges. He says that when he watched the movie heknew that he had to have her in his own film. Then he got lucky when shecould see things in the character that she could relate to.

“I was totally blown away by her performance in In Bruges,” he says. “She wassurprised when she got the script because there are a lot of things about thatcharacter that mirror her own qualities and it was magic in a way because shebecame the character from a strong base of her own personality.”

Phillippon hadn’t done much in film, when he wrote his script, but he knewthe right people. One of them was Frédérique Dumas-Zajdela, who won anOscar producing the 2002 Best Foreign Language Film Oscar winner No Man’sLand. More recently she had become a senior executive in a leading Frenchtelecommunications and media company, Orange. Levy says that while hewouldn’t usually spend too much time looking at scripts from inexperiencedwriter/directors, Dumas’ recommendation came with the offer that Orangemight provide funding for the picture if Levy made the movie. That wasenough to encourage Levy to read the script.

“She called me and said ‘there is this French director I have been develop-ing a relationship with who has developed a script and I would like you to readit. If you are interested I would like to finance the movie through Orange.’ I metwith him and I was impressed by him and I think she was absolutely right.”

Phillippon says that while his own background in music is not particularlystrong, he could see that the film would need something to keep the audienceinterested while they were watching a movie in which there is almost no phys-ical contact between the two protagonists.

“You have this hotel room and these two people separated by a door, witha girl in a bathroom and a man inside the room. I wanted to have themknow each other without seeing each other. So I could see it would be agreat challenge to try and find a way to tell the story and to raise the emo-




competitiveeffectsIt wasn’t that long ago that post-production in general and digital effects in particularwere considered to be the least likely components of a film to be completed in Vancou-ver. The television series and movies that shot here would use LA-based post compa-nies because they were bigger, faster and had the connections and credits that makecompanies competitive. Times have changed...

By Ian Caddell

facility is appropriate to do the work the studios consider us.”Hoffman moved to Rainmaker Visual Effects a year prior to its January,

2008 acquisition by CIS. He held similar positions at several companies in-cluding Digital Domain and Cinesite. He says Rainmaker’s reputation pavedthe way for CIS.

“Rainmaker had a long history of working in the television industry uphere and it was quite robust during the 1990s. Eventually they started look-ing for opportunities to build the capability of doing feature film work. Ittakes time and you have to be strategic in going after projects and buildinglevels of confidence with the studios. They took on some early projects likeGarfield and Lost Boys and Good Boy and although they were small that workstarted to build the experience that was needed.”

A few years ago, Rainmaker took a big step towards being a player in thevisual effects world when it opened a facility in London. That allowed it towork on The Da Vinci Code and to establish a relationship with one of themost prolific directors in Hollywood, Ron Howard. Rainmaker moved someof its key people to London to work on the film. Hoffman says the movebrought the company to a different level in terms of its reputation with US-based studios.

“They (the studios) said ‘that is great work and they (Rainmaker) are re-ally committed,’ which helped us to progress in terms of building our rela-tionship with them. That directly linked us to a number of different projectswith that studio (Sony Pictures) including Vantage Point. We were in a po-sition to do Angels & Demons because we were pushing our technology andour creativity and creating a comfort level for studios. We were able to bringwork to this facility because it is always about delivering high quality at agood price on time.”

The tools and the people were there but one element was missing: thekind of financing that allows companies to keep up with the technology.Hoffman says that when Deluxe came along and purchased the company itbrought the final component with it.

Vancouver post production houses are now doing most of the post and ef-fects work for locally shot television series and are adding much of the filmwork to their resumes. Perhaps more importantly, other doors once thoughtto be tightly closed are beginning to open. Thanks to an ambitious tax creditand blessings from studios and highly respected filmmakers, local companiesare being invited to bid on work done far from the city at the edge of therainforest. In fact, they are working in several countries and are helping tomake some of the most prestigious films of the era.

Leading the charge is CIS Vancouver, formerly Rainmaker Visual Effects.The Deluxe-owned company has been working in the US and Europe andwill be headed to South Africa soon to start work on Clint Eastwood’s Invic-tus (aka The Human Factor), the story of the fall of Apartheid and NelsonMandela’s rise to power. They recently completed work on Ron Howard’sAngels & Demons and CIS visual effects supervisors also have Ben Stiller’sTropic Thunder and Eastwood’s Changeling, among other films, on their re-sumes. The company’s senior vice president and general manager, DennisHoffman, says that the people who make the decisions on visual effects forfilms are finding it increasingly easier to make a case for bringing CIS intotheir projects.

“I think Vancouver as a territory is inclined to explode as a go-to terri-tory for the tent pole pictures for the studios in Los Angeles,” he says. “Someof the stuff we have done and some of the stuff other studios here have donehas the studios looking to Vancouver as an alternative to London which hasbecome the first stop for big pictures. What got Vancouver to this step rightnow where we are doing these films was the establishment of a tax creditfor the visual effects side. I think it was the live action tax credits that initi-ated the building of the expertise of the local crews and now we have thebest crews in the world and the studios are shooting here all the time. Whenthey added the DAVE credit (the 2003 Digital Animation or Visual Effectscredit) it made studios look at Vancouver as an area to bring visual effects.And because you don’t have to shoot up here to receive the credit, when the

Behind the scenes of Angels &Demons and Tropic Thunder, photoscourtesy of CIS Vancouver




list of credits but aren’t used to thinking photographically for film. AlthoughI know that you can push the right buttons for the software I don’t know ifyou know how to look at something from a critical eye. A lot of people domake the transition but some people are very good at doing TV work andothers are just good at film work. When I have done TV we have had peo-ple coming in from the film world where they have done movies like Lord ofthe Rings. We have thought ‘wow we have a compositor from ILM (Interna-tional Light and Magic) and we are so lucky.’ But they walk in and we will say‘here is the green screen, go for it’ and they will say where is the ‘do it’ but-ton? Someone else did that job and my job was to pull the lever.’”

One of the key elements of the city’s emergence as a post production cen-tre has been collaboration. The local companies have been competitive buthave also supplied needed support when it would appear that needs mightnot be met by a small market. Dowdeswell says that his own company’s suc-cess can be attributed to the support it has received from other local visualeffects suppliers.

“There are about eight or nine small visual effects companies here,” hesays. “Most of us are friends and we have all always felt that their success isour success so there is a lot of collaboration. When we are ready to releasecompositors we will tell them and they will pluck them up so that the edu-cation and experience stays in Vancouver. I think that in some ways we al-most complement each other. We will make efforts to pitch two or threefacilities together. In fact we sell the packages that way. There are a lot ofsmart people in Vancouver.”

Breakspear has been all over the world working his magic on films andtelevision sets but says that the Vancouver crews have become competitive.He says that while he often works with the people who are assigned to a filmby the producers, he feels comfortable bringing his own people with him.

“I take people from here occasionally and I will also hire certain positionson location. When we went to Hawaii for Tropic Thunder I took our mod-eller for the helicopter effects. I took people to Rome for Angels & Demonsbecause I realized that so much of our success on The Da Vinci Code was dueto the fact everyone had knowledge of what the space we worked in was like.It’s funny though because when you take people to a film set they will neverwant you to take them again. In Hawaii we would get up at 5 am and go intothe middle of the jungle and work all day and come home at midnight andgo to bed. That was the shoot for us. They could have shot it anywhere interms of what we do. You can’t take everyone but it’s good to take key peo-ple who are able to communicate in that environment.”

Vancouver isn’t the only city with proven effects shops, of course. Thereare several competitive companies in most major markets. And in an era inwhich almost every film needs at least a few scenes to be created in a com-puter, the competition for big movies is fierce. Shauna Bryan says that whenthe company set out to get work on Angels & Demons, they were aware theywere being considered for some of the biggest scenes in the film but that theinclination is to think long term. As a result, there was some reluctance tomove too quickly.

“We were building our capability to take on more challenging work but wealso needed capital to reinvest in ourselves to build out the infrastructurethat, for a series of reasons, had gotten old. One of the challenges in visualeffects itself is that it needs a constant recapitalization. Equipment goes outof date before you get it in the door. Deluxe has been very good at giving usthe capital and we now have the opportunities to basically rebuild our in-frastructure. That allows us to put more effort into being creative and tosolve visual effects problems for our clients.”

James Dowdeswell, the head of the company’s virtual studio, agrees. “Vi-sual effects are always leading edge so you have to constantly renew yourtechnology,” he says. “That means you are always looking for a budget thathas an attachment of capital expenditure each year. It is not always that youget to the New Year and know what the year is going to look like. You can’tsay ‘let’s allocate so much to rendering.’ It’s a bit of a guessing game. It isthe nature of our business and I think every company deals with that in thesame fashion.”

To become a respected leader in visual effects work Rainmaker and, later,CIS, had to overcome a classic Hollywood prejudice. Like actors who aretypecast in roles after being successful in one particular kind of film, thecompany had to show that they could do more than television. Executiveproducer Shauna Bryan says the tax credit helped take it in the right direc-tion but says that working on The Da Vinci Code, which occurred when theywere still known as Rainmaker, was a big boost to its fortunes.

“When the DAVE tax credit was introduced we had open access to inter-national projects. The studios knew that we had a good exchange rate butthey were hesitant to give us anything because they knew Rainmaker onlyas a television shop and Vancouver was very much known as a televisioncity. You had all the studios sitting back and watching to see what wouldhappen but it wasn’t driven by monetary reasons. They didn’t just say ‘let’sgo there because it is going to be cheaper.’ When we worked on The DaVinci Code, the sequence had to be done in London. Once we had done thatit made the studios sit up and take notice. Then they started looking at ourfacility to do more.”

Mark Breakspear says that breaking away from being seen as a televisioneffects company was a benchmark for the company. Breakspear, who hasbeen a visual effects supervisor for several movies and TV shows, includingAngels & Demons, says that while no one should downplay the work thatgoes into television visual effects, there is a big difference for audiences interms of the time and money invested in a movie.

“If you create visual effects for television you learn to be a certain kind ofartist,” he says. “You have to be very talented and you get to do work very fastand you learn how to build something so that it holds up. You learn whatpeople who watch TV shows expect and what they will put up with. Some-one watching TV will say ‘I enjoyed the effects and they were part of thestory.’ Their expectations are at a certain level. But if you pay a bunch ofmoney to see a movie your expectation instantaneously goes up. What youend up with in terms of television are visual effects people who have a long

“The studios knew we had agood exchange rate but theywere hesitant to give us anythingbecause they knew Rainmakeronly as a television shop andVancouver was very much knownas a television city.”- Executive producer Shauna Bryan on overcoming

a classic Hollywood prejudice

cont. on page 28



Vancouver actor Richard de Klerk started acting when he was 14 andeventually made the move to Los Angeles. He keeps busy in bothmarkets and has produced two films and directed another. In his diary,he looks back at the making of Carl Bessai’s Cole, in which de Klerkplays the title role of a 21 year old who has to protect his sister’s sonfrom her boyfriend, manage the family gas station and care for hismother. The film was shot in Vancouver and Lytton, BC last year andwill be ready for the fall film festivals.

Diary by Richard de Klerk

Cole’s Notes



May 15 I’m flying in to Vancouver from LA today to start prep. I’m excited. Ihad an earlier meeting with Carl that included a great conversation about mycharacter. I’m planning to hang out with my on-screen sister, Maybelline(Sonja Bennett), her son, Rocket (Jack Forrester) and my best friend, Frogger(Michael Eisner) in order to get a real sense of familiarity. Upon arrival at myfolks’ house I discover that our dog Greta, a German Shepherd I have had forover half of my life, is dying. She does not last the night. Through my grief Idecide a perfect tribute to her is to model a part of my character after her. Shealways had this cute endearing quality of walking so humbly, almost unsure ofherself. I think this is so perfect for Cole, as although he is talented he is com-ing to the big city for the first time and is feeling totally out of his element.Greta’s humble walk is perfect to convey this sense of awkwardness and I thinkit’s a fitting way to honour my puppy.May 19 Today I take Michael Eisner on a drive to Lytton, the place our char-acters call home. I’ve already been there on my own and have an initial senseof this unique town which is so isolated and so beautiful, nestled between themountains at the junction where the blue green waters of the Thompson Rivermeet the turbid brown flow of the Fraser. The three hour drive gives us achance to get acquainted. Michael is a super cool guy. We have only met oncebefore: at the initial read-through. After an hour of getting to know each otherwe spend the rest of the drive in comfortable silence, taking in the worldaround us as we get closer to the isolation and beauty of the Lytton area. Itstrikes me that there are few friendships that are extremely comfortable in al-most complete silence. We arrive at about 10 AM, take a walk around and talkto a few locals. The townspeople are very friendly and excited about our moviecoming to shoot here. We even take a look at our set, a gas station/house

January, 2008 I am talking to my agent Dylan Collingwood and he says he’soptioned a great script by a young, talented Vancouver Film School grad,Adam Zang. Dylan says I am perfect for the lead. He tells me he’s alreadypitched it for some time with no success, but he’s sure it will happen soon. It’sa character-driven drama and must stand not only on the strength of the di-rector, but each actor’s ability to bring something special to their character.They already have a great casting director lined up in Melissa Perry whom I’veknown for years. For Dylan and his producing partner, stunt coordinator Ki-mani Smith, it will be their first project under their newly formed productioncompany Titlecard Pictures. I love the script. Cole is different from any role Ihave ever played so I decide to pitch it to the other shareholders in my produc-tion company, Rampart Films. They also love the script.Early March Jason James of Resonance Films, an experienced producer, is onboard and he gets experienced director Carl Bessai interested in the project.Awesome! I have wanted to work with Carl since meeting him at the WhistlerFilm Festival in December of 2004. He is so talented and not only directs butis his own director of photography and camera operator. His unique style al-lows freedom for actors to “explore the space.”Early April We do a read-through with the tentative cast and Adam whocheerfully goes back to work to do a rewrite/polish with all of our notes. May 1 The Cole production office opens and crewing up begins. I’m still inLA but eager to fly back. Location scouting is well underway.May 5 I receive the polished script and am very happy with the changes. He’spared down the number of characters and given more scope to others. Mid May Kevin Eastwood of Optic Nerve is officially on board as line pro-ducer.



- on shaking the hands of the crew after shooting an outdoor swimming scene

“...It’s a tradition that I have practiced myentire career, but tonight, shivering in thecold with nipples harder than a Batman

costume I kind of wish I could take asmall reprieve from that practice”



that it looks enchanting. I show up at Serafina’s house all distressed from saving my on screen Mom

(Rebecca Jenkins) from getting hit by a car for the umpteenth time. Serafinasits with me by the pool with our feet dangling in the water. She invites me in.I say no and she playfully throws me in. The air is electric and the scene isbeautiful. We move on to the hot and heavy stuff toward the end of the sceneand Colin Leadly, our 1st AD, calls for a closed set. The closed set consists ofalmost every person on the crew and my whole family - including my grand-parents who live in the basement of the house – standing behind the monitorand watching. Kandyse asks me if it weirds me out having my whole familywatching me make out on the screen. “Not really” I say. The scene goes well,and when we’re done I get out of the pool with my soaking wet jeans on andno shirt and walk around to the crew and shake all of their hands. It’s a tradi-tion that I have practiced my entire career, but tonight, shivering in the coldwith nipples harder than a Batman costume I kind of wish I could take a smallreprieve from that practice. June 1 We have finished the first week of shooting in Vancouver. It went in-credibly well and I’m excited to make my way up to Lytton for the long haul.I’ll be spending two weeks there while shooting the rest of the film. I’m bring-ing my bike up so that I can bike to set in the morning.June 4 Today is probably one of the biggest days emotionally for me. It’s theday of a huge fight with Bobby (Chad Willett), my on-screen sister’s boyfriend,and the day that I save my mother from being hit by a car. Chad and I arepracticing the fight choreography, and it comes time for the first take. We areshooting this whole scene in sequence from tackle to struggle to me pum-melling his face. Chad is a pretty tall guy at about 6’3” and I’m about 5’11” sothe fight has to be especially brutal for it to be believable. I always want to domy own stunts but I have a history of being hit. A couple of years ago I hadmy nose semi-separated from the rest of my face by a kick to the head. Beforethat, on one of my first films as a kid, I was knocked out in rehearsal from apunch that connected. I get so wrapped up I never think about risks. I just liketo go for it. Besides those two were freak accidents anyway. Right? I trust thechoreography. So we start the fight. On the first take I tackle Chad, and heara loud crunch in my shoulder. It hurts like hell and the stunt coordinator tellsme we won’t do any more tackles. I ask Carl “did we get it?” He hesitates so Istart to warm up my shoulder for another take. I tell him “I can always ice itlater. Let’s go!” So we do a couple more takes and move on to the struggle. Onthe first take Chad and I are wrestling around and his collar-bone goes intomy face and one of my bottom teeth slices my lip open. Carl doesn’t even no-tice that the blood pouring out of my mouth is mine. Both he and Chad thinkits fake blood and ask where I got it not realizing that I really am bleedinghere.I head to the hospital two minutes away and the ER doc is Dr. de Klerk. Wow,really? I figure this has to be a good sign. He breaks out the anaesthetic tofreeze my lip. I explain that if I can’t feel my lip I can’t talk and please just stitchit up without anything so I can go back to work. He asks me if I am sure andwarns me it will hurt. I tell him to go ahead, bracing myself for the pain. So heproceeds to put four fairly excruciating stitches in my mouth, and I go back towork. Good thing I was only gone for about half an hour. We didn’t miss muchtime. We finish the fight with me icing my lip between takes.Later in the day I can tell something isn’t right and my suspicion is confirmed:my stitches have come loose. So I go back to the hospital to get it fixed but Dr.de Klerk is noticeably absent, MC’ing a concert in another town half an hourdown the road. The nurse tells me I have to wait till he is done. I seriously can’tbelieve it. Luckily the good doctor drives back and stitches me up once again. I go back to work and the big emotional scene of the day is up and I’m all tears,bawling my eyes out even between takes. I don’t ever plan to cry in a scene. Itjust comes naturally. I’m amazed as we finish the day that we actually goteverything done. I’m back in my hotel room and talk to my family on thephone. Then I pass out with an ice pack on my face. June5 My lips look like the bottom half of Angelina Jolie’s. Between takes I amicing but the swelling won’t go down. I’m beginning to think I’m going to looklike I have collagen injections through half of the film. June 7 B-Roll Day - We already had a great B-Roll day in Vancouver and nowCarl, Jason, Steve Deneault (the 2nd camera operator) and I are gallivantingaround Lytton, getting great shots. I’m going back to Vancouver tonight forthe rest of the long weekend for some “r and r.” June 9 I decide to go back to Lytton a day early. I feel strangely out of place inVancouver. I never thought that I would feel like a fish out of water in a city.June 10 Another B-roll day goes great. Carl and Jason and

combo that was built for the Sean Penn film The Pledge. It’s perfect. Then wedrive down the road to the small beach between the two rivers and break outthe golf clubs, spending the next couple of hours hitting golf balls and tryingto get them across the river. It doesn’t work. After about 100 balls we comeclose to hitting a couple of logs floating down river. I miss hit the last ball andit goes skidding across the river and hits a log floating down stream. Michaellooks at me and laughs and says “nobody will believe this when we tell them!!!” May 20 I get to hang out with my character’s little nephew today. Carl sug-gested I should get to know him so he’s comfortable with me, because JackForrester, who plays Rocket, is a real shy kid when you first meet him. It’s goodtimes! Sonja joins us for awhile and then Jack and I go to the park across thestreet and play some football. He really starts to open up and reminds me ofme when I was a kid. It’s going to be fun acting with him.May 25 It’s the day before principal photography and I am actually quite atease, not nervous but excited. I end up spending the day much the same wayI have done for a lot of my career: driving around the city thinking about thecoming days. I also go to the driving range out at UBC to practice my swing.I don’t want to look like a schmuck when I am golfing into the river on theday. In the evening I write the story that I will read aloud to the class in the film.It’s a short story and I end up writing 10 pages. Not sure where it all camefrom but I realize that I’m actually excited to read this story aloud tomorrow.May 26 The first day of shooting. Carl starts the day, by saying “good luckeveryone and may the critics not pan us!” The first scene up is me taking aliking to Serafina (Kandyse McClure). I just met her last week. She is solovely, such beautiful eyes. It won’t be tough to fall for this girl. This scene isa great starting scene for me as I don’t have any lines. It’s all looks and sub-tle glances. It breezes by and before I know it the next scene is up and it’stime for me to read my story aloud to the class. I ask Carl if I can read a cou-ple of pages just for “giggles” for the first take. He agrees. It’s now that thenerves kick in a little. A lot of these people have never worked with me andI’m eager to get off to a great start. Stephen E. Miller plays my professor andhe is such an awesome actor. We do a couple of takes and we’re off! The daygoes incredibly well. It’s capped off wonderfully when Jason James comes upto me and says “I had no real idea of you before we started this but you re-ally impressed me today.” May 27 It’s kind of one of those Vancouver days where the weather changesevery five minutes. We are ploughing through scenes and I know we are get-ting some great stuff. Jack comes in just before lunch and we block the scenein the park where Serafina sees just how much I love my bi-racial nephew.I’m already falling fast for this girl at this point in the story. We start to shoota couple of takes before lunch. Everyone’s worst fear about little Jack wasthat he would be too shy but it’s the opposite. After the first take I have totell him not to look into the camera because if he does he’ll go blind. Every-one kind of holds their breath when I say that but Jack knows I am joking. Hegets the point. Lunch time and I’m walking to the catering truck with Jack with my cozy coaton, and a bird does his business on me. Jack finds this hilarious. I kind of dotoo. Besides, it’s good luck, right? After lunch we plan to go into coverage ofthe scene, but the light has changed and Jack’s blood sugar level has alsochanged. Hyper Jack has arrived.

Jack is so rambunctious and I have all I can do to keep him on task. Carlexplained to me earlier in the day that I had to be the main liaison with Jackbecause I have taken the time and he’s familiar with me. The nice thingabout acting with a kid who has oodles of energy is that they don’t neces-sarily stick to what’s scripted. Being someone who loves to throw away ascript sometimes I am more than happy to follow his lead and adlib a little.The scene finishes and as drained as Kandyse and I both are we aren’t doneyet. We go and shoot the scene in the film where we have our first kiss. It’sabout 5 degrees Celsius but bright sunshine, so in between takes I spendmy time listening to the direction with my arms around Kandyse in an at-tempt to keep her warm. The first kiss gave me butterflies even though weboth were starting to get cold runny noses. We’re shooting during magichour so it looks wonderful and really accentuates the color of her eyes. JoecyShepherd, the script supervisor, tells me that Kandys’s heel popped up onsome takes. Awesome.May 29 We are shooting at my parents’ house today. The house where Ispent my teen years is standing in for Serafina’s house. Tonight is the bigmake-out scene in the pool. It’s cold again and we’re shooting that scene atnight, but the pool has been prepped so we won’t freeze. The water is morelike a warm bathtub and our gaffer, Prem Marimuthu, has lit the scene so cont. on page 28



“We were very much in the runningto do the largest part but for us it is not so much about doing the biggestpart, it is about performing well and performing strongly so we can choosethe type of work we want to do. Maybe then we will take on larger portionsof a show but we have gotten really good at being selective and we are veryrealistic about what we can take on. We are also good at being forthrightwith the studios and everyone else and they in turn have been very appre-ciative of that. We talked about working on a larger sequence on Angels &Demons but because of the type of the work and the schedule we said wewould rather not do it even though they liked the test work we had done.”

Hoffman says that CIS’s long term ambitions may hold it back for theshort term. He says, however, that if the company intends to become aleader in the realm of visual effects it needs to continue to build its reputa-tion and its capabilities.

“One of our greatest ambitions is to bring people back to us because weexceed expectations and we deliver what we say we will deliver. We are goodpeople to work with because the whole process can be very stressful andthere are changes and complications and by having an open dialogue withthe clients you are building a reputation and a partnership that they valueand it comes back in spades. We built it (the company’s reputation) up fromsome of the work we did on Vantage Point and some of the work we did onChangeling with Clint Eastwood and now we are working on (Invictus) whichtakes that massive character stuff and brings it to the next level. We felt wewere in a good place to do that. Sometimes you have to make tough decisionsin terms of what you take and what you don’t take to build your facility prop-erly and to build on that reputation”

Breakspear agrees that taking things slowly is a fact of life if you are in-tending to build on your successes. He says that while he feels that the com-pany may be ready to move on and do the lion’s share of effects on films, itneeds to have patience and understand that there are both advantages anddisadvantages of being in a smaller market. He says that the time for thecity’s effects houses and his own company will come eventually and theyneed to be ready to accept the responsibility.

“The fact of the matter is in nature we are the Serengeti, one of the smallponds that doesn’t get fed other than one time during the rainy season,” hesays. “So everything that lives in that pond had better be good at survivalbecause we don’t have a Zambezi (River) going through it to fill us up. Howdo we get a piece of the business if everyone is doing movies in London andLA and we are in Vancouver? We have to give the company a fighting chancein our industry. Sometimes we get it right and it’s not just about talking aboutour successes. It’s looking at our screw-ups and trying to improve. This com-pany is full of people from all over the world as are most visual effects com-panies but the difference is if you are a company in LA you can look acrossthe street and see a studio. We can’t do that here but we do have DAVE andwe have to think ‘will they come up here because we are cheap or is it thequality of work?’ My guess is it will always be a blend of money and creativ-ity woven together. ”■

Competitive Effects cont. from page 22

I head up to Ashcroft and through thetunnels by Hells Gate. My stitches finally fall out.June 11 The road trip with Michael really helped. I feel so comfortable withhim and we both make each other laugh a lot. It’s also the day that Serafinacomes to Frogger’s house and Bobby (Chad Willett) spoils the party. It’s ahugely emotional day and thankfully my lip has gotten quite a bit better.June 14 It’s the last day of shooting and I’m sad it’s done. I’m going to missthese people and this place. October 29 ADR today with Jack. In total I have 22 pages of lines to record.ADR can be quite tedious but I am having a great time having Carl in the stu-dio with me, a luxury you don’t usually get as an actor.November 4 I’m starting on Robin Hood - Beyond Sherwood with PeterDeLuise directing. The day goes great and then I make my way from MapleRidge to Technicolor downtown to watch the color correction on Cole. I havebeen extremely lucky that after we wrapped I have been really involved in thepost. Carl and Jason took me under their respective wings during the wholepost process. December 17Cast and crew screening of the 35mm print at District 319. Thefilm turned out incredibly well. It’s a lovely heart warming film. It’s the firsttime I have been able to sit through a film with me in it and actually be enter-tained. This has been one incredible experience! ■

Coles Notes cont. from previous page

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In previous columns I’ve looked at theemerging role of the Internet in filmand television distribution, notinghow digital channels allow better ac-cess to the global audience while atthe same time creating new legal con-siderations for producers.

By the same token, websites arenow a key component of most pro-motional strategies. Blogs, chat-rooms, social networking, interactivegames and bonus footage can gener-ate consumer interest, and oftenmake the site a destination in and ofitself. To the extent producers de-velop websites for their programs,they should be mindful of the legalconsiderations that are unique to in-teractive and content-rich websites.

If (you have a specific domainname in mind, don’t put off purchas-ing it if it’s still available. If you find acyber-squatter has already staked aclaim to the perfect domain, legalremedies may be available throughorganizations like ICANN (InternetCorporation for Assigned Names andNumbers) and CIRA (Canadian In-ternet Registration Authority.) Arbi-trating a domain dispute can be costlyand time-consuming, but if the do-main is critical to your strategy, thereare alternatives to paying a cyber-squatter’s ransom.

If your site includes productionstills or footage, then you must ensurethat your performer agreements,music licenses and other releasesgrant you sufficient rights to includetheir subjects online. Most standard-form agreements will give youenough rights to promote your proj-ect, but to the extent you include be-hind-the-scenes or blooper footage,or content that could be deemed astand-alone production (i.e. a we-bisode), then you should consider ad-ditional language to cover theserights. If you are generating any rev-enue relating to footage on the site, forexample through subscription fees oradvertisements, then you may be li-able for residual or reuse fees if anyunion or guild members are involved.

Allowing users to contribute toyour site can be a great way to encour-age repeat visits and generate word ofmouth (or keyboard) interest in yourproject. These benefits must beweighed against the time and expenseof moderating user contributions, or

the risk of permitting un-moderatedcontent on your site. Be mindful that,depending on the jurisdiction, websiteowners may be liable for user-gener-ated content on their site, includingdefamatory content, and copyrightand trademark infringement.

Producers interested in creating acommunity of fans may want to em-ploy social networking technologies,which have the potential to create aloyal, long-term and connected audi-ence. Privacy laws vary betweenprovinces, states and countries, andthey continue to evolve, so you are ad-vised to implement a privacy policythat ensures the security of user’s per-sonal information and private data.To the extent user email addresses arecollected for email blasts, ensure that“unsubscribe” options are available soyou aren’t caught on the wrong side ofanti-spam legislation.

Your website’s terms of use andcopyright notice may be the least-readpart of your website, but it is the mostcritical from a legal perspective. Itserves as notice to your site’s visitors ofyour policies regarding their contribu-tions, their personal and contact infor-mation, and the ownership of the site’scontents and copyrights. Should anydisputes arise between you and a userof your site, the terms of use may beused to show what the user is deemedto have agreed to by signing up andusing your site. An age verification sys-tem is recommended to ensure thateach of your users has the legal capac-ity to agree to the terms of use.

When obtaining Errors & Omis-sions insurance, you will want to en-sure that coverage extends to yourwebsite, and depending on the level ofcontent and interactivity of your site,you should be aware of any elementsthat are excluded from coverage.Your policy will probably cover theuse of production stills and clips, butit is much less likely to cover legal is-sues arising from user contributions.

By taking a proactive approach tothe issues described above, you canminimize the legal risks of imple-menting social, interactive and con-tent-rich websites to publicize andpromote your productions.

Kyle Fogden joined Roberts & Stahl in2003. His practice focuses on entertain-ment and intellectual property law.

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FINAL EDIT

Anaid dines outAnaid Productions, which has of-fices in Edmonton and Vancouver,won the Lifestyle & InformationProgram Rockie at the recent BanffTelevision Festival. The companywon the award for an episode of its

series Family Restaurant: TheQuons, which is seen on Canada’sFood Network.

Four other Canadian shows wonRockies. Bravo’s I Met the Walruswon the Animation ProgramRockie while the History & Biogra-

phy Rockie went to the NFB’s Paris1919, the Popular Science & Tech-nology Rockie went to ClearwaterMedia’s Inuit Odyssey and CBC’sHockey Day in Canada won theSports Entertainment Rockie.

The United Kingdom led allcountries with nine Rockies whileCanada won five, the United Stateswon three, France won two andSweden and The Philippines wonone Rockie each.

“The exceptional quality of the 23category winners once again showsthe worldwide power of attractionof the Banff World TV Festival” saidGeorges Leclere, the director ofthe awards competition. “We arehonored to present winners withthe ‘Rockie,’ the trophy that truly in-spires excellence in internationaltelevision and represents a greatgeneration of promising producersand directors.” The Festival re-ceived 800 entries with the 130 cat-egory nominees representing 29countries.

CTF Supporting RegionsThe Canadian Television Fund(CTF) recently released highlightsfrom its 2008-2009 fiscal year,which ended on March 31, 2009. Aspokesperson said the CTF’s annualreport will be available in fall 2009.

CTF president ValerieCreighton said the $2 million Dig-ital Media Pilot Program launchedto “extraordinary demand,” withfunds supporting 20 English and 10French productions. She said the $5million Production Incentive PilotProgram supported English pro-duction in Quebec and AtlanticCanada where volumes had

dropped significantly below his-toric averages. The incentive bene-fited 11 projects from Quebec and16 projects from Atlantic Canada.

“Over the past year, the CTFfunded a greater number of pro-ductions through the disbursementof 12% more funding compared tothe average of the four prior years,”she said. “Our streams of fundingwere expanded to support the in-dustry’s move towards new media.”

According to Creighton CTFalso enhanced communication withits stakeholders by launching “in-teracTVity”, a monthly electronicnewsletter.

“A” for RTNDAA Victoria station fared well whenthe Radio Television News Direc-tors Association of Canada(RTNDA) announced the winnersof the regional Edward R. MurrowAwards. ‘A’ British Columbia re-ceived a total of four awards for In-vestigative Reporting, ContinuingCoverage, Videography and Writ-ing in the international category fora small market.

“These awards are a testament tothe hard work and dedication ofour entire team at ‘A’ News,” said AChannel news director HudsonMack. “We are incredibly proud ofthis international recognition.”

The station won its InvestigativeReporting award for Police ChiefInvestigated, its Continuing Cover-age award for Lindsay BuziakMurder, its Videography award forTall Ships Sail from Port Angelesand its writing award for HomelessDucklings. ■

Announcements and AppointmentsNegotiating producers from the CFTPA - BC Producers’ Branch and the AMPTP Canadian Affiliates haverenewed agreements with the largest group of film and television employees in British Columbia. Theballoting on the agreement resulted in the endorsement of the three-year pact. The agreement is effectiveJune 7, 2009 through to March 2012… The UBC Film Production Alumni Association recently announcedits sdvisory board. Members include editor Daria Ellerman, writer/directors Mina Shum, LynneStopkewich and Sturla Gunnarsson, writer Ian Weir, producers Cal Shumiatcher and Stephen Hegyes,Telefilm Canada’s Bill Hurst and directors of photography Greg Middleton and Brian Pearson…Veterananimation producer Catherine Winder has joined Rainmaker Entertainment as President. Winder wasmost recently at Lucasfilm Animation where she set-up the studio and produced the Cartoon Networkseries Star Wars: The Clone Wars, as well as the animated feature version which was released by WarnerBros… The company also announced that Kim Dent Wilder is being added to the management team asSenior Vice President of Production and Operations and that Tara Kemes will join Rainmaker as Managerof Talent Development.

CBC’S HOCKEY DAY IN CANADA WON THE ROCKIE FOR SPORTS ENTERTAINMENT



ONFILMS T E V E A S S E L I N

“In any artistic endeavor, you have to have a

foundation in order to explore. Film gives me

the confidence to work more freely. I can look

at the set with my eye and see what’s going to

be on the film. Each story requires its own visual

approach and design.… I try to shoot from the hip,

to let my work come more from my feelings.

My goal is always to create a movie that speaks

for itself. When I can watch the film and go along

with the story, then I feel that I have had a

successful collaboration with my colleagues,

and that I am making a connection with my work.”

Steve Asselin was born and raised in Québec City,

Québec, Canada. He studied cinema and literature

and began his filmmaking career as a gofer at

age 18. He shot many music videos and short films,

and eventually photographed his first feature,

Une jeune fille à la fenêtre (A Girl at the Window)

at age 26 for director Francis Leclerc. Since then,

his credits include dozens of television commercials,

the short film Transparence, as well as the feature

films Délivrez-moi, Borderline, and Un été sans point

ni coup sûr (A No-Hit No-Run Summer). His work on

the film Saints-Martyrs-des-Damnés was nominated

for the Best Cinematography prize at the 2006

Jutra Awards, which honors achievements in

Québecois filmmaking.

[All these programs were shot on Kodak Motion Picture Film.]

For an extended interview with Steve Asselin, visit www.kodak.com/go/onfilm.

To order Kodak motion picture film, call (800) 621 - FILM (3456). www.kodak.ca © Kodak Canada Inc., 2009.


July - August 2009: Reel West Magazine

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