Halifax Film / TV News

From Atlantic Business magazine -

"Coming to a Television Near You
DHX Media Ltd. can't wait for you to meet the Bannons, a seemingly ordinary family living in an ordinary house in an ordinary neighborhood in an ordinary town. Except that they aren't ordinary at all - they are a very extraordinary family of retired spies. And, thanks to DHX Media Ltd., television viewers will get to follow their comedic antics as they try to adapt to normal life when the live action series airs on the small screen this Fall. DHX Media Ltd., a Halifax-based independent international producer and distributor of television programming and interactive content, has secured the worldwide television and home entertainment distribution rights to Turner Broadcasting's 'My Spy Family', produced by Kindle Entertainment."

A family of spies! Shades of "The Rosenbergs" a comedy made back in the 1950's for the fledgling Dumont Network in the U.S. in the style of "I Love Lucy". It was a madcap comedy about a Jewish family in New York where the Mother Ethel, kept inadvertently giving away atomic bomb secrets to the "Ruskies (ed. actually they were the USSR at that time). It was left to her poor shlep of a husband, Julius and his madcap sidekick, Sticky, to try and right the wrongs and save Ethel the embarassment of being executed for her silly carrying-on.

A bumbling team of FBI agents, Hank and Miranda (ed. who were married to each other. A funny idea at the time, because there would be no such thing as a female FBI agent) kept trying to expose the Rosenbergs and their crazy spying, treasonous ways. It was based on the real Rosenberg spies who were executed for treason in real life.

America loved the show at the time especially the episode where they made the tv image dim when the TV Rosenbergs were electricuted in a hilarious Marx Brother-esque episode. Unfortunately the show had no where to go after the death of the lead characters.


But Halifax Film's new show sounds better and more profitable and that's what it's all about.

But speaking of which September 25th saw the directors of Halifax Film aka DHX give themselves the following "bonus". They were granted options (ed. the right to buy share at a specified price, in this case $1.62) as follows:

Charles Bishop (ed. aka "the Green Arrow") 40,000
Neil Court (ed. shrug) 40,000
Steven Denure (ed. again with the shrug) 75,000
Donald Wright (ed. maybe these three guys are the creative team that stoke the fires) 40,000
Graham Day (ed. sits on about 1500 boards and collects shares and directors fees for just showing up and not complaining that the cavier is not really authentic.)
William Ritchie 40,000 (ed. he's the guy who raised $25,000,000 for Halifax film)
Dana Landry 40,000 (ed. he's the guy who had Willima Ritchie's phone # and thus helped raise $25M)
Joseph Medjusk 40,000 (ed. our ticket to the L.A. Pot o' gold)
and of course Michael Donovan 40,000.

Now this all sounds good because these guys (ed. most of them...some of them...any of them?) deserve to be compensated for guiding the ship that is DHX to profitability (ed. damn the torpedoes! I mean creative)

But do they have to dilute my shares. In really good faith, I inheirited 1000 shares at $1.40 a share. A few weeks ago after the latest financials came out, they were trading at $1.96! I was very happy, though I did not go out and splurge on the extra lean ground beef for my Hamburger Helper instead of medium because I didn't want to cash in; I wanted to hold on for the long term. (ed. Once Poko V: The Revenge hits theatres, we're talking Payday!)

But now these guys go into a small room for the afternoon and decide to option each other like that! The stocks were down to $1.76 on Friday. Even with the drop let's do the math. 40,000 X (1.76 - $1.62) = $5,600. Not a bad payday for an afternoon with a catered lunch.

*sigh* But I guess it means they will work harder to get the share price up, which is good for me. And I'm sure they'll take the $5,600 and just donate it to charity or the local production community. (ed. note: Statistics Canada figures reveal that the average "filmmaker" in Canada earns almost $6,000 a year. But then again, he's in it for the love. Which is delicious!)

that's all for now.