...And Now ......The Rest of The Story. The story of Halifax Film and Television

Hi Folks,

Don't have much time to blog tonight, just fifteen minutes, "MAX! And you won't get on tomorrow night if it's one minute over!". As you all know I haven't blogged in a while, I've been "away" and sort of missed out on a lot that's been happening. But once I got caught up, Boy! I missed a lot this summer. (Ed. And how!) WTF does that even mean "And How", ? That's my editor logged in miles away, Lunchmeat Harold.

But most of what's happened is good news for the industry in the province and by the industry I mean Halifax Film and by the province I mean Eastern Canada. And just so I'm not accused of bias I will volunteer that I am a shareholder. (ed. He holds 1000shares)

So point by point, here we go:

Point I - I am somewhat disappointed in NSFDC (ed. you mean Film Nova Scotia) in that they only gave Halifax Film $165,000 for the whole year ending 2008. That was for The Mighty Jungle II (Ed. Missed Mighty Jungle I but apparently there needed to be a sequel). Luckily we got $165,000 last year for the same show. (Ed. ?) And $135,000 for Mighty Jungle I. Plus $150,000 for Animal Mechanicals (ED. I, II ???). But again that was last year. 2008, all we got was less than barely a percentage of a million.

Is that why they took the word "Development" out of the agency? Really, though $25M then $17M was raised through the markets and NSBI chipped in $2M to attract asia cartoonists to the province, there is still a need to develop the company into a viable entity. Just some cash until we're on a stable footing. At least we can count on the tax credit for a few million and then we don't have to give any of the profits (ed. no such thing in this business!) back to the government (Ed. and the people, don't forget the people) from all the overseas sales, because they own a stake in the show.

It wouldn't be so hard to swallow if Ocean Entertainment (ed. Who?) hadn't received $500,000! for two cooking shows! Cooking shows? How much Dilled Salmon is that, Michael Smith? (Ed. Whay are you bringing that up? I've never dilled a salmon, and I resent the implication.)

Point II - Chris Zimmer has abandoned his business (Ed. Man overboard!). Actually he sold it to yours truly (Ed. Actually, Halifax Film), for like $1M. Which seems like a lot when you consider the jewel in the crown is a 20 year old Rita McNeil in Japan Special. Really, what's the shelf life on that? But in addition Zimmer is joining the crew at Halifax Film (ed. Yeah! Jump on in the water's fine!) as the head of development. (ed. Doesn't that make like seventeen people in cahrge of development? What are we running here an orphanage?)

The news release stated that Chris (Ed. Mr. Zimmer!), would develop more kids shows. But he's never produced a kid's show. His expertise iis in feature films. (ed. What are you suggesting?)

Point III - Gary Vermer has been the face and voice of ACTRA in Nova Scotia for the past ten? years and has decided to chuck that nonsense in. He has joined the team at Halifax Film! Yeah! (ed. - Am I detecting a trend here?

Point IV - Collideascope closes up its doors. The youngish team of M.A. Kuttner and Steven Comeau is calling it quits. These were the young turks of the industry (ed. That was years ago and nobody likes an Old Turk.). They're cartoon machine churned out a lot of service work and original productions so I'm curious as to why they're stopping and what they're going to do. (ed. Hmmm, wonder where, I wonder?)

Anyway, it's almost lights out so I'm signing off. ttfn. (ed. Try the Fussilli, Ned?