CBC, DHX, FilmNS, Province of NS, Telefilm

Phew, so many letters, so little time. Anyway say hi to my editor, Lunchmeat Harold (ed. Howdy!)

Well, last Friday marked the end of an era as Ann macKenzie left the building. The building being Film Nova Scotia's granite hewn edifice in the historic properties once owned by banker Enos Collins (ed. Robber Baron. Discuss.) A surprise announcement and a rapid good-bye party marked the end of 14 years of her reign, longer than anyone else at FilmNS. (ed. including a whole raft of employees. See the comments section of the last post. Did all of those employees move on voluntarily to the challange of the next phase of their career? I wonder.)

Anyway, I hear it was a pleasant enough smooze affair, not sure if there was lobster and chanpagne though.

So who will steer this mighty ship now? Who will travel to Berlin and Cannes and Los Angeles and Banff and the adequately appointed Maple Leaf Lounges therein? But it was worth it to see all the business that the networking brought in. (ed. er, Tom Selleck?)

I guess the board has launched a "Search Committee" (ed. No doubt using a Labrador helicopter.) to find the next contestant and the production community awaits with baited breath. (ed. i see what you did there, "baited" rather than "bated".)

Hopefully a decision will be made soon (ed. Is "already" soon enough?)

They better hurry because it was reported that "Gary P." at FilmNS is leaving to pursue... (ed. "the next level of his career", yes, move on.)

Has the purge begun? Or was there a sign from on-high that it might be better to leave with honour than with not having honour.

Coincidentilly, the provincial budget comes down today so maybe all this talk is for naught. (ed. don't even go there, brother.)

Speaking of budgets, the Federal one came down last wee and they announced a 10% cut to the CBC budget, the Telefilm budget and the NFB budget. Which was a surprise because I didn't even think there was an NFB anymore.

Speaking of Telefilm, they've released their Top 300 Films of the past 5 years. the producers of these films will be the only one's who will be able to make movies in this country anymore (ed. See Telefilm Surrenders post, below.)

It's an interesting list meaning not interesting at all. There's a lot of movies starting with "La" and "Le" (ed. Don't get into that) which is fair because French-Canadian films actually do well in Quebec. (ed. Okay).

A lot of these films I've never heard of (ed. Yeah, you wouldn't be the only one.) but I'm sure the producers of "Gooby" will be happy that they can get bucks to make "Gooby 2" without anybody reading the script or even asking what a Gooby is.

Locally the qualifying films are Whirlygig, Hobo With a Shotgun, Poor Boy's Game, Trailer Park Boy's 2, Afghan Luke, Faith Fraud and Minimum Wage, Growing Op.

Not sure who the producers are for all of them, and not sure if the attached writer/director auteurs would be considered "producers". Kinda confusing but I'm sure Telefilm Montreal knows what it's doing (ed. snicker)

So if you are not a producer on these projects and have dreams of making a movie in Canada, your options now are (1) move away (2) Don't make movies (3) Stop dreamimg.

the new system simplifies the process and levels the playing field (ed. for those on the list)

But what of the MIA producers of Rollertown? Eternal Kiss? Black? The Corridor? What of them? Why aren't they on the list? (ed. good questions!)

Anyway, in other news, DHX has made a cash up front deal with Netflix for some of their kids shows including projects that FilmNS invested in. I'm wondering if DHX sent over a big cheque last week to FilmNS, a final accomplishment recognized. If not I'm sure the cheque is in the courier.