Are you a Canadian director/producer with at least one hour-long television documentary credit?
If so, Super Channel wants to help you break into theatrical documentaries.
Pitch them by Friday, November 23, 2012, and you might win:
See the Super Channel Feature Documentary Award guidelines and submission form.
Tuesday, November 27, 2012, is the next deadline for the NSI’s Drama Prize.
“NSI Drama Prize is an ambitious training course for producer/writer/director teams looking to make their first or second dramatic short. It provides emerging filmmakers with a year of professional support and training in the various stages of filmmaking while they develop and produce a short film (maximum of 10 minutes in length). Up to four teams of aspiring Canadian filmmakers will be selected.”
If successful, you will:
The entry fee is $100. If your project is selected, each team member then needs to cough up $1,500 for tuition.
So is it worth it?
Probably.
Your $100 gets you thinking seriously about your project.
Your $3,000 – $4,500 tuition gets you $10K in cash, $20K in services, lots of training and networking.
My advice? If you have a project you’re passionate about, apply with a two person team. (Keep in mind the Producer and Director cannot be the same person.)
Hey, it’s only $50 a head and you’ll whip your project into shape.
And if you’re not selected, just shoot it anyway with the money you would’ve spent on tuition!
Even though the film submission deadlines have passed, there’s still time to apply to become a juror for the innagural Canadian Screen Awards.
The Genies and the Geminis got together and merged into the The Canadian Screen Awards for Television & Digital Media. Martin Short will host the awards show on CBC next March.
If you want to help choose the winners, apply to be a juror now.
Last May, Ingrid Veninger, the Queen of DIY Filmmaking in Canada, put up $5,000 of her own money for the first $1,000 Feature Film Challenge, or 1K Wave.
Now the films of the first 1K Wave go on view at Toronto’s Royal Cinema this Thursday through Saturday:
Hotel Congress Toronto actress Nadia Litz (The Five Senses, You Are Here) worked with her real-life partner Michel Kandinsky on this two-hander about love and fidelity, shot in a Tucson hotel room.
Me, the Bees and Cancer Veteran assistant director John Board (Naked Lunch, The Bay of Love and Sorrows) traces his search through stinging alternative therapies for a cure for his own cancer.
Mourning Has Broken This roving black comedy by Brett and Jason Butler (Confusions of an Unmarried Couple) centres on a guy who responds to his wife’s terminal illness by channelling his frustration toward all the nuisances of daily life.
Sockeye High-school student Ben Roberts pulls an all-nighter with his dad, TV actor Rick Roberts (Republic of Doyle), and discovers new plot twists in his family background.
Liquid Handcuffs: the Unmaking of Methadonia Indie-film veteran John L’Ecuyer (Curtis’s Charm) turns his unfinished film into a diaristic look at the theory and practice of making movies for almost nothing.
See Robert Everett-Green’s Globe and Mail article for more.
According to the Winnipeg SUN, Pierre Karl Peladeau, president and CEO of Quebecor Inc., told a MIPCOM audience that the Canadian television industry could “face extinction.”
Peladeau told the audience that two trends in particular are threatening the country’s current TV business model. The first is that the country’s funding systems rely on politicians and taxpayers who aren’t “feeling particularly generous these days,” he said. The second worrisome trend, he said, is the fact that the way TV is watched and distributed is evolving. “Obviously, an ecosystem based on declining funding and antiquated regulation is ripe for a major upheaval,” Peladeau said.
A major upheaval indeed. These guys can see the writing on the wall. Hence the reason why all content companies in Canada have become connectivity companies as well.
Steve Jobs died one year ago today.
I’ve been using Mac computers for over 20 years. Sure the hardware’s gotten faster and cheaper every five years. But what I truly appreciate is all the Mac software I’ve explored and mastered. Among them:
My hope is that Steve’s vision will remain intact and that Apple will continue to “Think Different”. I hope that in its quest to become a media empire it doesn’t forget about all the independent creators toiling away on their Macs.
Thank you, Steve, for the tools to unleash my creativity.
It’s been 30 years (minus one month) since SCTV aired the classic ‘Garth and Gord and Fiona and Alice’.
See Part One and Part Two. Love the 8-track tapes on the dashboard and Yonge Street. The opening and closing credits are required viewing.
Hilarious! But has anything changed?
As I find them:
To follow up on yesterday’s post, here are some more deadlines related to Telefilm’s Microbudget partners:
In case you missed it in late June, Telefilm Canada has launched a Microbudget Production Program: “Telefilm will support eight to ten projects this year, through a non-repayable financial contribution of up to $120,000 per project to produce, distribute and promote a feature-length film that will be available to the general public through one or more distribution platforms, including digital.”
You must have either:
See Telefilm’s list of qualifying partners.
Be forewarned: each partner can only champion one project and their deadlines begin coming up later this month.
For instance, the NSI’s deadline is Monday, October 29, 2012.