#Film and #TV News In Brief

The 2018 DGC (Directors Guild of Canada) Awards were handed out Saturday night with Oscar-winning feature film The Shape of Water and television miniseries Alias Grace the big winners. Academy Award Best Picture winner The Shape of Water took home three DGC Awards for Best Production Design (Paul Austerberry), Best Picture Editing (Sidney Wolinsky) and Best Sound Editing. Alias Grace claimed three television awards including Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Movies for Television and Mini-Series (Mary Harron), Best Production Design (Arvinder Greywal), and Best Picture Editing (David Wharnsby). Find the full list of winners here.

John Ross will receive the Society of Motion Picture & Television Engineers (SMPTE) Presidential Proclamation award in recognition of his pioneering work in the development of production switchers, signal processing, chroma keying, and analog and digital systems design. In 1954, the CBC hired Ross as part of the initial staff of CBWT Winnipeg, the youngest member of the pioneering “start-up” crew of the first TV Station between Toronto and Vancouver. In 1955, while still a teen, he created an advanced vacuum tube production switcher with wipes and keys, the first of its kind in Canada. In 1963, Ross founded the broadcasting equipment division of Central Dynamics Ltd. where he built the world’s first entirely solid-state production switcher and was granted a patent for the first chroma keyer to enable remote selection of any background color, rather than just blue. This invention led directly to the use of the green screen. He founded Ross Video Ltd. in 1974, where he developed a series of production switchers incorporating many revolutionary features now in common use. He also developed the first card-based high-quality 10-bit digital 4:2:2-to-analog encoder and decoder, which were selected by NASA for use on the International Space Station. Ross is a SMPTE Fellow, Officer of the Order of Canada, and was awarded Honorary Membership by IABM (International Association for Broadcast & Media Technology Suppliers).

CTV News has announced a new content partnership with U.S.-based subscription service POLITICO, which recently launched on this side of the border as POLITICO Pro Canada. Headquartered in Arlington, VA, Politico was founded in 2007 and has established itself as a leader in political and policy news with 250 journalists across the U.S. The collaboration will kick off with a co-branded weekly segment focusing on Canada-U.S. issues on CTV News Channel’s daily political program Power Play. “Inside Washington with POLITICO Pro” will air every Friday, beginning Oct. 26. POLITICO Pro Canada reporters Alex Panetta and Lauren Gardner will join CTV News Ottawa Bureau Chief Joyce Napier to discuss significant cross-border stories. The partnership will also see both organizations contribute to political reporting on the other’s platforms, including a range of exclusive stories and digital content on CTVNews.ca.

Channel Zero has announced that it’s purchased a new, permanent home for CHCH-TV Hamilton. Design and construction of the building will commence in 2019, with operations set to be live by Spring 2021. Broadcast operations will be relocated from the current site at 163 Jackson Street West. The development plan also includes the creation of a local news bureau to be located in the heart of downtown Hamilton, placing CHCH-TV reporters in close proximity to City Hall, municipal courthouses, and the FirstOntario Centre.

Fox is developing a scripted comedy series based on Property Brothers’ Jonathan and Drew Scott, according to Variety. It Takes Two will be based on the Canadian reality show duo’s memoir of the same name. Produced by Cineflix and broadcast on HGTV in the U.S., the Property Brothers franchise has inspired spin-off shows Brother vs. Brother and Property Brothers: At Home. The scripted series will be executive produced and written by Jon and Josh Silberman, whose credits include It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

CTV has announced multiple grammy-winner Nile Rodgers and singer-songwriter Bebe Rexha as its final celebrity mentors joining reality competition series The Launch. With Season 2 currently in production in Toronto, Rodgers joins as celebrity producer, while Rexha comes on board in a celebrity mentor role.

The Canada Media Fund (CMF) has invested $9M in 43 projects that applied for funding through the 2018-2019 Convergent Digital Media Incentive. The incentive is designed to encourage the production of digital media components related to CMF-funded television productions to allow audiences to access content on different platforms. Of the 43 selected projects, 15 are in English and 28 in French; 12 are children’s and youth projects, 13 are documentaries, 17 are drama projects, and one is in the Variety and Performing Arts genre. To view a complete list of new projects that received funding, please click here.

Women in Film and Television Vancouver (WIFT-V) is holding two Indigenous Storytelling and Screenwriting Seminars in Kamloops Oct. 27 and Enderby on Oct. 28. In an effort to increase the participation of Indigenous women in the film industry, WIFT-V launched its Vancouver-based Tricksters and Writers program last year offering master classes to 13 women, and further developing the screenplays of six writers through story editing sessions and actor table read workshops. WIFT-V is now looking to implement a similar program for the Thompson-Nicola Regional District. The seminars are free to attend.

CTV and TSN will broadcast live coverage of the 2018 Skate Canada International from Laval, Québec, starting with the Men’s and Pairs Short Programs on Friday, Oct. 26 at 2:30 p.m. ET on TSN1 and TSN4. French-language coverage will be available on RDS and RDS2. For the eighth consecutive year, coverage will be led by the broadcast team of Brian Williams, Rod Black, Tracy Wilson and Sara Orlesky. The complete broadcast schedule is available here.

Forgive Me, from writer and director Thom Fitzgerald, returns to Super Channel for a third season Oct. 29 on Super Channel Fuse. Starring Mike McLeod (Haven, Sex & Violence) and Emmy Award-winner Ed Asner, Season 3 sees Bruce Davison (Designated Survivor, Blindspot) join the cast of the Halifax-filmed series. Each half-hour episode of the eight-part third season will be available to viewers on Super Channel On Demand the day following its linear broadcast.  

Withoutabox, the Amazon-owned film festival submission platform, will phase out service over the next year. Used by TIFF, Sundance and numerous other festivals over the last decade, the company says festivals currently using Withoutabox will be able to complete their current submission season, as long as submissions close on or before Sept. 16, 2019. The service will be completely disabled on Oct. 30, 2019.

Angus Reid Institute’s latest public opinion poll indicates Canadian millennials are increasingly opting out of traditional television and home phone service. The survey finds nearly half (48 per cent) of those surveyed under the age of 35 have either cancelled their cable or satellite service or never signed up for it in the first place, and an even greater number (63 per cent) are eschewing landline phones. Angus Reid found age is highly correlated with current television subscription. Nearly nine-in-ten of those aged 55 and older (87 per cent) say their household has either cable or satellite TV. Among the youngest Canadian adults (18-34), that percentage drops to slightly more than half (52 per cent). Read the full findings here.

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