Omni and Quadrant Create Feature Film Company
Vancouver production companies Omnifilm Entertainment and Quadrant Motion Pictures have joined forces to create a feature film shingle, Omnifilm Quadrant. The new company will focus on theatrical motion pictures, producing both CanCon as well as serving foreign projects, and is an arm of the long-established TV company Omnifilm Entertainment. “We are thrilled to be partnering with the Omnifilm Entertainment team,” said Quadrant’s Mary Anne Waterhouse in a statement. “Access to Omnifilm’s talented infrastructure and the ability to collaborate with Omnifilm partners, Michael Chechik, Gabriela Schonbach and Brian Hamilton is the ideal way to move our development and production slate to the next level,” she added. Waterhouse and Andrew Currie are the principals at Quadrant, which recently wrapped shooting on the dark comedy Lawrence & Holloman, about an ever-optimistic suit salesman living a happygo-lucky charmed life, who meets Holloman, a cynical and pessimistic acDaniel Arnold and Ben Cotton counting clerk, and everyin Lawrence and Holloman thing starts to go wrong. Omnifilm are the producers of the Syfy and Space TV series Primeval: New World and CBC’s Arctic Air. “As entertainment media continue to converge, now is the ideal time to expand Omnifilm’s reach to include the big screen,” said Omnifilm president Michael Chechik. “We have tremendous admiration for the work of Quadrant partners Mary Anne Waterhouse and Andrew Currie (Fido, Mile Zero) and look forward to working with them to become an exciting and influential new player on Canada’s feature film landscape.” My Asshole Neighbour, a comedy slated for production in summer, 2013, with Alliance Films distributing, is the first project for the new company. Photo by Katie Yu
Reel West January / February 2013
Indie Scene
CineCoup Steps Into the Film Contest Ring
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p to $1,000,000. That’s how much CineCoup, a new national ‘Film Accelerator’ originating in Vancouver, is offering the winning by Paul
Armstrong
feature film, plus a guaranteed theatrical release with Cineplex. Short filmmaking contests have been very popular in Vancouver for years, but now CineCoup is stepping into the field for feature film, and it’s much needed in this time of decreased investment from the public and private sphere. To enter the CineCoup contest, filmmakers create a two minute trailer and build an on-line audience for it by February 17th. After a further narrowing down through on-line fan support and a panel of judges, the winning film will then have 6 months to get made. As founder Jason Joly explains, “CineCoup lets the audience have a say in the films they want to see get made. Through leveraging web platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, etc., we will build audiences faster and earlier than ever before, while getting filmmakers to think more like entrepreneurs, in part by taking control of the marketing of their projects.” Joly is no stranger to utilizing the web to increase brand recognition. His internet companies, dimeRocker and Overinteractive Media, work with such major players as CBC, Disney, and The Weinsteins in expanding awareness of their content. From this experience Joly has learned that “the ‘social generation’ (18-35) lives on the social web and connects, consumes, evangelizes and takes stake in content in a radically different way than any other generation before it. Traditional marketing, such as P&A, does not work on them as effectively as it did for prior youth generations.” If you aren’t ready for a feature film contest like CineCoup, short film competitions are a great way to gain experience and gain exposure for your work. Mackenzie Gray, one of the six director finalists in the 2013 Crazy 8s
and one of Vancouver’s leading actors, says that “short film is the new calling card if you want to direct major projects.” “It allows one to collaborate with other artists and crew who can be a big part of your career in film,” adds Gray. Forming such a team is critical when needing to call on it to work on your feature film down the road. Marshall Axani is an example of someone who is very successful winning short film contests in Vancouver. He works in post-production on TV series like Motive and directs behind-the-scenes featurettes and corporate videos but he’s also won his fair share of contests including the inaugural MPPIA Short Film Award in 2008 for The Light of Family Burnam. He was one of six Crazy 8s Contest winners with the The Vessel in 2012; and recently filmed Anxious Oswald Greene featuring Ryan Beil and Ellie Harvie, as winner in the 5th Annual Hot Shot Shorts Contest, operated by the Celluloid Social Club (which will start accepting script entries again this Spring). “Contests let you find your voice,” says Axani. “They let you make mistakes early on so that, hopefully, you don’t make them again on more expensive shows down the line.” Diana Donaldson, producer on Anxious Oswald Greene, as well as The Vessel, adds that “by providing rules and guidelines on how long the film can be, the length of time to shoot, etc – the playing ground for the prize is equalized and teams are forced to spend a specific amount of time on a film – which is also helpful training for industry standards.” Donaldson herself has competed in almost every B.C. Contest out there, winning best film in the Bloodshots 48 Hour Horror Filmmaking Challenge and the Whistler Telus (now Olympus) 72 Hour Filmmaker Showdown, among others. As CineCoup proposes to do, Donaldson and Axani are tapping into the web to increase their budget beyond what the contest provides for Anxious Oswald Greene, in their case with the crowd sourcing site IndieGoGo. continued on page 29 7