Latest posts from National Screen Institute - Canada (NSI)

Above from left: Alexandra Caulfield, Gemma Holdway, Rob Ramsay, Jon Mann

As Banff World Media Festival kicks off this week, we’ve sent our NSI Totally Television students to take in the fest, including face time with production companies, agents and networks and the opportunity to attend panels and gain valuable market intel.

Program manager Joy Loewen and program advisor Julie Di Cresce prep the participants for their meetings with industry, ensuring their time at Banff is spent productively. Joy and Julie also attend sessions to stay updated on industry progress and promote the new NSI Totally Television call for applications to any available passers-by.

NSI Totally Television provides hands-on series development training for producer/writer teams serious about getting their series concept made. Attendance at Banff is a chance for teams to pitch the series concepts they’ve developed through the program to potential broadcasters and networks.

Watch for our fabulous students and faculty while you’re there.

Producer Alexandra Caulfield (left) and writer Gemma Holdway

DeGeneration: Five years after a suspected kidnapping, the troubled daughter of a Seattle tech giant returns home, only now she has a prosthetic arm. While eager to reconcile with her family, she exhibits strange behaviour, raising suspicion that she may have a dangerous agenda.

Producer Rob Ramsay (left) and writer Jon Mann

Wolfville: When a large shipment of drugs appear in the Wolfville harbour, two best friends – a drug dealer and a cop – are forced to investigate, deceive, and betray each other.

About Julie Di Cresce, Program Advisor

Julie Di Cresce has worked in broadcast programming and production for over 10 years. She is passionate about storytelling and has cultivated strong creative and market instincts, shepherding countless feature films, documentaries and series through development and into production.

She previously held the post of director of original programming for HBO Canada where she managed a robust slate of series in development and was acting production executive on all series greenlit into production including Call Me Fitz, Pillars of the Earth, Rogue and Less Than Kind (developed through NSI Totally Television).

She was the program advisor for the 2014 NSI Features First film program and the program manager for the inaugural Bell Media Producer Accelerator Lab, a program designed to give mid-level producers the tools to work effectively with broadcast partners.

She currently teaches screenwriting at the Humber College School of Media Studies.

About Joy Loewen, Program Manager

Joy is a passionate supporter of the production, promotion and exhibition of Canadian art and artists.

Having previously worked as a broadcast and festival programmer at WTN (Women’s Television Network), CBC and the Gimli Film Festival; program manager at NSI and On Screen Manitoba; and executive director at Freeze Frame Media Arts Centre for Young People, Joy’s specialty lies in mentoring, showcasing and promoting a diverse range of media projects and the artists who create them.

• • •

Call for applications to NSI Totally Television / apply by August 13

We’re currently accepting applications to this program. Up to four teams will have the opportunity to develop their television projects with the best showrunners and story editors in the country. New this year: adaptations from existing IP are being accepted and phase two teams attend Scripted in LA.

Find out more and apply.

• • •

The NSI Totally Television training program has produced 13 series that have gone into development: six have gone to air, one was piloted and another was produced as a feature film which had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).

NSI Totally Television is made possible by Presenting Sponsor Bell Media; Program Partner Telefilm Canada; Supporting Sponsors Entertainment One, Super Channel, Corus Entertainment and Breakthrough Entertainment; and Territorial Sponsor Yukon Media Development. NSI Core Funders are Manitoba Sport, Culture & Heritage and the City of Winnipeg through the Winnipeg Arts Council.

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The folks at the Toronto Screenwriting Conference (TSC) have asked us to give away one ticket to their conference which takes place on June 23 and 24 at TIFF Bell Lightbox. The ticket provides entry to the conference only. If you live outside Toronto you’ll need to arrange your own accommodation and transport.

How to enter

You’ll need a Twitter account to enter.

Tell us on Twitter why you want to attend the Toronto Screenwriting Conference. Please include @nsicanada in your tweet. Tip: use your brilliant writing skills to make your tweet stand out. Funny and/or creative tweets tend to be popular.

Entries are accepted until 4:30 p.m. CST on Monday, June 18.

Once all entries are in, NSI staff will vote on their favourite to decide the winner.

We’ll contact the winner through Twitter to arrange ticket pickup.

• • •

The Toronto Screenwriting Conference (TSC) is a two-day weekend event that brings together screen-based industry professionals and offers advanced skills development and networking.

It’s designed to inform writers, producers, directors and development executives working in the film, television and interactive industries through the teachings of expert creative talent, authors and speakers specializing in the craft of writing for the screen.

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The National Screen Institute – Canada (NSI) is now accepting applications for the 2018-19 edition of NSI Totally Television – development training for producer/writer teams serious about getting their TV series concept made. The program has been significantly updated.

Up to four teams will have the opportunity to develop their television projects with the best showrunners and story editors in the country. Past guest faculty includes Aaron Martin (Another Life, Slasher, Degrassi), Karen Walton (Orphan Black), Alison Lea Bingeman (Cardinal) and executives from Halfire (Alias Grace), Entertainment One (Mary Kills People, Sharp Objects), Take the Shot Productions (Frontier, Caught), WME (William Morris Endeavor Entertainment), IPG (Intellectual Property Group), Bell Media and CBC.

“I’m excited to launch the call for NSI Totally Television applications this year. We’ve made some important changes to the program to reflect the shifting industry,” said program manager Joy Loewen.

“With the capacity to accept adaptations of existing IP, for example from novels or podcasts, and the opportunity for teams to attend Scripted Summit in Los Angeles, NSI Totally Television is more relevant than ever to content creators looking to develop their TV series idea for broadcast on screens in Canada and globally.”

The 11-month course includes extensive training, individual sessions with story editors and production execs, and private pitch meetings with broadcasters and executive producers. Teams advancing to phase two of the course attend LA’s Scripted in November 2019.

“NSI Totally Television was vital in getting our project Wolfville in front of the right industry execs,” said Toronto-based Wolfville producer Rob Ramsay. “Our story editors in particular, James Hurst and Adam Higgs, helped us find the heart of our script and gave us the mentorship to be confident about pitching it to broadcasters and production companies.”

NSI Totally Television faculty are program advisor Julie Di Cresce and program manager Joy Loewen.

Find out more and apply for the course by August 13, 2018 at 4:30 p.m. CST.

The course gets results: since launching in 2002, 13 TV series have gone into development with a Canadian broadcaster. Of those, six have been produced for television, one was piloted for Citytv and one was made into a feature film.

NSI Totally Television is made possible by Presenting Sponsor Bell Media; Program Partner Telefilm Canada; Supporting Sponsors Super Channel, Corus Entertainment and Breakthrough Entertainment; and Territorial Sponsor Yukon Media Development. NSI Core Funders are Manitoba Sport, Culture & Heritage and the City of Winnipeg through the Winnipeg Arts Council.

All media enquiries

Laura Friesen, Manager, Communications & Alumni Relations
Tel: 204.957.2999 or email: laura.friesen@nsi-canada.ca

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A dark comedy about Timothy, a teenager who’s never felt an emotion.

Creative team

Writers/directors/producers: Luke Whitmore, Tony Hinds, Sean Guezen

Filmmakers’ statement

Feel began as an idea that Luke Whitmore had about a strange high school boy who’d never felt an emotion.

We would talk about the idea as we carpooled home each day from school at Red River College, developing that seed into a story. It’s a story about outsiders and weirdos. But it’s also a story about the toxicity of adolescent white male anger and aggression.

That said, the film is a comedy. Well … a dark comedy. While darker themes certainly run through the narrative of Feel, we also aimed to make a deeply cine-literate work. We’re obsessive movie geeks with a shameless love for filmmakers such as P.T. Anderson, David Fincher, Joachim Trier and Kiyoshi Kurosawa. Their films have taught us so much about visual storytelling.

We also discussed movies such as Mary Harron’s American Psycho and Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre as stylistic points of reference. We figured, hey, “Shoot for the moon. Even if we miss, we’ll land among the stars.” That’s a well-known saying, huh?

But anyway …

We love movies. We hope you love our movie. Or at least enjoy it.

About Luke Whitmore, Tony Hinds and Sean Guezen

Luke Whitmore started filmmaking at very early age and has continued to study his passion for filmmaking through the Creative Communications program at Red River College. Luke has worked as a freelance videographer, shot multiple documentaries, and has written and directed a variety of short films.

Tony Hinds studied film at the University of Winnipeg, and Creative Communications at Red River College. When he’s not behind a camera, Tony works as feature writer/film critic for The Film Stage. His reviews can be found on Metacritic. He’s also a Tomato-meter approved critic on Rotten Tomatoes. He lives in Winnipeg with his one-year-old cat, Rocko.

Sean Guezen is a Creative Communications student at Red River College bravely venturing into the realm of DIY film and documentary, with all the naivete and optimism of a scrappy young budget-filmmaker. He also produces a live music video series called The REC Room, and plays in an experimental indie rock band in Winnipeg.

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In a mysterious red room, a young Chinese mother must choose between her heart and her soul when she falls into the clutches of a sadistic doctor.

Based on true events, Ravage delves into the dark reality of China’s murderous human rights record and reveals an unthinkable crime.

Creative team

Writer/director/producer: Leon Lee

Filmmaker’s statement

The subject of forced organ harvesting in China is something I have covered before in my Peabody-winning feature documentary Human Harvest, but this time I wanted to put a totally different spin on it. A short narrative film can be an emotional vehicle in a different way than a documentary. Ravage transports the audience into a surreal world in order to make the horrific truth easier to swallow.

The main idea came from the fact that, when people examine China’s illegal transplants, they often talk about organs such as hearts and livers. I wanted to show that behind each organ there is a life.

I also wanted to take viewers to the crime scene and feel the violence, without making it too graphic. Seeing a wall get sawed open is easier to stomach than seeing someone’s chest cut open, but the parallel is chilling.

The film was shot in only two days and the main set was built from scratch in a warehouse. We had only one chance to saw through the walls which added to the pressure. Luckily we had a great dedicated team who allowed us to successfully pull off a tricky shoot in a short amount of time.

The film stars former Miss World Canada, Anastasia Lin, who is a well-known spokesperson for this cause, and who gave an incredible performance under such duress.

The criminal acts in the film are all based on an eyewitness account so my hope is that Ravage sparks awareness of the human rights violations happening in China and helps end such abuse.

About Leon Lee

Leon Lee is an award-winning Canadian filmmaker who explores stories related to modern China. His films aim to illuminate human rights issues in both documentary and narrative filmmaking, bringing true stories to life in a creative and compelling fashion.

Lee’s latest feature documentary Letter from Masanjia, about an SOS note from a Chinese prisoner of conscience, had its world premiere at the 2018 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, where it placed in the Top 20 Audience Favourites among 247 films.

His documentary Human Harvest, on the subject of illegal organ harvesting, has been viewed by over 10 million people, broadcast in 25 countries worldwide and received the highly coveted Peabody Award for Documentary.

His narrative feature The Bleeding Edge stars activist and former Miss World Canada, Anastasia Lin, who plays the lead in his short films Ravage and Reunion. Ravage opened at the San Diego International Film Festival in 2017 and won Best Sound Design at the Global Impact Festival in Washington, DC.

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