Everything about Awards, eh?

Toronto Screenwriting Conference announces winners of Telefilm New Voices Award

From a media release:

The Toronto Screenwriting Conference (TSC) is excited to announce this year’s recipients of the Telefilm Canada New Voices Award. The emerging screenwriters were selected from a pool of over 120 applicants Canada-wide. Those receiving the 2018 honours are Davida Aronovitch, Michael Hanley, Erin Hug, Kim Morrison, and Lisa Rose Snow. (See below for bios.) Each winner receives a pass to the TSC and a meeting with representatives from Telefilm Canada.

The Ninth Annual Toronto Screenwriting Conference (TSC) is a two-day weekend event that brings together screen-based industry professionals and offers them advanced level of education and skills development unparalleled by any other screenwriting event on the continent. The conference takes place on June 23 and 24, 2018 at the TIFF Bell Lightbox (Conference) and Artscape Sandbox.

This year’s speakers Chip Johannessen (Homeland), Stacy Rukeyser (Unreal), and Ben Watkins (Hand of God) will present Masterclass Lectures at the conference. Returning (by popular demand) are story gurus Carole Kirshner & Corey Mandell, with more programming and speaker announcements to come. Previous conference speakers have included Andrew Stanton (Finding Dory), Moira Walley Beckett (Breaking Bad), Michael Arndt (Toy Story 3), David Webb Peoples (Blade Runner), Tim Long (The Simpsons), Leonard Dick (The Good Wife), Glen Mazzara (The Walking Dead), and Beau Willimon (House of Cards).

Davida Aronovitch is a Toronto-based screenwriter and producer. Since 2012, she has overseen the reboot of the Heritage Minutes series, leading the production of 12 new one-minute vignettes. Davida has collaborated with award-winning filmmakers and writers from across Canada and has helped broaden the Minutes collection with new and diverse stories such as Viola Desmond, Residential Schools, and Lucy Maud Montgomery. Davida’s film and tv projects focus on female-driven stories and explore themes such as culture, technology, motherhood and mental health. Her animated children’s series, Who What Clara Goes to the Internet, follows the adventures of an inquisitive yet anxious young girl who finds a portal into the web and must learn to navigate its potential – and its pitfalls – safely and sanely. Davida holds an M.A. in modern and contemporary art history from the University of Toronto and a B.A. from McGill.

Michael Hanley is an award-winning screenwriter based in Toronto. He is an alumnus of the New York Film Academy and the Writers’ Lab at the Canadian Film Centre. His work has received acclaim at multiple international film festivals, and includes the short films, Tempted by the Fruit of Another (10), Offload (16), Lucas (17) and the feature Learning to Ride (14). He is currently in development on several projects, including his second feature Saltbox, which was listed on the Canadian Film Festival’s It List as well as Leaked, a one-hour dramatic television series.

Erin Hug is a Toronto-based scriptwriter originally from Vermont. She has written several award-winning one-act plays that were produced in the U.S. and Ireland, and was commissioned to write a full-length play for young actors that was produced in Florida and Pennsylvania. Her full-length play, The Big Top, is currently in development with Accidental Theatre in Northern Ireland. In 2009 and 2010, she directed and produced a tour of an all-female storytelling show featuring immigrant women in Sweden. She completed the Fishamble Playwright Mentorship Programme in Ireland in 2013, and the Second City Conservatory Program in 2014. She holds a BS in Scriptwriting from Ithaca College and a MS in International Relations from Linkoping University in Sweden.

Kim Morrison is a writer and story editor living in Toronto. She started her origin story as an Intern, both at a broadcast network (BellMedia), and literary agency (The Characters Talent Agency), before being promoted to Executive Assistant at an independent production company (Prodigy Pictures - Dark Matter, Lost Girl). The variety of these early experiences provided her with an incredibly valuable and holistic understanding of the industry. Determined to get closer to the writers’ room, she took a job as a Showrunner’s Assistant (Rogue) that culminated in performing double duty as their Script Coordinator as well. Since then, she has been a Story/Script Coordinator on 34 episodes of television (Private Eyes, Mary Kills People) and has co-written an episode of season 2B of Private Eyes (217). She is currently in a half-hour comedy development room working as a story editor, and continuing to develop her own projects. Kim is a graduate from the TV Writing & Producing post-grad program at Humber College where she received the Brian Linehan Television Writing & Producing Award for Outstanding Artistic Promise. Previously, she graduated from the University of Waterloo with a BA in Sociology, and too many add-on specializations to count.

Lisa Rose Snow is an award-winning writer/director and performer raised by the ocean and now residing in Toronto. Recent directing credits include Rogue Bridal– a new half hour pilot from Blue Ant Media, Dino Dana (2xMore Sinking Ship Director’s Lab recipient), and the bravoFACTUAL doc Meet Maurice Crosby. LRS can also be found working in writing rooms on shows like Little Dog (CBC) where she co-wrote episode 104, Ten Days in the Valley (ABC), and Frontier (Netflix). She is a graduate of the Canadian Film Centre’s Cineplex Screenwriters Program and Dalhousie University’s Acting Program, and participated in the Reykjavik Film Festival’s Talent Lab, the National Screen Institute’s Drama Prize Program, and AFCOOP’s Film5 Program. In 2013 she received a Women Making Waves Award from WIFT-Atlantic. She’s passionate about stories from underrepresented voices, food, anything woo woo, and kindness.

Get more information on the Toronto Screenwriting Conference, including registration information.

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Banff World Media Festival announces Rockie Awards gala host and awards recipients

From a media release:

The 39th annual Banff World Media Festival (BANFF) is proud to announce Emmy and Tony Award winner Kristin Chenoweth* (Trial & Error, Hairspray Live!) will host this year’s Rockie Awards Gala Ceremony featuring a star-studded line-up of award recipients. The night of celebration will take place on Tuesday June 12th at 7:00 p.m. at the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel in Alberta, Canada.Awards to be bestowed include:

Awards to be bestowed include:

2018 COMPANY OF DISTINCTION AWARD: NBCUniversal
NBCUniversal is one of the world’s leading media and entertainment companies in the development, production, and marketing of entertainment, news, and information to a global audience.

The Company of Distinction Award recognizes a company demonstrating significant leadership in the world of screen-based entertainment. Past Honorees include: Disney | ABC, HBO, A&E, Lionsgate and CBS.

AWARD OF EXCELLENCE: Jeremy Podeswa (Here and Now, Game of Thrones, Six Feet Under)
A three-time Primetime Emmy nominee for Best Direction (Game of Thrones, Boardwalk Empire, The Pacific) and with over 40 award nominations and wins since 1985, Jeremy Podeswa is one of the hottest directors in the golden age of TV. His body of episodic TV work includes directing ground-breaking cable television series and mini-series for HBO, Showtime, STARZ, AMC, F/X, and TNT and award-winning films including Fugitive Pieces (opening night, TIFF), The Five Senses (Directors Fortnight, Cannes Film Festival) and Eclipse (Berlin and Sundance Festivals).  

The Award of Excellence acknowledges exceptional achievement through a body of work over an extended period of time.  Past Honorees include:  Kenny Ortega, Diane English, Norman Jewison, David E. Kelly.

A+E INCLUSION AWARD:  Elizabeth Vargas (ABC News, A&E Investigates)
Elizabeth Vargas is an Emmy Award-winning journalist, and the first U.S. network evening news anchor of Puerto Rican and Irish-American Heritage. She is a brave storyteller and a trusted expert at bringing audiences closer to the heart of stories that have never been told in order to reveal genuine moments of truth. Vargas recently inked an overall production and first-look development deal with A+E Networks; she will also be the face of A&E Network’s new nonfiction journalistic banner, A&E Investigates. The initial project under the A&E Investigates banner is the limited series “Cults and Extreme Belief.”

The A+E Inclusion Award recognizes an individual whose efforts and vision in media champion and reflect the diversity of the world in which we live. Past Honorees include: LeVar Burton, Jonathan Murray.

CANADIAN AWARD OF DISTINCTION: Sheila Hockin (The Handmaid’s Tale, Vikings)
Primetime Emmy Award winner for Outstanding Drama Series (The Handmaid’s Tale), Sheila Hockin is one of Canada’s foremost executive producers, helping bring to life global hits like  The Tudors, The Borgias, Vikings, Penny Dreadful and most recently, the global phenomenon that is The Handmaid’s Tale. Before striking out on her own, Hockin co-founded one of Canada’s highest-profile independent production companies, Temple Street Productions, where she spent a decade producing such hits as Queer as Folk, Canada’s Next Top Model, and How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? This award is presented to a Canadian whose body of work exemplifies outstanding achievement in the entertainment industry. Past Honorees include:  Just For Laughs, Eric McCormack, Kim Cattrall.

INNOVATIVE PRODUCER AWARD: New Metric Media (Letterkenny, Bad Blood)
New Metric Media is a film, television, and new-media production company that works with top creative talent to produce outstanding content for domestic and international markets. Past and present projects include the CraveTV hit original comedy Letterkenny as well as the half-hour CraveTV comedy What Would Sal Do? and the six-episode, one-hour CityTV/FX Canada limited series Bad Blood. Not content to rest on traditional marketing alone, New Metric has successfully transformed its hit property Letterkenny into a robust consumer brand, complete with its own craft brew and touring live show. The innovative approach has made a discernible impact on Canadian culture, with Letterkenny phrases a part of regular lexicon and ironic “Hard No” tees a regular sight on the street.

The Innovative Producer Award recognizes the entrepreneurial excellence and achievements of an independent producer in TV/digital media. Past Honorees include:  Wolf + Rabbit, Don Carmody, marblemedia.

Additional awards to be presented at the 2018 Rockies Gala include: The Hollywood Reporter Impact Award, The Grand Jury Prize, and Program of the Year.

Host Kristin Chenoweth can next be seen in the upcoming second season of NBC’s “Trial & Error,” which premieres on July 19.

The Rockies are BANFF’s flagship awards program, taking place over two days and two events. Celebrated annually on the second day of the festival is the Rockie Awards Program Competition followed by the hors-concours (out-of competition) Rockie Awards Gala Ceremony which takes place on the third night of the festival honouring outstanding talent and executives from the industry. Over the years, the prestigious gala event has attracted some of the industry’s biggest names including Sir Laurence Olivier, Gregory Peck, Dinah Shore, Ricky Gervais, Chuck Lorre, Martin Short, James Burrows, John Cleese, David E. Kelly, Dick Wolf, Will Arnett, Christine Baranski, David Attenborough, Larry King, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, John Ridley, Jill Soloway, and Anthony Anderson, to a name a few.

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Spiral, Anne, Letterkenny and Cardinal top 22nd Annual WGC Screenwriting Awards

Writers for Spiral, Anne, Letterkenny and Cardinal were among the winners at the 22nd Annual Writers Guild of Canada Screenwriting Awards in Toronto on Monday night.

The event, held at the Telus Centre for Performance and Learning’s Koerner Hall, celebrated the country’s screenwriting talent in television, web series and film. Spiral writer Karen McClellan (pictured above) won in the Shorts & Webseries category for her script “The Girl in the Dream.”

“Writers don’t get here on their own,” McClellan said. “I want to say a special shout-out to some writers who have taken a chance on me in the past: Susin Nielsen, Shelley Eriksen, Bruce Smith and a dear friend who is not here tonight but always in my heart, Denis McGrath.”

Letterkenny‘s Jared Keeso and Jacob Tierney won the TV Comedy category for their Season 2 script, “Relationships,” while Cardinal‘s Aubrey Nealon took home the TV Drama trophy for the Season 1 episode, “John Cardinal.”

Gavin Crawford, comedian, writer and host of CBC Radio’s Because News hosted, starting the night off with a surprise appearance by Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne a.k.a. Crawford. As Wynne, Crawford extolled the virtues of Canadian television and film writers while taking a jab at recent adaptations of Anne of Green Gables and Alias Grace.

“I’m particularly excited about Kale & Prune, a six-hour CBC miniseries adapted from a Margaret Atwood’s Whole Foods receipt,” he joked.

Alison Lea Bingeman, Marsha Greene, Rachel Langer, Joseph Kay, Cynthia Knight, Adriana Maggs, Elize Morgan, Jiro Okada and Sugith Varughese presented the night’s categories.

Mark Ellis was the recipient of The Denis McGrath Award for his service to the Writers Guild of Canada, Michael MacLennan was given The WGC Showrunner Award, Sarah Dodd the Sondra Kelly Award and Sherry White the Alex Barris Mentorship Award. WGC president Jill Golick, whose term has ended after eight years, had the final say of the night with an impassioned plea to the group’s members.

“Stories are the best way to change hearts and minds,” Golick said. “Keep writing my friends. Keep finding ways to bring truth to light. ”

The category winners are:

Shorts & Webseries
Spiral, Episode 101 “The Girl in the Dream,” written by Karen McClellan

Children’s
Mysticons, Season 1 “Sisters in Arms,” written by Sean Jara

Movie of the Week & Miniseries
Alias Grace, written by Sarah Polley

Best Script from Season 1
Anne, Season 1 “I Am No Bird, And No Net Ensnares Me,” written by Moira Walley-Beckett

TV Comedy
Letterkenny, Season 2 “Relationships,” written by Jared Keeso and Jacob Tierney

TV Drama
Cardinal, Season 1 “John Cardinal,” written by Aubrey Nealon

Tweens & Teens
The Stanley Dynamic, Season 2 “The Stanley Cheer,” written by Matt Kippen

Feature Film
Entanglement, written by Jason Filiatrault

Documentary
The Hundred-Year-Old Whale, written by Mark Leiren-Young

 

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TSC’s Glenn Cockburn talks the Toronto Screenwriting Awards

Have you got a script you deem award-worthy? The Toronto Screenwriting Conference wants to read it. The two-day event, scheduled to take place June 23-24, 2018, at the TIFF Bell Lightbox in downtown Toronto, is set to make an international splash with its first-ever Toronto Screenwriting Awards.

Celebrating the best in 12 categories—film (drama, comedy, genre, animation) and television (serialized drama, procedural drama, genre drama, family drama, single-camera comedy, multi-camera comedy, youth & family comedy, animation comedy)—submissions can come from any country in the world as long as it was originally written in English and the script was screened or aired between January and December of 2017.

The TSC is a conference offering screenwriters and other industry professionals an opportunity to develop their skills at a high level as well as network with some of the best in the TV and film business. The conference has attracted a who’s who of screenwriting talent to speak, including Moira Walley-Beckett (Anne), Emily Andras (Wynonna Earp), Glen Mazzara (The Walking Dead), Bruce Smith (19-2), David S. Goyer (Da Vinci’s Demons), Beau Willimon (House of Cards) and Tassie Cameron (Mary Kills People).

With the submission deadline for scripts of Monday, April 30, at midnight ET, we got TSC founder and advisory committee chair Glenn Cockburn on the phone to talk about them.

Why did you decide to have a Toronto Screenwriting Awards?
Glenn Cockburn: I resented the idea for any awards for a long time. The last thing anyone really needs is another awards show. But I did recognize the value of it and we are trying to build the best screenwriting event in the world and that’s not just about having the best speakers in the world and the best content. It’s about being a weekend that celebrates screenwriting. I knew an awards component was going to be more and more important to that but the trick was what were we going to do? When I first had the idea for the Toronto Screenwriting Conference I was shocked there wasn’t a conference for professional screenwriters anywhere in the world at the time.

As I started thinking more seriously and considered awards I wondered what that would look like. I was shocked to find out there was nowhere in the world where screenwriters were being awarded for the various categories of screenwriting. That was the big turning point for me. The realization we could do an awards show where we could take best comedy and actually award people within various aspects of that. We looked at best drama, best comedy and best screenplay, the traditional categories people win awards in. We said, ‘What if we treated those as realms and reward people within those realms?’ So, best TV drama becomes best procedural drama, best serialized drama, best genre drama and then best family drama. The ability to write those four sub-genres of drama are completely different than the others. Obviously, the difference between single-cam and multi-cam comedy is very different when it comes to structure and the types of jokes that are written. To lump everyone into one category seemed unfair and if we were going to celebrate screenwriters we should do it in the various ways they are pursuing their careers.

I agree with what you’ve said and I’m overjoyed to see categories like family drama, youth and family comedy and animated comedy. The scripts being written in those categories alone are amazing.
Absolutely. One hour drama tends to get too much attention and the people who write Heartland are amazing at it and they need to get more attention for writing something that isn’t a one hour drama that isn’t for adults only. That’s an important thing to recognize.

Having awards like this puts the Toronto Screenwriting Conference on a world stage. Are you OK with that?
That’s the intention. The conference itself is designed for and programmed for professional screenwriters and we want to make sure that the best screenwriters in the world, once a year, know and remember they need to go to Toronto to have a conversation about what’s going on in their profession. And, to be clear, the Toronto Screenwriting Awards are open to the English language. Our hope, over time, is that we’ll have nominees from England up against nominees from Australia, Canada and the United States. I would love it if something from Canada won best procedural or something from Scandinavia won best serialized drama. I would love that.

You could have, for the first year of the awards, gone with just Canada and the U.S. for entries. You went more aggressively and opened it to the world right away. That’s exciting.
I want the international screenwriting community to look to Toronto as the centre of screenwriting and look forward to the conversations. I want other countries to know that we recognize every country is doing something different in the world of screenwriting and that we want to talk about it.

Submit your script to this year’s Toronto Screenwriting Awards. The deadline for submissions is Monday, April 30, at midnight ET. And register now for this year’s conference.

 

 

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