Prior to becoming a television critic and owner of TV, Eh?, Greg David was a critic for TV Guide Canada, the country's most trusted source for TV news. He has interviewed television actors, actresses and behind-the-scenes folks from hundreds of television series from Canada, the U.S. and internationally. He is a podcaster, public speaker, weekly radio guest and educator, and past member of the Television Critics Association.
Ayasew Ooskana Pictures announced today production is underway on the new original five-part psychological drama (5X60) and feature film BONES OF CROWS, commissioned by CBC/Radio-Canada in association with APTN. Created by Marie Clements, the character-driven series features an ensemble cast of talent including Grace Dove (Monkey Beach), Philip Lewitski (Wildhood), Glen Gould (Cold Pursuit), Michelle Thrush (Pathfinder), Gail Maurice (Night Raiders), Cara Gee (The Expanse), Karine Vanasse (Cardinal), Angus Macfadyen (Robert The Bruce), Rémy Girard (District 31), Graham Greene (Molly’s Game) and Lorne Cardinal (Corner Gas).
BONES OF CROWS is told through the eyes of Cree Matriarch Aline Spears as she survives a childhood in Canada’s residential school system to continue her family’s generational fight in the face of systemic starvation, racism, and sexual abuse. She uses her uncanny ability to understand and translate codes into working for a special division of the Canadian Air Force as a Cree code talker in World War II. The story unfolds over 100 years with a cumulative force that propels us into the future.
The project will be shot originally in English, with Cree and Ayajuthem spoken in key scenes and there will be both Cree and French-language versions for broadcast. Filming locations include the Thompson-Nicola Region (Kamloops, Vernon, Quilchena), Greater Victoria Area, and Greater Vancouver Area in British Columbia, and Winnipeg, Manitoba. The Winnipeg portion of production will be produced by Eagle Vision.
BONES OF CROWS is a CBC/Radio-Canada original production, produced with the financial participation of Telefilm Canada, Canada Media Fund, APTN , Independent Production Fund, Shaw Rocket Fund, Bell Fund, ISO (Indigenous Screen Office), FIBC, CAVCO, and First Peoples’ Heritage, Language and Cultural Council and Indigenous Arts Program.
BONES OF CROWS is produced, written and directed by Marie Clements (Red Snow, The Road Forward), executive produced by Trish Dolman & Christine Haebler (French Exit, Indian Horse) and Sam Grana (The Boys of St. Vincent) with Executive Producers Lisa Meeches and Kyle Irving from Eagle Vision and the DOP is Vince Arvidson (The Magnitude of All Things).
Lights, Camera, Talent! As production on original series Canada’s Got Talent gets underway in Niagara Falls, ON next month, Citytv today unveils Howie Mandel, Lilly Singh, Kardinal Offishall, and Trish Stratus as judges alongside host Lindsay Ell for its highly-anticipated talent competition, airing exclusively on Citytv and Citytv.com this spring, with catch-up available on Citytv Now.
Bringing his infectious energy, warmth, humour, and a keen eye for astonishing talent, Howie Mandel is one of America’s Got Talent’s star judges with 11 seasons under his belt. He also hosts the weekly podcast Howie Mandel Does Stuff with his daughter Jackelyn Schultz.
Hailing from Scarborough, ON, entertainer, actress, writer and creator Lilly Singh brings passion, creativity, humour, and heart to the judge’s table where she will offer perspective from her own successful self-made journey in the entertainment industry to Canada’s bright new talents.
Award-winning artist, music label executive and producer Kardinal Offishall (affectionately known as Kardi) is a creative force and highly-respected leader in Canada’s music scene, who brings his larger-than-life personality and exceptional ability to seek out Canada’s new wave of superstars.
Rounding out the jury is wrestling Legend and Hall of Famer Trish Stratus, who was named WWE’s #1 Greatest Female Superstar. This Sports Entertainer is also a world-renowned fitness icon, who has inspired generations of people around the world.
Born and raised in Calgary, Lindsay Ell is described as ‘one of the most exciting and talented young artists in country music’ (Forbes). An accomplished musician, vocalist, and awe-inspiring songwriter, Lindsay’s first full-length album The Project was named Billboard’s Best Country Album of the Year (2017) and since then, she has celebrated a #1 U.S. single, two #1 Canadian singles and watched her track ‘wAnt me back’ earn GOLD-certification. Earning the most 2021 CCMA Award nominations of any female, Lindsay has become Canada’s fastest rising country star.
Got Talent is the world’s greatest talent competition, for acts of all ages and sets out to discover the most unique, skilled, heartwarming, and showstopping performers. Dancers, singers, illusionists, comedians, and every imaginable talent in between will compete before celebrity judges, a live studio audience, and the entire nation. At stake is the title of Canada’s Got Talent Champion and a prize beyond their wildest dreams. With compelling stories and mesmerizing performances, this competition is unlike any other.
Canada’s Got Talent is produced by Fremantle, SYCO Entertainment, McGillivray Entertainment Media Inc., in association with Citytv, a division of Rogers Sports & Media. For McGillivray Entertainment Media, Executive Producers are Scott McGillivray, Angela Jennings, and Mike Bickerton, with Showrunner Jonathan Payne.
Adam MacDonald is a busy guy. When he’s not acting on series like Tribal and Rookie Blue, he can be found behind the camera, writing and directing his own projects, like the horror films Backcountry and Pyewacket.
MacDonald’s latest directing gig has been for TV’s Slasher: Flesh & Blood. Airing Mondays on Hollywood Suite, Flesh & Blood reunited him with series creator Aaron Martin and showrunner Ian Carpenter.
We spoke to MacDonald about directing Flesh & Blood, his career and his next film, Out Come the Wolves.
Director Adam MacDonald with Sabrina Grdevich
You first came onto my radar on Rookie Blue and Being Erica, but it’s been a real blast over the last few years to see you writing and in the director’s chair. I’ve gotten a chance to see Backcountry and Pyewacket, so congratulations on writing and directing those. Adam MacDonald: Thank you so much. Bruce McDonald gave me the advice, ‘Go write something, because someone’s not going to hand you a feature film to direct.’ It’s just very rare if it’s not impossible. And then attach yourself to that script. That proved to be very sage advice. I gave it my all and then, yeah, it worked out.
Slasher: Flesh & Blood reunites you with Ian Carpenter and Aaron Martin. Take me back to Slasher: Solstice. How did that all come about? Did Aaron have you in mind for directing? AM: I found out from Enuka Okuma, who’s a good friend of mine who was in Rookie Blue. She was in the first season of Slasher. I knew Aaron Martin from Being Erica. I’ve always liked him, always been a fan of his work. I loved working with him and I love his writing, as an actor. And, so I knew of Slasher, and I went to the premiere with Ian at a theatre when they premiered Season 1 and we were in the audience. I remember Ian and I looked at each other like, ‘We’d love to work on a show like this.’ And we meant it, and Ian’s really close with Aaron. So it wasn’t a jealousy thing, it was more like, ‘This is really good. This is cool, man. It’s just like a perfect fit.’
But going back to Enuka, she told me that Aaron saw Backcountry and was talking really highly of it and he really liked it, and that meant a lot to me. We met after that and he just expressed how much he liked Backcountry. When Season 2 came around, he asked if I was interested and I was blown away. I was like, ‘Yeah, this is amazing,’ but I was shooting Pyewacket at the time. And then Season 3 came around and I got another chance to come in and pitch and all that stuff to be part of the team.
I was so excited, and I drew up some storyboards, got really jazzed, went over, pitched in front of them and it just worked out. Working with the writing, I can see these visuals and it’s just really fortunate.
So, when you’re reading through a script, do those images pop right into your mind? AM: Oh yeah, right away. I was the kid in class daydreaming constantly. And I’m a very voracious reader, so my imagination is pretty visual anyway. I’d read the script and I could see it in my mind, and I would be like, ‘Oh that’d be great if I could do that.’ And Ian, being very supportive, we’d try some things. I’d say, ‘This is what I want to do here.’ And he’d be like, ‘Yeah, go for it.’
And certain scenes, certain emotions, would be written and some things would be a certain angle. I would go for that to try to accentuate what’s already written there by Ian and Aaron. When it works, it’s just the best feeling.
Adam MacDonald with David Cronenberg
I can’t ask a director question without asking you about working with David Cronenberg. What was it like to work with him and direct him? AM: Wow. Just hearing that from you almost seems surreal. It was pretty incredible. It was very satisfying because he came on set as an actor and I treated him like an actor. I think he appreciated that, but I was just, of course, this is natural to do that. This is what he’s coming in for. So I’d give him notes and all that stuff. You’re telling them where to go, what to do and all that stuff, you just hope it jives with everybody. And he was great.
And I remember the second day shooting with him, it was a big scene and I was nervous, but it went away within five minutes. I never really get nervous directing, but it was one of the only days I was ever a little nervous because of him. It was definitely a memorable experience.
Last question. What’s the status of Out Come the Wolves? AM: That’s going to camera next year. It takes a while and certain things have to come into place, but we’re finally at that finish line and we are scheduled to go to camera in 2022, finally, after nine years of development. We’ve got Missy [Peregrym to star] and Enuka wrote the script.
If someone reading this is an aspiring director or just wrote a script and things are taking longer than they think they should, just hang in there, man. Hang in there, because sometimes things just need to blossom in their own time. And when they do you’ve just got to be ready. Sometimes it takes a year. Sometimes it takes 10 years. It’s about perseverance.
Slasher: Flesh & Blood airs Mondays at 9 p.m. ET on Hollywood Suite.
Remember “Sir. Sir? Sir!!!,” the Halloween episode of Murdoch Mysteries that was so controversial?An homage to classic horror movies like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, it featured a dire conclusion. Fans either loved it (like me) or hated it.
Here we are again with a Halloween instalment of Murdoch Mysteries. Will it be as galvanizing as “Sir. Sir? Sir!!!” was?
Here’s the synopsis for “I Know What You Did Last Autumn,” written by Simon McNabb and directed by Craig David Wallace:
At Halloween, Murdoch pursues a killer dressed as a clown who is terrorizing romantic, young couples.
And here are some observations by me after previewing the episode.
It begins with the opening credits… Monday’s episode lets you know this one’s going to be different with a twist to Robert Carli’s theme.
… And gets creepy fast Like the serial killer genre it is acknowledging, “I Know What You Did Last Autumn” features a mysterious phone call that goes downhill quickly.
A killer costume Anyone who is disturbed by clowns will be freaked out by this MM creation. The fact the mask looks handmade is all the scarier, in my opinion. Someone took the time to make themselves look this way. Gah. Helping in the investigation is Miss Cherry, who reported on events the previous year when a clown was stalking “teeners.”
Meanwhile, back at the Station House Watts and several other lads partake in a pumpkin carving contest. Turns out that Watts is much better as a detective than a jack o’ lantern maker. Also? Someone in the MM cast of characters seems to have invented a certain spice we enjoy so much of today.
Murdoch Mysteries airs Mondays at 8 p.m. ET on CBC.
The Writers Guild of Canada has released a new Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Report with 2020 data. The initiative is part of the WGC and its Diversity Committee’s efforts to work towards addressing issues of historic underrepresentation in Canadian television. (Diversity groups are defined by the WGC as Indigenous, Black, LGBTQ2S, People of Colour, People Living with Disabilities.)
The new report provides membership data from 2017 to 2020, and includes contract data from 62 live-action and animated series that started production in 2020, in addition to the 280 series previously covered in the period from 2017 to 2019.
The data shows some marked increases between 2019 and 2020 in key credit categories, including:
The share of writers from underrepresented communities receiving upper-level staffing credits increased in multiple categories, including Co-Executive Producer (from 25% in 2019 to 28% in 2020) and Consulting Producer (from 24% in 2019 to 33% in 2020).
The combined share of Black and People of Colour who received credits for entry-level Story Editor and Executive Story Editor positions rose in 2020 by 14% to 46.9% and by 5.5% to 52.6%, respectively. Both categories of credits have reached a parity zone, when population numbers in urban centres where writers’ rooms are often located are considered (visible minorities make 54% of the population in Toronto and 51% in Vancouver).
Black writers have made strides to achieve representation in live action that is on-par with population numbers. The percentage of Black writers in live-action writers’ rooms increased from 8% in 2019 to 9.2% in 2020 and is slightly higher than population numbers in highly dense population centres like Toronto and Montreal. Other indicators such as writing credits show that there is still room for improvement.
Other observations on the 2020 data include:
The participation of Indigenous writers decreased across the board in 2020. The share of Indigenous writers working on Canadian TV dropped to 1% in 2020 from 4% in 2019. No Indigenous writers were engaged in animation productions during the same period.
The share of East Asian (1.4% in 2019 to 2.8% in 2020) and South Asian (3.2% in 2019 to 3.6% in 2020) writers increased slightly, but there’s still work to do to achieve representation on-par with Canadian population numbers.
The share of writing credits received by LGBTQ2S writers decreased across different formats. In live action, credits dropped from 8.6% in 2019 to 6.9% in 2020. When it comes to animation, writing credits going to LGBTQ2S writers decreased from 4.1% to 1.7% during the same period.
