US 

HIRING STUDENTS IN FILM 

This past summer, I decided to apply for the Canada Summer Jobs Grant, and experiment with hiring a full time production assistant. The student that I hired had no previous experience in production whatsoever, but the important thing was that they were willing to work hard, and learn. What I didn’t expect is that I ended up learning just as much as they did from the experience.

If you are running a solo production company, this is a great way to gain experience managing people and collaborating, in order to maximise time and efficiency when producing a project. Handing off certain tasks can make it easier to spend the necessary amount of time focusing on the creative aspect of a project. Mistakes will inevitably be made, but most of the time, these are mistakes that we had all made when we were staring out, and solving problems with your student will be a great experience for both parties.

If you are considering this, I would recommend looking into it, as the Canada Summer Jobs Grant will pay half of your student’s salary. My one recommendation would be to prioritize work ethic over everything else, and you will have a productive and memorable summer!

Happy producing!

Andrew King, Miramichi, NB

PrettyMuchEntertainment.com

About Andrew:

Andrew King is a graduate of the Queen’s University film and media program (BAH) in Kingston, Ontario. Andrew’s main focus is creating and producing original series for Canadian television, as well as tourism content for the province of New Brunswick, Canada. “Still Fishing: Beyond the Escuminac Disaster” is a documentary which screened at the 2014 Atlantic Film Festival, and won the award for “Best Low-Budget New Brunswick Documentary” at the 2014 Silver Wave Film Festival. Based in Miramichi, New Brunswick, Andrew is enthusiastic about building this production company, but more importantly helping promote other businesses in the area as well as the region of Northern New Brunswick itself.

PAYPAL LINKS ARE UP FOR NBFC MEMBERSHIP AND RENEWALS FOR 2018 

Membership renewals are due in Jan/Feb annually.

The paypal links for memberships for 2018 are up on the co-op website for renewing members - http://nbfilmcoop.com/content/renew

Welcome back to the following members who joined for the first time or renewed and came back to us:

Andrew King (Miramichi). Gretchen Kelbaugh (Quispamsis), Paul De Decker (Fredericton), Chris Gairns (Fredericton), Shauna Chase (Fredericton)

BUZZ

LUNNEYS BECOME FOUNDERS AT JEDI

by Jennifer Lee

One perk of the region’s startup community is its close-knit environment makes it feel like one big family. That’s especially the case for Melissa and Katie Lunney.

NB Film Co-op member and recent NB Film Co-op/imagineNATIVE Incubator Recipient Melissa Lunney, 30, and Katie, 27, are sisters and members of the Elsipogtog First Nation, who got into entrepreneurship through the Joint Economic Development Initiative, a non-profit in Fredericton that encourages Indigenous entrepreneurship.

“I didn’t even think about starting a business until my sister told me about the program,” said Katie, who completed JEDI’s incubator program in September. There, she created her company Lunney Development, which develops websites and manages social media for its clients.

Katie is now in the second week of the accelerator program, which is focusing on scaling and exporting. She still works closely alongside her sister, who is a market access officer with JEDI.

On top of working full-time with the non-profit, Melissa is the CEO of AppDigenous, a company devoted to enhancing accessibility. The company’s product, Doorable, is a mobile app that automatically opens doors for people with disabilities.

With the help of JEDI, the New Brunswick research organization RPC and about $80,000 in funding from the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation, Melissa is now in the first phase of piloting Doorable’s technology in four different locations around Fredericton.  

Melissa also needed help revamping her website and managing her company’s social media as she pressed on with product development.

“Melissa is my first client actually,” said Katie, who will also be managing social media for another app development company that designed Mind Your Mood, an app to help users track their mental health.

Jaza Energy Secures $750,000 in Equity Funding

In addition to being her first customer, it was Melissa who encouraged Katie to join the incubator program to build Lunney Development. Katie paid that forward by giving Melissa the push she needed to enroll in JEDI’s mobile app development course, which she graduated from about a year ago.

“It’s great working with someone who is so much like you,” said Melissa. “We don’t even have to speak sometimes, we can just look at each other and know what the other one is saying.”

The sisters also spoke about the barriers for Indigenous entrepreneurs – mainly the issue of property ownership.

Business owners cannot own their own land in their community under the laws of the Indian Act, which says land reserves are owned by the Crown.

Not only does this mean Indigenous entrepreneurs have a harder time building equity, it also buries them under extra layers of paperwork that non-Indigenous businesspeople don’t need to consider.

“You can’t own your own property so you can’t get your own equity and the banks won’t touch you,” said Melissa, before adding how much JEDI has helped those in the Indigenous community become entrepreneurs.

“They offer a service catered to and by Indigenous people who understand the barriers that we face, and work to overcome them within the community,” said Melissa. “If we’re going to solve the problems in Indigenous communities then we need people from those communities.”

PINK LOBSTER: NEW BRUNSWICK'S LGBTQ FILM FESTIVAL

TELEFILM - 2018 TALENT TO WATCH PROGRAM

Recommendation Phase Application

Film Co-op Website: http://nbfilmcoop.com/content/talent-watch-program

The NBFC is now accepting applications from full NBFC members in good standing for another installment of the Telefilm Canada Talent To Watch Program (formerly the Micro-budget program). The deadline for all proposals has now been extended to March 16, 2018 as the Telefilm 2018 guidelines are available yet but should be up on our website by end of January

Telefilm's Talent To Watch Program is a production opportunity for first-time feature filmmakers, with an emphasis on digital and online distribution models. the NBFC is eligible to recommend one feature film application and one narrative web-based project for competition at the national level.

Telefilm Canada is putting in place measures to diversify its portfolio of projects, aiming in particular to achieve, by 2020, gender parity in each of the key roles of director, writer, and producer. Based on consultations held this year, Telefilm determined that its first action area for 2017 was to favour projects written or directed by women.

The Telefilm Talent To Watch will provide financing for the development, production, digital distribution and promotion of a first feature-length film or other format of narrative-based audiovisual content made specifically for online distribution. Once completed, the projects must be made available to the public through one or more digital platforms (e.g. web portals, video portals such as YouTube or Netflix, video on demand, mobile platforms/devices, etc.).

The NBFC is eligible to recommend one feature film and one narrative web-based project for competition at the national level in English and French.

The NBFC invites current NBFC members (any members who have outstanding projects not completed are not eligible for this program) seeking a recommendation letter from NBFC to forward a complete Recommendation Phase Application to the NBFC on March 16, 2018 at 11:59pm for review by an NBFC assembled peer jury from outside NB.

NEW DEADLINE: March 16, 11:59pm, 2018

Eligibility:

NOTE: You must already be a full NBFC member in good standing to apply for this grant for projects. You can't join and then apply.

Emerging - All the key members (producer, writer and director) of the project must be emerging talent i.e. they must already have produced, directed and/or written at least one short film (i.e. 30 minutes or less) but must not have produced, directed or written a feature length film (i.e. 75 minutes or more). NBFC Member - All the key members (producer, writer and director) of all recommended projects must be either current NBFC members (Full).

Please confirm your eligibility with NBFC prior to submitting your application (contact Cat info@nbfilmcoop.com). To submit, please email your completed application form, required document (One PDF only, please) which includes a link to your video pitch, trailer and support material to: info@nbfilmcoop.com

Late or incomplete applications will not be considered.

For more information:

Film Co-op Guidelines and Application Form (pdf): talent_to_watch_nbfc_app.pdf

Telefilm Guidelines (pdf): TBA (They have not put them online yet for 2018)

ABOUT THE NBFC:

Established in 1979 the New Brunwick Filmmakers' Co-operative (NBFC) is a non-profit Charitable Film Co-op for the production of creative films in a collaborative, learning environment.

The NBFC operates with generous support from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Province of NB as well as other supporters and sponsors

www.nbfilmcoop.com

MONDAY NIGHT FILM SERIES: JAN-APRIL, 2018

Dear Cinephiles,

The team at the Monday Night Film Series is excited about the line-up of films happening in 2018.

Half year memberships (Jan 2018 - April 2018) are $20 regular and $12 (students, seniors, NB film co-op members)

Admission prices: Members $5.00 and General admission $8.00
We will have programmes and posters available.

Please check out the NEW film lineup on our website for 2018:  http://www.nbfilmcoop.com/exhibition/monday-night-film-series
Email: info@nbfilmcoop.com concerning memberships please.

See you at the movies. 

Tony, Cat, John and Trish

-------------------------

The Monday Night Film Series presents LUCKY on Monday January 29th at 7:30pm in Tilley 102, UNB. 

Having outdrank, outsmoked, and outlived all of his contemporaries in his off-the-map desert town, fiercely independent 90-year-old atheist Lucky (the late Harry Dean Stanton in his final role) finds himself unexpectedly thrust into a late-in-life journey of self exploration. The directorial debut of acclaimed character actor John Carroll Lynch (Shutter Island, Zodiac), Lucky is a cinematic love letter to its legendary leading man Stanton, as well as a deeply felt meditation on mortality, loneliness, spirituality, and human connection.

Living alone in the blistering Arizona heat, Lucky (Stanton; Seven Psychopaths, This Must Be the Place) slopes along through life, occupying his time by smoking, drinking coffee, doing crosswords, and walking around the dusty streets of his speck of a southwestern town.

Unmoved by sentimentality and small talk, Lucky engages himself and those around him in mild ruminations on life, its value, and what it all might mean. Never maudlin but always poignant, Stanton’s gently powerful performance resonates even more in the wake of his passing this fall. A worthy final role, which evokes the simultaneous magnitude and futility of the daily details scattered throughout life, Lucky makes for an incredible showcase for Stanton’s unique mastery of the wry, cantankerous wisdom that became his trademark.

“The late, great Stanton gets the perfect send-off playing an atheist loner kicking his own mortality down the road like a tin can that got in his way. His character may not believe in God. But what kind of fool doesn’t believe in Harry Dean Stanton?” – Peter Travers, Rolling Stone