Does this picture look familiar? No, not the guy — the green! Yes, that’s the Toronto Broadcast Centre behind Robin Williams in a scene from the upcoming movie Man of the Year.
I remember that CBC Vancouver was the set of some feature film a few years ago, but memory escapes me….
Thanks to Terry for the tip!
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| Behind the Scenes, Personalities, Toronto | Posted at 2:29 pm (31 Aug 2006) |
Just noticed that someone posted a series of blingtastic retro mics on Flickr. {sigh} My home voicing booth seems so empty now.
Photo: “CBC mic - 3” by Elijah
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| Fun Stuff | Posted at 7:08 am (31 Aug 2006) |
“Ouimet” has nicely summarized an ongoing discussion out there around CBC blogs and commenting:
My anonymous [commenting] brethren in New Brunswick have been shut out of the discussion on the [NB Election] blog and aren’t too happy about it. One has decided to allow anonymous postings to CBC articles on his own blog. As a public service. Ahem.
The guy who runs the NB blog, Jacques Poitras, defends himself by quoting from the CBC’s Journalistic Standards and Practices and sums it up thusly: “What we have here is a collision of a new medium with few rules, and an existing, traditional media organization with its guidelines and policies.”
I’m of two minds about this.
Sure, I’d prefer everyone just stand behind what they say and don’t hide behind an anonymous comment. If you have something to say, say it. I’ve found the quality of discourse to be much higher on web forums and blogs in which people are identified.
But I do recognize that many insiders fear reprisals on the job for saying something critical of the CBC.
That’s the real shame. I’d love to see a culture where constructive criticism and discussion is encouraged and rewarded. That’s how it works at a lot of successful organizations, but we’re clearly not there yet. (Around half of the anonymous commenters on here are posting from within the CBC, judging from their IP address.)
The other reason is technical. It’s quite easy to set up a temporary email address just to receive the verification email (try Mailinator if you’re interested in this) then continue to comment under a pseudonym.
That’s basically why I’ve left anonymous commenting on for this blog. (All comments still have to be approved prior to publication.)
What do you think? Should CBC blogs permit people to leave comments anonymously? Or are such comments lowering the quality of the discussion?
P.S. There are some instances where leaving your legitimate contact information is valuable. For instance, some person who called themselves “Inkwell” (or something like that) posted a comment criticizing my take on Street Cents’ cancellation. It was a fair comment, but s/he pasted in the verbatim text of an entire newspaper article which would have been a copyright violation for me to paste. And I had no way of reaching them to ask them to repost it without the article.
Pity too, because judging from the IP address, the person works for us.
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| About This Blog | Posted at 7:01 am (31 Aug 2006) |
It was the blog posting title that got me: “Trailer for CBC’s new reality show…leaked!!” Only it can’t be a leak if it appears on the show’s official web site, can it? Anyway, here’s your first view at what Dragons’ Den will look like.
Can’t read a whole lot into a 15-second clip, other than the production values seem high and the dollar values nearly impossible. (A Canadian show is giving $200,000 away?!) It certainly looks sharp and, proving there are few original ideas left these days, damned similar to ABC’s (yes, ABC) American Inventor.
On the other end of the spectrum, I did a quick search for Dragons’ Den on Google Video and found what seems to be a pilot of a segment the show producers were trying out, called Inside the Dragons’ Den, the bulk of which involves asking contestants a simple math question. Over and over again. Here’s hoping there’s still more fine-tuning left.
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| Dragons' Den | Posted at 6:20 am (31 Aug 2006) |
Now Magazine has a feature article this week about DNTO host Sook-Yin Lee, describing her role in the film Shortbus:
“The character of Sophia, she says, came from deep inside, inspired by her geeky childhood in a Vancouver suburb where she was one of a handful of Asian-Canadian kids. The character emerged after more than a year of improvisations with the rest of the cast, which included trust exercises, whiffle ball games and routine AIDS tests. ‘Something compelled me toward that story, and I created enough stuff around her so that I didn’t feel like I was playing myself.’ “
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| Media Coverage, Personalities | Posted at 5:52 am (31 Aug 2006) |
Yesterday, the Academy of Canadian Television announced the full slate of nominations in regular categories for this year’s 
CBC-TV’s cancelled legal drama This Is Wonderland leads the nominees for the 21st Gemini Awards, the annual celebration of excellence in English Canadian television.
BUT then I asked how many people knew that CBC will pay people for their content (through Outfront, network producers, etc.) Not one hand. Not one.
I loved The Red Violin. Brilliant movie. Seriously; rent it if you haven’t seen it yet.
