Tag Archives: CBC

Dragons’ Den announces auditions for 10th season

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From CBC:

It’s time for aspiring entrepreneurs from across the country to put their pitches to the test, as they fight to be a part of DRAGONS’ DEN’s landmark 10th season!  Next month producers will hit the road, visiting cities from coast to coast in a quest to find Canada’s next great batch of entrepreneurs.  

The audition tour is open to the public and launches in Toronto in the CBC atrium (25 John Street) on Feb. 7.  Complete audition dates and locations are listed below and audition venues will be announced in the coming weeks. Tour dates will continue to be updated on the website at www.cbc.ca/dragonsden/auditions.

The audition tour welcomes participants of all ages, with businesses at any stage of development. Aspiring entrepreneurs should be prepared to pitch their concept to the DRAGONS’ DEN producers in five minutes or less. If they show the producers they have what it takes to pitch in the Den, they could be invited to Toronto to face the Dragons. Prospective pitchers are encouraged to apply online and bring a completed application form to the audition. 

Online auditions begin this month and continue in-person throughout February and March across the country. Producers will be on the lookout for entrepreneurs in the following cities:

  • February 7 – Toronto, ON

  • February 12 – Windsor, ON

  • February 13 – Sarnia, ON

  • February 14 – London, ON

  • February  14 – Montreal, QC

  • February 14– Vancouver, BC

  • February  18– Peterborough, ON

  • February  18– Regina, SK

  • February  18– Surrey, BC

  • February  19– Calgary, AB

  • February  20– Nanaimo, BC

  • February  20– Saskatoon, SK

  • February  20– Edmonton, AB

  • February  21 – Winnipeg, MB

  • February  21 – Victoria, BC

  • February  25 – Burlington, ON

  • February  25 – Collingwood, ON

  • February  27– Kingston, ON

  • February  27– Sudbury, ON

  • February  28 – Barrie, ON

  • February  28 – Ottawa, ON

  • February  28 – Prince George, BC

  • February  28 – Thunder Bay, ON

  • March 4 – Kelowna, BC

  • March  4 – Oshawa, ON

  • March  4 – Saint John, NB

  • March  6 – Abbotsford, BC

  • March  6 – Charlottetown, PEI

  • March  6 – Quebec City, QC

  • March  6 – Waterloo, ON

  • March  7 – Halifax, NS

  • March  7 – Montreal, QC

  • March  7 – Vancouver, BC

  • March  12 – Niagara, ON

  • March  13 – Medicine Hat, AB

  • March  14 – Calgary, AB

  • March  14 – Hamilton, ON

  • March  28 – Toronto, ON

For more information and full details, please visit the website at www.cbc.ca/dragonsden/auditions.

 

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Preview: Sutherland’s magical Pirate’s Passage sails onto the small screen

There’s no better way to learn about history than to be immersed in it. Literally. That’s what young Jim learns when Captain Charles Johnson sails into his life in Pirate’s Passage.

Based on the Governor General’s Literary Award-winning novel of the same name by William Gilkerson of Mahone Bay, N.S., CBC’s Sunday night animated TV-movie was produced, co-written and voiced by Donald Sutherland. Sutherland and Brad Peyton (Republic of Doyle) have weaved an entertaining story and, paired with exceptional animation from Sheridan College grads Jamie Gallant and Mike Barth, created one heck of a good time. (Check out the teaser below.)

Sutherland voices Captain Charles Johnson, a scallywag who magically jumps from the 18th century to 1952 Grey Rocks, N.S., where he sails ashore and befriends 12-year-old Jim (Gage Munroe, PAW Patrol). Jim has been assigned a school project on pirates, so Capt. Johnson’s arrival is fortuitous. Jim learns first-hand about pirates through the old codger’s stories, detailed adventures that not only entertain Jim (and viewers) but also educate via a stop amid the Vikings and a visit with Calico Jack (Paul Gross, Slings & Arrows). (Jim does, after all, have to learn enough to win over his teacher.) He’s also educated in how to handle bullies. Jim’s mother, Kerstin (Carrie-Anne Moss), learns that too; she’s battling with the town’s most powerful man, Roy Moehner (Kim Coates, Sons of Anarchy), who wants to buy her ramshackle inn and turn it into a luxury location.

Other Canadian actors voicing characters in Pirate’s Passage include Gordon Pinsent as the town barber, Megan Follows as saucy Meg O’Leary and Colm Feore as Jim’s father.

The A-list talent is almost outperformed by the animation, which takes on the effect–to me at least–of watercolour paintings on the move. Flying snow and seagulls a blurred shapes in the sky and piles of melting snow are smears of white on top of green grass. The characters move amid a cool palette of colour highlighted by stunning greys the make up the churning sea off the coast of fictional Grey Rocks.

I’ve never read Gilkerson’s book, but thanks to Sunday’s flick, I’m going to.

Pirate’s Passage airs Sunday at 8 p.m. on CBC.

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Link: An unknown Canadian story brings Book of Negroes to TV

From Jane Taber:

On a bitterly raw day last April, with the cold north wind whipping up the seas along the Atlantic coast of Cape Breton, Lawrence Hill watched his story, The Book of Negroes, come to life.

This was no Hollywood soundstage – Hill was bundled up against the almost hurricane-like winds blowing through the Fortress of Louisbourg, a national historic site and tourist destination in the summer, which on this day was dressed up to look like lower Manhattan in the late 18th century, when the victorious rebel Americans vanquished the occupying British. Continue reading.

 

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Link: Donald Sutherland fell for ‘Pirate’s Passage’

From Victoria Ahearn:

It was Matthew McConaughey and a long chain of acquaintances who brought Donald Sutherland to his new passion project, “Pirate’s Passage,” which he says captures his youth in Nova Scotia.

The animated film, debuting Sunday at 8 p.m. ET on CBC-TV, is based on the Governor General’s Literary Award-winning novel by William Gilkerson of Mahone Bay, N.S.

Sutherland, who produced, co-wrote and voiced the lead character for the film, says he hadn’t heard of the book until he was in Australia making the 2008 film “Fool’s Gold” with McConaughey. Continue reading.

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Tonight: Air Farce New Year’s Eve, The Big Picture

Air Farce New Year’s Eve, CBC
Liberal leader Justin Trudeau gives his thumbs-up to the year’s biggest movies; YouTube superstar Lilly Singh (Superwoman) avoids her parents’ New Year’s Eve curfew; Heartland star Amber Marshall saves the ranch from the path of the Keystone pipeline; and it’s all downhill when Canadian Olympic heroes Maxime, Chloé, and Justine Dufour-Lapointe introduce their fourth skiing sister. Jon Montgomery stars in The Amazing Race’s new spin-off, where Canada’s political leaders run for office—literally—with special appearances by this summer’s winners, Mickey Henry and Pete Schmalz, as well as celebrity chef Vikram Vij from Dragons’ Den. Singing sensation Nikki Yanofsky takes part in the annual dropping of the infamous F-Bomb.

The Big Picture, CBC
Comedian Ron James weighs in on the year that was – the fall of Rob Ford, the rise of Netflix, and the sequel no one saw coming, Iraq 2: The Redeployment. He looks at World Cup madness, reporting news in the era of “click bait,” and his well-meaning but doomed attempts to “take time for mindfulness” while keeping half a dozen plates in the air at the daily circus of multi-tasking.

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