Judges attend acting workshop

Canadian actors and judges today fully acknowledge the importance of proper theater training. This coming June 24 judges from across the country will undergo a training program at Stradford Festival Theater. The three-day workshop will teach the judges how to walk, breathe, vocalize to convey authority from the bench. There will be exercises for facial muscles and lessons on how to sit with judgelike compartment. Like theatrical actors, the judges will be constantly reminded how to focus their attention on "being in the moment."

The judges program was organized jointly by the judicial institute and the Ontario Court of Justice. It is a fact that the style or image or judging has changed drastically in recent years. There’s so much more public and media scrutiny that judges become instant celebrities.

Meanwhile, in the acting profession, Canadian actors with ambition to get jobs in American films need special vocal coaching. Most of them like to sound like authentic Noo Yawkas and hide their distinctive Canadian accent.

According to a popular New York coach "Canadians have upward inflections at the end of sentences and stress different syllables. You can really hear the differences in words like mobile, resource, adult and contributed. Canadians stress the first syllable, making the word sound longer."

Still on the subject of showbiz, we’re wondering what Hollywood will think next in Vancouver. The success of teen Superman or the series "Smallville", filmed entirely in B duplicating a typical American town has inspired another youngster serial. It’s an adolescent Tarzan from the jungle and relocated to New York City complete with his fashionable loin cloth. It is too expensive to shoot in Manhattan so the producers will be shooting a pilot in Vancouver next month to imitate New York locations. Young Tarzan will have an uncle, a young love interest by the name of Jane, a monkey friend plus a though-talking NYC police detective.

Canadians are know to be frugal and the results of yet another survey re-confirmed two qualities of local consumers, conservative and predictable. The survey indicated that Canadians are generally dull shoppers because they trust or buy the same brands of their parents and grandparents instead of purchasing newer, more exotic products in supermarkets.

Thus, the old products are still around, Campbell’s Soup, Tide detergent, Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, Kraft foods, Avon, Mr Clean, General Motors etc. etc. And believe it or not, Reader’s Digest is Canada’s most trusted magazine, with 1.2 million copies sold monthly. The popularity of the generally out-dated publication in contemporary media could be its presence in the medical and dental waiting rooms of the country. It has the benefit of cumulative readership of nine million.

Vancouver Sun reported that Edmonton has the country’s hottest hotel market. Edmonton and mountain resorts are best-performing in Canada, along with Montreal. Whistler and Victoria. The average Canadian hotel occupancy rate is 63 percent but Edmonton can boast a 76-percent occupancy. This is due to resource exploration in Northern Alberta and accommodation of transient and migrating population. Down markets include Ottawa due to the tech crash and Vancouver due to the decrease in cross-border traffic.

The Asian Post (Canada’s Pacific Rim Newspaper) reported that Filipinos are the most "romantically expressive" in the Asian region when using mobile phone messages, per survey conducted by a mobile phone manufacturer. Filipinos was listed as number one in Southeast Asia in sending romantic text messages. Following the Philippines in the "most expressive in love" category is Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and India.

Moviemaker Magazine, an American publication based in Los Angeles rated Vancouver as the best place to be in if you want to make a movie. "Vancouver remains a moviemaker’s dream" reads the third annual ranking of the 10 best cities in North America for independent moviemakers. There’s a huge base of facilities, acting talent, crew and a steady stream of jobs due to subsidized Canadian productions. Other pluses include "a relatively low cost of living, temperate climate, strong arts community and unbeatable natural beauty."