Telefilm Canada has made three key appointments to its executive ranks. Johanne St-Arnauld has been named acting executive director, taking over from François Macerola, whose term ended early this month. Maçerola is replacing Laurier LaPierre as chair of the organization. St-Arnauld has worked at Telfilm since 1988, and was named director of international relations in March 2000. She has also held the positions of distribution analyst, senior coproduction analyst, and coproductions manager. Also newly-appointed is Elizabeth Frieson as acting director of Canadian operations. Frieson was previously director for the western region. She will work from Vancouver, and takes over from Peter Katadotis, who has left the operation after 13 years in the position.

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Filament Communications puts nearly all staff on contract
One of Ottawa’s highest-profile web design and marketing shops, Filament Communications Inc, has taken the drastic step of putting nearly all of its salaried workforce on contract. Company officials cite the need to control costs as motivation for the move, which comes on the heels of months of top-level executive churn and a sagging market for digital services across the board in the nation’s capital.
About a dozen staff have been put on contract, leaving only six people as full-time employees: CEO Ryan Baressi and president Kim Dixon, founder Alfredo Coppola, producer Sarah Jarett, and an office manager and a receptionist. In published reports, president Dixon has said that the move was necessary to remove unnecessary overhead when work isn’t available.
The step is symptomatic of a sharp downturn in Ottawa’s digital media/marketing community. Insiders say most of the big name firms in the sector have laid off staff to the point where many are now operating on a skeleton roster. One observer estimates business is down by as much as 50 to 75 per cent.
At Filament, the move to put its employees on contract comes just one month after the company hired a new president, former Corel Corp and Hill and Knowlton executive Kim Dixon (CNM, May 3/01). At the time, founder Coppola told CNM that, "a lot of people have left, but a lot of people have come. It’s all part of a company that’s growing very well. We’ve added some people on the research side, on the business development side, and, overall, we’ve expanded our creative abilities."

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