Ontario government tops up training for arts industries

Last month, the Ontario government's Sector Initiatives Fund announced it wil invest $600,000 this year in business development training for the province's theatre, film, television and museum industries.Propelled by the province's Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities and the Ministry of Culture, five cultural organizations including Hot Docs, Women in Film and Television in Toronto (WIFT-T) and Cultural Careers Council Ontario (CCCO) will create projects for burgeoning and established arts workers."Arts and culture is the iron and ore of this century - we're living in an information world and original creativity will lead to economic growth," says Caroline Di Cocco, minister of Culture.WIFT-T will partner with the Schulich Executive Education Centre at York University and Humber College's School of Media Studies and Information Technology for two certification programs geared to both newcomers and senior level execs.Launching in October this year, Humber's Business Management for Media Professionals program for the next generation of TV execs will cover all aspects of the media industry over 90 hours of course work. The senior level program at Schulich will start in February 2008 and will run for approximately 13 days, with two-day sessions held every other week for about 11 weeks.Topics include financial models, strategic planning and the impact of technology and marketing. The courses are designed to fill in some gaps identified in WIFT-T's 2004 study on screen-based media, which found business and marketing skills were weak for those employed in the creative sector.To also boost the industry's commercial know-how, CCCO will use the influx of cash to expand the second year of its three-year Career Development for the Cultural Workforce project for small to medium sized businesses in film and TV. The program currently receives $100 million from funds generated through Ontario's charity casino initiative via the Ontario Trillium Foundation, an agency of the Ministry of Culture.The added boost to the budget will expand the programs such as helping self-employed artists grow their businesses, a peer-learning circle program and other professional development initiatives for producers.Documentary producers will also get a leg-up with Hot Docs' two new training programs, Doc Lab and Doc U. Launching this year, the programs aim to give new and established Ontario filmmakers opportunities to mentor with top name industry vets. "These projects are for the nuts and bolts of doc filmmaking, and across the board we need to enhance and build on the creative industry's entrepreneurial skills," says the minister of training, colleges and universities, Chris Bentley.

Ontario government tops up training for arts industries

News | 05/23/2007 1:31 pm EDT

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