Oh Canada

Greetings from Montreal. My flight was fine…but it took us 90 minutes to get through customs, and that was before I ever got to the luggage carousel. Other than that, the trip went smoothly. We got to our hotel, the St. Sulpice in Old Town, at about 5:30 and after stowing our luggage in our rooms, we went out for a walk. My associate, the international sales guy for Action Concept,  wanted to visit Notre Dame…but it was closed. There was another Church he wanted to visit, but that was closed, too. I guess God keeps bankers hours in Canada. The weather was fantastic and it was nice to get some exercise.

We had dinner with Andrew Walker, one of the stars of FAST TRACK, and his girlfriend Cassandra, and then took another walk through Old Town. When I got back to the hotel, the episodic budgets and shooting schedule for FAST TRACK were waiting for me from Germany. I spent a few hours reading through them, making changes, and preparing for the next day’s meetings. By the time I was  done, it was 1:30 a.m. and I was practically asleep in my chair.

The next morning, Andrew picked us up in a restored 1973 Chevy Caprice convertible and took us on a tour around town. It was fun, and the way people stared at us, you would have thought we were in a Ferrari. We had lunch with him at Schwartz’s smoked meats. The place was packed, so we  where we shared a table with three guy who turned out to be the producers/stars of an Outdoor Network show who’d just come in from a week spent hunting caribou. After lunch, our tour continued…and then Andrew dropped us off for our meetings a distributor/broadcaster for FAST TRACK.  The meetings went very well, and I learned a lot about how the distribution and financing business works up here.

We went back to the hotel to make some calls to Germany, change our clothes, and then we went out for dinner with Andrew and the distribution folks who, as it turned out, have done several movies together. We had a great night, I learned even more about how the financing annd distribution side of the international TV business works, and I didn’t end up getting back to the hotel until well after midnight.

Now I’ve just packed up and am heading to a recording studio to do Andrew’s ADR for FAST TRACK and to have lunch with him and his parents. Then it’s off to Prague, where I will get a connecting flight to Berlin…and arrive tonight.

The only downside to this trip is I haven’t had a chance to write and it’s making me anxious. I will have to make up for it big time this weekend…wherever I am.