Kevin MacDonald in Papillon

Comedy sketches come naturally to Kids in the Hall member Kevin McDonald. Writing anything longer than a few minutes does not, he bemoans in his famously high-pitched tone.

“In the past 15 years I’ve pushed myself to learn how to write hour-and-a-half things, like movies, or half-hour things, like pilots for TV shows,” McDonald said in a recent interview from Niagara Falls, Ont., where he shot a film cameo.

“At first they were like long sketches. (Then), each scene was like a sketch. And now I’m (thinking): ‘Oh, maybe this scene doesn’t have to have a horribly funny thing, just a mildly funny, witty thing. Because it adds to the next scene and the story’s important.”‘

It’s fitting then that his return to series television on Monday comes by way of what could be Canada’s shortest show — the four-minute “Papillon.”

McDonald stars in Bite TV’s offbeat farce about an ultra discount airline and its peculiar employees. The frizzy-haired funnyman plays Darius, a nebbish co-pilot with a fear of flying. Other characters include cocky pilot Cal (David Fraser), pragmatic flight attendant Marcia (a cross-dressing Randal Edwards) and the severe — and possibly homicidal — flight attendant Eva (Hannah Cheesman).

The outlandish comedy — in which the frugal airline eliminates frills such as drinks, meals and seatbelts — was created by late author, musician, filmmaker and playwright Paul Quarrington.

McDonald says it was originally envisioned as a 30-minute sitcom but evolved into a short series.

Bite TV — which populates the rest of its joke-heavy lineup with critical faves “Arrested Development,” “Extras,” and “It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia” — says the “Papillon” shorts will be packaged into 30-minute episodes at the end of August.

McDonald says the Internet has fuelled a renaissance in comedy shorts.

“It’s funny how modern technology advances make you go back. Like, now it’s three-minute pop songs that are the thing,” says McDonald, who co-wrote three of the 15 “Papillon” episodes with partner Paula Blair.

“That’s the way the world is going.”

“Papillon” starts Monday July 11 on Bite TV.

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by Cassandra Szklarski, The Canadian Press

Date: Friday Jul. 8, 2011

Read the complete story at http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Entertainment/20110708/KevinMcDonald-return-small-screen-110708/

Check your local listings!

Cole was competing for the Leacock medal against Todd Babiak ( Toby: A Man), Terry Fallis ( The High Road), Red Green ( How to do Everything) and David Rakoff ( Half Empty), each of whom will also receive a cash prize. He was in good company, as he is now as a medal winner, and he knows it.

“One of my personal heroes was Paul Quarrington,” he said of the late author and past winner of the Leacock medal. “I was quite young (when Quarrington won), but that made me really perk up and see this as something I’d like to win, not just because he’d done it, but he made me aware of the award and I was able to figure out just how important it is.”

“It’s a little darker than usual (for a Leacock medal winner),” said Mike Hill, president of the Stephen Leacock Association. Winners of the award often write “a lighter, brighter kind of humour.” “This is black humour, and it’s funny,” Hill said.

Excerpted from The Barrie Examiner, April 29, 2011 - read the full article here.

The documentary is an intimate portrait of an amazingly talented artist who is given a life sentence by one of the most ubiquitous diseases of our age – cancer.  Diagnosed at stage 4 (there is no stage 5), his lung cancer gave Quarrington only ten months to live.  But live he did, pouring his heart, soul and emotions into a host of creative projects: he toured the country and recorded a new album with his band Porkbelly Futures; made his first solo album called The Songs; finished writing his memoir Cigar Box Banjo: Notes on Life and Music; completed scripts for a dramatic series and a screenplay for feature film.  And of course he made this documentary film, capturing all of these endeavours on camera.

Though the filmmakers do hope to inspire audiences to live life to the full by sharing  Paul’s journey, the film is steadfastly not a “cancer film.”  There are no hospital shots or doctor’s diagnoses.  Instead, the audience witnesses an artist at the height of his creative process, delivering his story with humour, candour and poignant insight.  As Paul says himself, he wants his audiences to cry through their laughter, and laugh through their tears – that’s when a person is truly open to all the incredible experiences life has to offer, be it one year, or one hundred years long.

Hunter Todd, Chairman & Founding Director in his correspondence to the winners, states “It is very difficult to win a Remi in WorldFest… with so many entries, only about 15-20% are good enough to win the Award for Creative Excellence. In some categories, sometimes no awards are made because the entries that year did not score high enough to earn a Remi Award. My personal congratulations for a job very well done.”

WorldFest, founded as an International Film Society in August 1961, became the third competitive international film festival in North America, following San Francisco and New York.  WorldFest evolved into a competitive International Film Festival in April 1968 and has a long list of “discovered” film greats such as Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, David Lynch, Ridley Scott, Oliver Stone, Atom Egoyan, Randall Kleiser, Ang Lee, Robert Rodriguez, the Coen Brothers, John Lee Hancock and many others from their beginning efforts for film submissions early in their careers.  Multi award-winning producer/director Hunter Todd founded this film festival to honor all categories of film and video production continuing his long dedication of “Discovery,” spotlighting emerging Independent filmmakers as “the Spielbergs & Ang Lees of tomorrow.”   The Remi takes its name from the famous artist Frederick Remington, who captures the spirit of Texas and the West with his brilliant paintings and sculptures.

For more information and screening copies, contact:

Judith Keenan,  Executive Producer & Producer

Judith-at-bookshorts-dotcom

Kicking off with an insightful portrait of Canadian acting legend Gordon Pinsent, this year’s lineup features new and compelling biographies on Emily Carr, Ryan Larkin and Roy Kiyooka. Ensuring the season is packed full of Canada’s most celebrated cultural icons, Bravo! offers encore presentations profiling the extraordinary lives of Jann Arden, Yousuf Karsh, Des McAnuff, Mordecai Richler, Paul Quarrington, Ian Tyson, Denny Doherty and Glenn Gould, whose GREAT CANADIAN BIOS profile was recently shortlisted for an Academy® Award.

PAUL QUARRINGTON: LIFE IN MUSIC – Encore Presentation
Sunday, March 27 at 8 p.m. ET/ 5 p.m. PT
Saturday, April 2 at 7 p.m. ET/ 4 p.m. PT
PAUL QUARRINGTON: LIFE IN MUSIC is a documentary about an artist whose sudden diagnosis of terminal illness led him to embrace both life and art with a lifetime of creativity packed into all too brief few months. Loaded with intimate moments with Quarrington himself, this documentary features interviews with Quarrington’s family, friends, and members of the internationally renown arts community. The list includes writer Roddy Doyle, musician and writer Dave Bidini, author Wayson Choy, musicians Dan Hill and Joe Hall as well as Paul’s life-long friend and fellow musician Martin Worthy. The documentary also includes dynamic performances from Porkbelly Futures, and a touching performance by Paul’s brothers Joel and Tony Quarrington. PAUL QUARRINGTON: LIFE IN MUSIC is produced by BookShorts Inc. and directed by Bert Kish.

Based on a property originally developed by the series’ Executive Producer Catherine Tait and Paul Quarrington,  Papillon (15 X 4 minute episodes) stars Kevin McDonald of the acclaimed TV show Kids in the Hall.  The series is one of the few projects selected for the first Independent Production Fund supporting linear online content.

Papillon will be seen in Canada first online, at bite.ca and then broadcast on specialty channel Bite TV, as well as the popular international Internet platform Babelgum the US.

Papillon centers on the motley crew of misfits who operate a discount airline out of the working town of Windsor, Ontario.   Papillon is the airline that promises to put the flutter back into flying.  In other words – no unnecessary ‘perks’ such as in-flight drinks, meals, or pesky seatbelts.   The web series is slated to begin production January 11, 2011.

“Papillon is both perfectly targeted to Bite’s audience and a wonderful fit with our commitment to develop fresh new programming that utilizes Canada’s tremendous depth of comedic talent,” said Jeffrey Elliott, Founder and Co-CEO GlassBOX Television.

Papillon is an original concept created by the late Paul Quarrington and written by Mark Steinberg, with three scripts by writing team Kevin McDonald and Paula Blair. Paul Quarrington was one of Canada’s most celebrated writing talents. As a screenwriter, he wrote or contributed to several produced screenplays, among them: Men with Brooms, Whale Music, Camilla and Perfectly Normal, winner of the Genie for Best Screenplay.  His television writing credits included Due South, John Woo’s Once a Thief, Power Play, The Counsellors, Tom Stone, 1-800 Missing and Chilly Beach.

For the complete story, visit Mediacaster Magazine

Sean Flinn
* Cigar Box Banjo by Paul Quarrington, GreyStone
Quarrington died in the early days of 2010. It’ll take years to fully appreciate his contribution. Start now, with this excellent memoir on his musical life first, his approaching death second.

– from the St. John Telegraph Journal

Perhaps it’s the economy, with its dour sermons of doom, but when I go into a bookstore these days, I’m far more attracted to colourful, flirty covers than to sombre, emotional ones. (I bought Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom in hardcover because I loved the juicy life in the design.) The liveliness of this particular cover is so fitting for Paul Quarrington’s final book, about music, memory, and living life to the fullest while facing death head-on. It enticed me the moment I saw it: it’s assured, lively, and highly polished. As the ­design clearly attests, the book is a celebration, not a dirge. – Ingrid Paulson, a freelance book designer

December issue of our publishing trade magazine, Quill and Quire, included it in their “Covers of the Year” section –http://www.quillandquire.com/blog/index.php/2010/11/25/books-of-the-year-2010-covers-of-the-year/2/

The November 27^th issue of the Globe and Mail included Cigar Box Banjo in their annual Top 100 Books selection…read the whole article here ….

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/books/the-2010-globe-100-non-fiction/article1813452/

CIGAR BOX BANJO: Notes on Music and Life
By Paul Quarrington (GreyStone)