These awards are provided in partnership with the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN) and the Aboriginal Arts Program at the Banff Centre for the Arts.

"The Cancom Ross Charles Awards continue to evolve to further enhance the skills of Aboriginal professionals in the field of broadcasting," says Peter R. Classon, President of Cancom. "We are very pleased with the initiative, commitment, and success that the Banff Centre for the Arts has brought to the program in developing a curriculum for Aboriginal writers aspiring to become script writers."

Cancom and its partners in the Ross Charles Awards are delighted that Jordan Wheeler (writer/senior story editor) has agreed to be return as program director and Carol Geddes (writer/director) will return as an instructor. Both Wheeler and Geddes are award-winning artists who participated in the second Ross Charles Awards workshop that took place at the Banff Centre for the Arts last year.

"Aboriginal people have always had thousands of stories to tell. These are narratives that have sustained whole communities and nations of people for millennia," states Carol Geddes. " In the modern world, however, the new tools that are needed to tell our stories to ourselves and to a wider audience have not been widely accessible. A program such as the Banff Scriptwriting Program which assists contemporary storytellers in finding these tools acts as nothing less than a gateway of the imagination between the old and the new worlds."

Wheeler says, "Writing dramatic television isn't a mystery, it's creativity and a lot of hard work knowing that everything can ruin a great script and nothing can save a bad one. The script is where all motion pictures begin and there's a tangible, step-by-step process that must be learned if one is to be effective. It's grueling work, as past participants and those in the industry will attest, but the potential rewards are tremendous."

Applicants are invited to submit writing samples (i.e. fiction; prose; short stories; published work; produced stage/television/radio plays) or may have prior experience in writing, producing, and directing for film and television. Participating writers must display a dedicated commitment to writing, as well as a desire to explore contemporary and traditional storytelling methods and techniques.

The course will take the shape of a story department. Teams of writers will critique the work and share ideas in "story meetings" with the instructors (in the roles of writer/producers). Prior to the workshop, successful applicants will receive show "bibles" –resource materials from a television series in development. Participants are expected to prepare six ideas suitable for the series to pitch to the instructors. Working with the instructors, the writers will refine one pitch which will form the basis for the story they will develop as far as they can be in the time allotted during the workshop.

The eight writers will receive instruction on dramatic writing, make pitches, write and rewrite synopses, outlines, and scripts. Course time in Banff will be split; beginning with three weeks to provide writing instruction to take scripts to the outline stage. The writers will return home to convert their scripts to a first draft. The writers will then return to The Banff Centre for two weeks, (dates to be announced) to bring their scripts to the second draft stage. Final story meetings will be held and the writers will write their third drafts at home. The scripts are theirs to polish and submit as writing samples.

In the final week, actors and a director will come in to shoot select scenes from the second drafts for a screening on the final evening.

The first workshop will take place between September 9 and 29, 2001 at The Banff Centre.

Applications must be received by 4:00 p.m. Mountain Time, on Friday, June 15, 2001.

Successful candidates will be notified by July 16, 2001.

The awards are named in honour of the late H. Ross Charles, Cancom's first vice president of Aboriginal relations, who was of Ojibway descent. Originally, the Ross Charles Award was created in 1987 to acknowledge the achievements of an Aboriginal person in the field of communications. However, after consultation with various Aboriginal organisations, it was agreed that there was a greater need for a training program. In 1996, Cancom transformed the award into an internship and training opportunity for young Aboriginal professionals, especially from Northern Canada and other remote communities across Canada. This is the third year the training is designed and managed by the Aboriginal Arts Program and the Media Visual Arts Department at the Banff Centre for the Arts. The first program was a pilot project developed in partnership between the Government of the Northwest Territories, the Banff Centre for the Arts, the Inuit Broadcasting Corporation, the Inuvialuit Communications Society, and the Native Communications Society of Western NWT.

Carol Geddes [Tlinglit] born in Teslin, Yukon, Geddes graduated from Carleton University with a B.A. and obtained a graduate degree in Communications from Concordia University. After being executive assistant for the Council for Yukon First Nations, her first major film set her on an award-winning career in the industry. Whether writing or producing her prolific output has highlighted the stories and struggles of Aboriginal life in both the Yukon and other parts of Canada while garnering her national and international wards for documentaries. Animation, drama, magazine writing and education series are other methods she has used successfully to tell her stories and the stories of her people. Geddes maintains strong ties in the larger community through serving on the WTN [Women’s Television Network] Foundation Board, the National Film Board Aboriginal Selection Committee, Yukon Heritage Resources Board and the Yukon Arts Centre Board. To maintain close contact with her roots she sits on the Teslin Tlingit Council as a representative for her First Nation and is the representative for the Dakl’weidi clan for her government.