ReCON
Toronto
2017
MAY 2017 \\ TORONTO \\ CANADA
Biography: K. Douglas MacRae was born in Truro, Nova Scotia, Canada. He earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Media Studies at the University of Regina, Saskatchewan in 1995. In January of 1996 he moved to Toronto where he began his career in film and television.
KD MACK
(DOUG MACRAE)
In October of the same year signed on as part of the crew for “La Femme NIKITA.” He was the production’s resident storyboard artist and in later seasons worked with the show’s writers coordinating the story department. He worked on a variety of films and television shows like, “Monk”, “Mutant X”, “Rookie Blue” and many more for 11 years until making a drastic career change in 2007 into law enforcement.
Today he works as a police officer. As far away from the entertainment industry as it seems, Doug has been able to use his artistic and filmmaking skills as a police officer, engaging youth through the creation of a superhero named “UNITED.” The initiative includes a short film featuring the UNITED hero (which Doug wrote, directed and composed the music for) and an annual youth film festival. The UNITED hero has made hundreds of public appearances at events throughout the Greater Toronto Area.
Doug is currently working in his spare time on a series of children’s books with his partner in law enforcement.
STORYBOARDS/ADR/MAKEUP PANEL
Appearances were subject to change due to unforeseen professional or personal commitments.
JILL PURDY
DEBI DRENNAN
In addition to doing makeup and hair in film, Debi has also done some writing and was the co-creator for a tv series called Bomb Girls for Global TV. The program was based on her grandmother's life in the munitions factory during World War 2.
She was then accepted as a Nabet member in 1986 and received her first key position in 1990 on a TV Series called Secret Service. Working steadily through some ups and downs in the business convinced her to continue to accept long term contracts in the TV business instead of the unpredictable short films or feature films. Still battling ESL (English as a Second Language), she continued to have a light but real handicap working in the business.
Even still, Eva continued to work in Toronto, as well as Montreal. After being contacted to work on a Space Station series in Toronto, she received a phone call from Brian Gibson asking if she could meet Peta Wilson who was the lead actress on a show called La Femme Nikita. She did not hesitate to accept the job offer, and a couple of hours later she had only to find a replacement for the Space Station series job, which her assistant was able to do.
There was no way at that time Eva would have known that the Nikita adventure would become more than a three year journey that started in 1997 and ended in 2000 (78 episodes.) Nikita was the turning point of her career, as she went on to work as head Makeup of several TV series such as Blue Murder, Mutant X, Flashpoint, Durham County and Bombgirls.
Eva recently spent the last three summers in Budapest working on the CBC series Company. She finally succeeded in working in Europe, a dream she had always carried with her since she chose to stay in television as opposed to feature films.
EVA COUDOULOUX
Unfortunately, Debi Drennan had to step away from appearing with us due to the passing of a close friend and the subsequent Memorial which was held the same weekend as ReCon. It was with regret she wasn't able to attend, but we all fully understand her situation and we send her our condolences for herself and this family. <3
Biography: Debi has been an artist for over forty years. She started her career at CFTO TV in Agincourt, doing variety programming and drama for clients like Hallmark, as well as three seasons of The Littlest Hobo.
From there Debi moved to Ottawa for two years where she worked for Prime Minister Trudeau at Parliament Hill, as well as Margaret Trudeau at CJOH TV. While there, she also worked with Pam Wallin at CTV. Returning to Toronto, she began freelancing in drama. Debi worked on shows such as Diamonds, Counterstrike, Total Recall, Wild Card, Catwalk, Hidden Room, Hitchhiker, Due South, La Femme Nikita, This is Wonderland, Dragons Den and Murdoch Mysteries, to name a few. In between all these tv series there were many Movies Of the Week and feature films such as Boy Girl Thing, Murder in the Hamptons, Cruel Intentions 3, plus many others.
Biography: Eva is French born and educated in Paris where she studied history, literature and theatre. Being intrigued by the acting profession, she joined a group focusing on classical theatre at her university and discovered that actual acting had less interest for her than all the activity surrounding production. During her two years at the school, she did a few makeup contracts for photos and personality interviews.
Eva then moved to Montreal Canada to live with her new husband, and in 1982 after her marriage ended, she took the opportunity to move to Toronto to improve her English. She enrolled in the School of Makeup Art in Toronto and occasionally received a call to provide makeup services at CBC or TVO, which gave her a new enthusiasm for her previous passion. Several short training sessions in Toronto and Paris upgraded the quality of her work.
Biography: Jill Purdy worked as the Dialogue/ADR (Automated or Automatic Dialog Replacement, also known as Looping) Editor on La Femme Nikita. This position involved editing production audio as well as re-recording the cast in studio during the post-production process.
After graduating from both Queen’s University and Sheridan College, Jill initiated her career via a successful internship with Sound Dogs Toronto in 1996. Although based in Toronto, Jill has also continued to work frequently in New York and Los Angeles on feature films and television shows, including productions such as “Hands of Stone”, “Snow White and the Huntsman”, “Black Swan”, “The Strain”, “X Company”, “The Kennedys” and “Mutant X”.