Bigfoot Media
Barry Fontaine – email: bf@bigfootmedia.ca
phone: 1 250 869 9186
Barry is a Director/DOP/Camera for Factual-Docs-Reality working in Western Canada. A visual communications professional with a broad range of experience and interests. When you work for decades in an industry like TV news and documentary you learn to adapt quickly and grasp hidden aspects of the story you cover. Often you get it right and sometimes you realize you had it all wrong from the beginning. It’s looking beyond the obvious and finding out why things work the way they do.
Bigfoot Media Television Freelance Director-DOP-ENG-Drone-Camera
Oct 2011 – Present
Western Canada
Experienced and motivated Director Of Photography, ENG Videographer and Director with over 30 years broadcast experience. Freelance has brought all the skills and leadership gained as a network staffer to a wider audience. Documentary and Reality TV production is a natural progression of the skills acquired from years as a News Videographer. I have recently shot for Discovery Channel’s Highway Thru Hell, Bush Wreck Rescue for Discovery/Velocity, CTV’s Amazing Race Canada, High Arctic Haulers on CBC, Big Timber, Jade Fever, Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom for NBC and many others. Broadcast clients include some of the biggest names in television. A few of the recent clients include: BBC, ARD, Fox, MTV, TSN, BNN, Discovery, USA Network and CTV. In addition to traditional broadcast television productions Bigfoot Media has produced and otherwise contributed videography and editing to a wide range of non-broadcast projects.
CTV NEWS Supervisor and Department Head, ENG Photography and Live Technologies · 25 yrs
Edmonton, Alberta 1990 – 2011 – Vancouver, BC 2012 – Kelowna, BC 2016-2017
ENG Camera Department Supervisor. Responsible to schedule and oversee all aspects of the Electronic News Gathering department. Manager of equipment and technology as well as fleet supervision. Live Truck technologies oversight. Staff scheduling and mentorship. Produce, Photograph and Edit television news and sports on a daily basis. Travel with ENG camera and nonlinear edit equipment. Live Broadcast equipment including Satellite and Microwave technologies. “A proven ability to teach and inspire others.” For six of the 25 years at CTV Edmonton Barry led a department of 16 ENG videographers, shot documentaries, acted as technical producer and continued shooting News and Sports on a daily basis. News has demanded Barry travel extensively in the course of a 25 year career as an ENG Videographer and Field Editor. In 1991, less than two years after the fall of The Berlin Wall, Barry traveled to Kiev, Ukraine. The production crew in the field included only himself and a news reporter. Together they produced ten stories telling of how the end of Communism was affecting the people of Ukraine. They followed up the series with a one hour documentary, “Ukraine – A New Day”. The doc aired both locally and nationally on CTV. In 1996 the team returned to Ukraine. “Harvest of Freedom” earned them a Best Documentary Award from AMPIA (Alberta Media Production Industries Association). Rotating Chair of the Joint Health & Safety Committee for over 15 years. Development and implementation of Health and Safety policies and procedures for large field operations as well as for individuals working alone in the field. The environments and threats to personal safety in a news environment are ever-changing and varied. Mitigating those risks through experience and common sense is imperative. Teaching safe operation of equipment as well as personal protective techniques. Development of healthy practices to reduce injury through repetitive use and traumatic injury