La Job
Encyclopedia
La Job is a French Canadian
French Canadian
French Canadian or Francophone Canadian, , generally refers to the descendents of French colonists who arrived in New France in the 17th and 18th centuries...

 comedy television series set in Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...

. It is an adaptation of the British show The Office
The Office
The Office is a popular mockumentary/situation comedy TV show that was first made in the UK and has now been re-made in many other countries, with overall viewership in the hundreds of millions worldwide. The original version of The Office was created by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant. It...

 of the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

. Produced by Anne-Marie Losique
Anne-Marie Losique
Anne-Marie Losique is a television producer, television host and singer in Quebec, Canada. Along with Marc Trudeau, she is co-founder of production company Image Diffusion International. She is the daughter of Serge Losique, president and founder of the Montreal World Film Festival...

's Image Diffusion International
Image Diffusion International
Image Diffusion International is a Quebec production company founded by Anne-Marie Losique and Marc Trudeau in 1995. Based in Montreal, it specializes in producing entertainment and lifestyle television magazines. Its shows are sometimes Quebec-based in French and sometimes edited in two versions,...

, it has been broadcast for a limited number of viewers on Bell TV satellite television, beginning on October 9, 2006. It was later seen by a wider audience on the public broadcaster Radio-Canada
Télévision de Radio-Canada
Télévision de Radio-Canada is a Canadian French language television network. It is owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, known in French as Société Radio-Canada. Headquarters are at Maison Radio-Canada in Montreal, which is also home to the network's flagship station, CBFT-DT...

 (starting in January 2007) and specialty channel ARTV
ARTV
ARTV is a Canadian French language Category A specialty channel specializing in the arts and culture; including music, dance, theatre, visual arts as well as films and scripted television series.-History:...

 (starting in the third quarter of the same year). It is the third official foreign adaptation of the concept, and the second in a language other than English.

Synopsis

National industry leader Les Papiers Jennings, a multinational carton and packaging company, is restructuring
Restructuring
Restructuring is the corporate management term for the act of reorganizing the legal, ownership, operational, or other structures of a company for the purpose of making it more profitable, or better organized for its present needs...

. The regional manager of their branch in Côte-de-Liesse, Saint-Laurent, in Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...

 , is David Gervais (the name is an homage to Ricky Gervais
Ricky Gervais
Ricky Dene Gervais is an English comedian, actor, director, radio presenter, producer, musician, and writer.Gervais achieved mainstream fame with his television series The Office and the subsequent series Extras, both of which he co-wrote and co-directed with friend and frequent collaborator...

, and his original character David Brent
David Brent
David Brent is a fictional character in the BBC television mockumentary The Office, as well as a recurring character in the NBC series of the same name, portrayed by co-writer and director Ricky Gervais. Brent is a white-collar office middle-manager and the principal character of the BBC series...

). He will need to compete with the Terrebonne
Terrebonne, Quebec
Terrebonne is an off-island suburb of Montreal, in western Quebec, Canada. It is located on the north shores of the Rivière des Mille-Îles and of the Rivière des Prairies, North of Montreal and Laval....

 branch and operate an important effort to avoid the shut-down of their branch. He will also have to cope with occasionally rebellious employees.

David is a failed comedian and rocker who also fails to grasp the notion of political correctness
Political correctness
Political correctness is a term which denotes language, ideas, policies, and behavior seen as seeking to minimize social and institutional offense in occupational, gender, racial, cultural, sexual orientation, certain other religions, beliefs or ideologies, disability, and age-related contexts,...

. He tends to either make a fool of himself in front of the office crew or make it intensely uncomfortable. The one who seems to enjoy him the most is Sam Bisaillon, former army cadet
Cadet
A cadet is a trainee to become an officer in the military, often a person who is a junior trainee. The term comes from the term "cadet" for younger sons of a noble family.- Military context :...

 who worships David. He shares his desk with Louis Tremblay, who is secretly in love with the shy receptionist Anne Viens. The problem is that Anne is engaged to Luc, a macho warehouse employee.

Production

The Office had already seen foreign adaptation with the American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 The Office
The Office (US TV series)
The Office is an American comedy television series broadcast by NBC. An adaptation of the original BBC series of the same name, it depicts the everyday lives of office employees in the Scranton, Pennsylvania, branch of the fictional Dunder Mifflin Paper Company...

, the French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 Le Bureau
Le Bureau
Le Bureau was a 2006 French television show that aired on Canal+. It is a French version of the popular British television series The Office...

 and the quasi-official German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 version Stromberg
Stromberg (TV series)
Stromberg is a German television series which is produced by Brainpool and broadcast on the commercial television channel ProSieben. The series was proclaimed as a copy of the BBC series The Office, although initially the producers claimed it was based on a character from a past ProSieben comedy,...

. Image Diffusion International produces the Quebecois incarnation. IDI co-founder Anne-Marie Losique, a well-known television host and producer, says "I saw the original show on DVD and found that it was one of the most risqué and extraordinary shows ever. For me, it's a cult classic [...] we've stayed very faithful to the British series [...] [Like the original series], the show is also set in the suburbs where nothing ever happens". Surprisingly, Losique claimed that she bought the concept for only $5,000, according to a 2005 article in Le Soleil
Le Soleil
Le Soleil is a French-language daily newspaper in Quebec City, Quebec. It was founded on December 28, 1896 and is published in compact format since April 2006...

. She has mentioned that French television station Canal+
Canal+
Canal+ is a French premium pay television channel launched in 1984. It is 80% owned by the Canal+ Group, which in turn is owned by Vivendi SA. The channel broadcasts several kinds of programming, mostly encrypted...

 has shown interest in this version, despite already producing and broadcasting the French one. Losique already made herself known for importing shows like the American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 The Simple Life
The Simple Life
The Simple Life was a reality television series that was broadcast from December 2, 2003 to August 5, 2007. The first three seasons aired on Fox, and the final two on E!...

 (called La Vie rurale in its Quebec version, its first exportation) starring herself and pop singer Jacynthe and The Surreal Life
The Surreal Life
The Surreal Life is a reality television series that sets a select group of past-their-prime celebrities and records them as they live together in Glen Campbell's former mansion in the Hollywood Hills for two weeks...

 (Des gens pas ordinaires).

Like the British Office, La Job takes the form of a mockumentary
Mockumentary
A mockumentary , is a type of film or television show in which fictitious events are presented in documentary format. These productions are often used to analyze or comment on current events and issues by using a fictitious setting, or to parody the documentary form itself...

. Twelve episodes for the first season began shooting on July 10, 2006 and wrapped-up six weeks later, with a budget of less than C$200,000 each and filmed in high-definition
High-definition television
High-definition television is video that has resolution substantially higher than that of traditional television systems . HDTV has one or two million pixels per frame, roughly five times that of SD...

. For its first season, as its French counterpart, La Job has adapted directly from the British scripts, rather than creating new ones like in the United States (although the American version did adapt the first episode in this fashion). Initially, there was hesitation over whether to call the show "Le Bureau" (a direct translation identical to the French version) or "La Job" (a Quebec French
Quebec French
Quebec French , or Québécois French, is the predominant variety of the French language in Canada, in its formal and informal registers. Quebec French is used in everyday communication, as well as in education, the media, and government....

 franglais
Franglais
Franglais , a portmanteau combining the French words "français" and "anglais" , is a slang term for an interlanguage, although the word has different overtones in French and English....

 colloquialism, not a proper French word, for "job"; it exists in France argot
Argot
An Argot is a secret language used by various groups—including, but not limited to, thieves and other criminals—to prevent outsiders from understanding their conversations. The term argot is also used to refer to the informal specialized vocabulary from a particular field of study, hobby, job,...

, but in the masculine
Grammatical gender
Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...

 rather than feminine form
Grammatical gender
Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...

). Eventually, La Job was chosen. Reports in the media of the name "Le Job" were mistakes.

André St-Pierre is the director of the episodes. He is best known as the co-director of the Télé-Québec
Télé-Québec
Télé-Québec is a French language public educational television network in the Canadian province of Quebec. Known legally as Société de télédiffusion du Québec , it is a provincial crown corporation owned by the Government of Quebec...

 show Les Francs-Tireurs and La Job was his first fiction. Script adaptation was given to Ian Lauzon and Jean-Philippe Granger was made screenwriter
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...

. Like the American Office, improv veterans were called to fill the shoes of some of the original actors. The role of the David Brent
David Brent
David Brent is a fictional character in the BBC television mockumentary The Office, as well as a recurring character in the NBC series of the same name, portrayed by co-writer and director Ricky Gervais. Brent is a white-collar office middle-manager and the principal character of the BBC series...

 boss was entrusted to Antoine Vézina
Antoine Vézina
Antoine Vézina is a Québécois actor. A 2000 alum of the Université du Québec à Montréal with a bachelor's degree in theater, Vézina has a strong improvisational theater background, having performed in the Quebec improvisational leagues the Ligue universitaire d'improvisation , the Ligue...

, a performer of the reputed Ligue nationale d'improvisation (LNI), a Quebec-born concept of improvisational theatre
Improvisational theatre
Improvisational theatre takes many forms. It is best known as improv or impro, which is often comedic, and sometimes poignant or dramatic. In this popular, often topical art form improvisational actors/improvisers use improvisational acting techniques to perform spontaneously...

 and international improv team competition (Quebec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....

, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

, Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

 and Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

). Sophie Cadieux
Sophie Cadieux
Sophie Cadieux is a Quebec actress. She studied theater at the Conservatoire d'art dramatique de Montréal from 1998 to 2001...

, who holds the role corresponding to Dawn Tinsley
Dawn Tinsley
Dawn Tinsley is a fictional character in the BBC sitcom The Office, played by Lucy Davis. She is a receptionist for paper merchants Wernham Hogg and is engaged to warehouse worker Lee. Her American The Office equivalent is Pam Beesly...

, has also taken part in the LNI. Paul Ahmarani
Paul Ahmarani
Paul Ahmarani is a Quebec actor. He was born from the union of two teachers, one from Cacouna, Bas-Saint-Laurent, Quebec and another from the Mediterranean coast...

, playing La Jobs Gareth Keenan
Gareth Keenan
Gareth Keenan is a fictional paper salesman on BBC's comedy The Office. He is portrayed in the series by Mackenzie Crook as a gaunt, self-important team leader proud of his alleged lieutenant status in the Territorial Army...

, is a great fan of the British series. About the black humor of the show, he comments: "Personally, when I began watching that show, after five minutes, I knew that I had before my eyes something unique, that would literally shatter all that we had seen before". On his character, he sums up that "I'm someone that is very much of a coward, so I like to take refuge in military fantasies of virility... I really like to say that I spent three years in the army... I'm a bit of a loser, very right-wing, very militarist". Sébastien Huberdeau
Sébastien Huberdeau
Sébastien Huberdeau is a Canadian actor. He studied political science at university. He has played in a rendition of the play Talk Radio and was seen on screens abroad in The Barbarian Invasions , winner of the 2004 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film...

, the Tim Canterbury
Tim Canterbury
Tim Canterbury is a main character in the BBC sitcom The Office, played by Martin Freeman. He is a 30-year-old sales representative for paper merchants Wernham Hogg and lives with his parents. He spent one year at a university before dropping out, and one day hopes to return to get a psychology...

 equivalent, was seen on international screens in The Barbarian Invasions, winner of the 2004 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
The Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film is one of the Academy Awards of Merit, popularly known as the Oscars, handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...

.

It was reported that Anne-Marie Losique made the surprising choice of making Luc Provost audition for the Gareth Keenan character. Provost is better known as the flamboyant drag queen
Drag queen
A drag queen is a man who dresses, and usually acts, like a caricature woman often for the purpose of entertaining. There are many kinds of drag artists and they vary greatly, from professionals who have starred in films to people who just try it once. Drag queens also vary by class and culture and...

 Mado Lamotte
Mado Lamotte
Mado Lamotte, the stage name of Luc Provost, is a Montreal drag queen, author, singer and gay community personality.Lamotte has been performing for more than 15 years. She was a longtime emcee and DJ of Ciel Mon Mardi at Sky, before opening her own drag cabaret, Cabaret Mado, in Montreal's Gay...

. He had just wrapped up shooting Losique's Des gens pas ordinaires when the offer was made. Irony would have been striking for the openly gay Provost playing the slightly homophobic character. He ultimately did not obtain the role.

Reality and fiction

Reality and fiction sometimes meet in La Job, like in its American counterpart, the actual studios are located in Côte-de-Liesse (part of the Saint-Laurent borough in Montreal), near Autoroute 20
Quebec Autoroute 20
Autoroute 20 is a major Quebec Autoroute, following the Saint Lawrence River through one of the more densely-populated parts of Canada, and is part of the Trans-Canada Highway. At , it is the longest Autoroute in Quebec...

, where the Papiers Jennings branch is located in the series. Some scenes have also been shot at the Bar Zeffé, a bar located near the main set that keeps its real name within the show. Built for the series, the shooting set is said to be ready to be converted into a real office space overnight. Shooting is done without spotlight
Stage lighting instrument
Stage lighting instruments are used in stage lighting to illuminate theatrical productions, concerts, and other performances taking place in live performance venues. They are also used to light television studios and sound stages.Many stagecraft terms vary between the United States and the United...

s, only with the office fluorescent light
Fluorescent lamp
A fluorescent lamp or fluorescent tube is a gas-discharge lamp that uses electricity to excite mercury vapor. The excited mercury atoms produce short-wave ultraviolet light that then causes a phosphor to fluoresce, producing visible light. A fluorescent lamp converts electrical power into useful...

s. The neighbourhood paper Saint-Laurent News provides the show with fake newspapers used in filming.

Internet videos

Made for the internet, around a minute long original videos of the boss alone at his desk, giving foolish advice at the camera, were released online weekly in the last quarter of 2006 on Bell
Bell Canada
Bell Canada is a major Canadian telecommunications company. Including its subsidiaries such as Bell Aliant, Northwestel, Télébec, and NorthernTel, it is the incumbent local exchange carrier for telephone and DSL Internet services in most of Canada east of Manitoba and in the northern territories,...

's Sympatico.msn.com. The American version
The Office (US TV series)
The Office is an American comedy television series broadcast by NBC. An adaptation of the original BBC series of the same name, it depicts the everyday lives of office employees in the Scranton, Pennsylvania, branch of the fictional Dunder Mifflin Paper Company...

 also released internet videos, in the middle of 2006. Those are the episodes thus far.
  • "La ponctualité": David reminds the viewers "punctuality" is what people should learn first, right after they are born. (September 13, 2006)
  • "Le diplôme": David Gervais says that he doesn't only think about "the diploma", he wants to know what you know how to do, and maybe he can arrange a little something, if you..., but, embarrassed about what he appears to say, adds it's not in that sense... not sexual. (September 13, 2006)
  • "L'efficacité au travail": For "efficiency at work", David advises to wake up happy. Like the Pope. (September 15, 2006)
  • "L'argent": According to the boss, "money" isn't everything, even if they say it runs the world, okay, fine. (September 15, 2006)
  • "La ville": Gervais defends the suburbs of "the city", such as Saint-Laurent or Trois-Rivières (actually a city of its own, 150 km from Montreal). (September 29, 2006)
  • "Voyage de pêche": The boss talks of his reward for hard work, a "fishing trip" with a good male friend, under the stars, with only the two of us, but gets into an involuntary misundersanding implying the trips might have romantic aspects. (September 29, 2006)
  • "L'ancienneté": The boss explains his vision of "seniority". (September 29, 2006)
  • "L'équipe": Gervais talks about "the team". (September 29, 2006)
  • "Extrait épisode 1": A clip from the first episode where David, the receptionist and the corporate head discuss of a possible future merger between the Saint-Laurent and Terrebonne branches. Rocky calls on the intercom. (October 4, 2006)
  • "Extrait épisode 2": A clip from the second episode where Gervais reassures the office staff about merger rumours and introduces a new female co-worker. (October 4, 2006)

Episodes

  • Episode 1: A camera team begins filming the life of the small Saint-Laurent branch of Les Papiers Jennings. Talks of a merger begin. See the corresponding first British episode.
  • Episode 2: Rumours of downsizing continue. A new female worker enters the office. See the corresponding second British episode.

Cast

These are the actors and characters. To see how these characters compare with other versions of the show, see The Office#Counterparts.
  • Regional Manager: David Gervais (Antoine Vézina
    Antoine Vézina
    Antoine Vézina is a Québécois actor. A 2000 alum of the Université du Québec à Montréal with a bachelor's degree in theater, Vézina has a strong improvisational theater background, having performed in the Quebec improvisational leagues the Ligue universitaire d'improvisation , the Ligue...

    )
  • Sales Representative: Louis Tremblay (Sébastien Huberdeau
    Sébastien Huberdeau
    Sébastien Huberdeau is a Canadian actor. He studied political science at university. He has played in a rendition of the play Talk Radio and was seen on screens abroad in The Barbarian Invasions , winner of the 2004 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film...

    )
  • Receptionist: Anne Viens (Sophie Cadieux
    Sophie Cadieux
    Sophie Cadieux is a Quebec actress. She studied theater at the Conservatoire d'art dramatique de Montréal from 1998 to 2001...

    )
  • Assistant to the Regional Manager: Sam Bisaillon (Paul Ahmarani
    Paul Ahmarani
    Paul Ahmarani is a Quebec actor. He was born from the union of two teachers, one from Cacouna, Bas-Saint-Laurent, Quebec and another from the Mediterranean coast...

    )
  • Office Temp: Fred Caillé (Alphé Gagné)
  • Travelling Sales Representative: Rocky Larocque (Yves Amyot
    Yves Amyot
    Yves Amyot is a Franco-Canadian actor. He studied theater at the Conservatoire d'art dramatique de Québec from 1989 to 1992. He plays In the Quebec comedy television series, La Job, adaptation of the cult British show The Office of the BBC. He holds the role corresponding to Chris Finch , Rocky...

    )
  • Warehouse Employee and Receptionist's Fiancé: Luc (Martin Tremblay)
  • Corporate Head: Emmanuelle Sirois-Keaton (Nathalie Coupal)
  • Senior Sales Representative's girlfriend: Julie Évelyne Rompré
  • A girlfriend of the temp: Valérie (Noémie Yelle)
  • A trade unionist: Raymond (Bernard Carez)

See also

  • List of Quebec television series
  • List of Quebec television series imports and exports
  • Television of Quebec
    Television of Quebec
    Television in Quebec is an essential part of the culture of Quebec, as well as the rest of French Canada. With over 99% of households owning a television in Quebec, it has the power to reach every Quebecer...

  • Culture of Quebec
    Culture of Quebec
    The Culture of Quebec emerged over the last few hundred years, resulting from the shared history of the French-speaking majority in Quebec. It is unique to the Western World; Quebec is the only region in North America with a French-speaking majority, as well as one of only two provinces in Canada...

  • The Office
    The Office
    The Office is a popular mockumentary/situation comedy TV show that was first made in the UK and has now been re-made in many other countries, with overall viewership in the hundreds of millions worldwide. The original version of The Office was created by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant. It...

  • Le Bureau
    Le Bureau
    Le Bureau was a 2006 French television show that aired on Canal+. It is a French version of the popular British television series The Office...


External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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