A Brief History of AM Productions
and its Founder

As an independent producer working out of one of the city's first progressive art galleries, Tom Konyves began his career by producing a series of TV programs focusing on the thriving arts scene of Montreal. Entitled Art Montreal, the 26 half-hours introduced more than 130 artists, representing all forms of contemporary artistic expression, including painting, sculpture, music, dance, literature, film and theatre.

The following year he changed the series' format to 6 one-hour programs. The success of the program was now reflected by the financial support of federal and municipal government agencies as well as major corporations, such as Du Maurier, Molson's and La Sauvegarde Insurance Co.; a catalogue to the series was printed and distributed.

Art Montreal Productions, as it was now called, also became a production facility for commissioned works by arts organizations, such as the Quebec City museum, Le Musee de Quebec, and one of Canada's best known choirs, The Tudor Singers. Artists were beginning to realize the promotional use of the medium of video and Art Montreal Productions offered sensitive treatment and affordable rates.

Even in a non-profit environment, the company was demonstrating its understanding of the profitability of (1) producing commissioned work and (2) marketing specialized information.

In 1983, Tom Konyves moved to Vancouver and, after the first year of pursuing Vancouver's considerably underdeveloped and under financed arts market, he decided to shift the company's focus to creating educational / resource materials in the fields of natural resources (geology and mining technology) and, most recently, to computer-based mapping analysis (Geographical Information Systems and Remote Sensing technology).

In 1995, Tom formed a partnership with Human Resources Canada to create a training program, The New Media Institute , which trained unemployed youths in the skills of video and film production, digital post-production, computer graphics and animation. After three years, 60 people have graduated and gone out to become professionals in the industry. As part of their training, they were required to produce fund-raising videos for non-profit organizations, such as The Food Bank, Access (a Teenage Parenting Group), The BC Transplant Society, Arbutus Vocational Society, The Vancouver Health Board, as well as Music Waste, the Vancouver alternative music festival.

In 1998, Tom was associate producer for The Widower, A M PRODUCTIONS’ first feature film, a romantic-cult-comedy, presently on the underground film festival circuit.

Recently, he was writer/producer for To Return: The John Walkus Story, a one-hour documentary about the struggles of a young Kwakiutl native to return to the village he was forcefully adopted out of as a child. It has been airing nationally on CTV and the Vision Network in Canada since May 2000.