Canadian Film Insider

Playback, Screenwriters, and the Elephant in the Room

2007-03-02T12:31:00.000-05:00

Where are our screenwriting stars? asks Marcus Robinson in Canada’s Playback Magazine. Where indeed. The reason there aren’t any should be clear to any who read the Canadian Film Insider and put two and two together. Mr Robinson hasn’t done that, as is obvious in his article and his subsequent list: Playback picks 10 screenwriting stars working in Canada

Please, read the initial article and then go through it with me:

Robinson begins by noting that Scorsese acknowledged the writer first off when accepting his Oscar for THE DEPARTED. Please keep that in mind for later. Then Robinson does something which completely reveals to any person who knows anything about film, that he is answering his own question as to why we have no screenwriting stars -- he quotes from Dennis Heaton who has a film called FIDO (bombing soon at a theatre near you). Now why does this give away Robinson’s cluelessness on this issue? Why, it’s because Heaton wrote Fido as part of a team with a writer-director named Andrew Currie (and a third writer by the name of Chomiak). What’s wrong with that? Well I’ll tell you in a minute -- keep this in mind for later, too. And then Robinson goes on to promote a Sundance-type lab for screenwriters, and later a Fujifilm/Greenberg development deal. Once again, missing the elephant in the room.

So what is this elephant in the room that nobody is talking about? Well, it is the Auteur Writer-Director model which is so deeply ingrained in Canadian film decision makers and, apparently, writers reporting on Canadian film, that they can’t see it. Scorsese didn’t co-write the script for THE DEPARTED and takes no credit for it. He rarely has any writing credits, and functions as a Director, not a writer-director. Then look at Dennis Heaton. He’s just one of the crowd in the FIDO thing. Andrew Currie is the standard Canadian writer-director type. Like most writers in Canada, Heaton is going to have to attach himself lamprey-like to Currie or another writer-director to get another feature film made in this country. That’s the model expected of screenwriters who aren’t writer-directors in Canada. And the Sundance-type lab for screenwriters? Doesn’t Robinson realize that’s an incubation model for writer-directors? Obviously not.

Then Robinson makes the obvious observation that 25% of the WGC makes their living in the US. The solutions to fix this problem is more dramatic TV and more movies made, those interviewed say. So the answer to the lack of star screenwriters is that there isn’t enough work to keep talent in the country? Maybe, but that’s only half the problem -- and it’s the half that would be solved in due course if you fixed the other half of the problem.

The solution is to change the failed philosophy of the Writer-Director Auteur Model built into English Telefilm’s decision-making and their staff. You have to make Canadian film project driven, not director driven. To tell you what’s wrong just consider this: Where’s the spec script market in Canada? Answer: There is none! And what chance do writers writing only have to see their work end up on screen anything like they wrote it, if they must attach themselves to a writer-director who has disproportionate power to make anything they want of the finished film? This is how you pretty much stomp out any spec script industry in Canada. Why do they suppose Telefilm’s Screenwriting Assistance Programme has been such a failure? Between the writer-director auteur promotion by Telefilm over the years, and the indifference by producers who recognized that Telefilm backed directors over projects, while having their own “great ideas”, it had no chance of developing home grown Canadian screenwriting stars.

Now look at Robinson’s list of “Canadian screenwriting stars” and reflect on his choices. How many of his idea of “screenwriting stars” are Writer-Directors? Well, Arcand, Polley, Kwan, Virgo, McGowan -- damn, that’s 5 out of the 10 as pure Writer-Director Auteur. So who’s left? Heaton is a co-writer lackey with a writer-director auteur like many Canadian screenwriters, while Gullucio had his play written into a movie by some writer-director auteur. So we’re left with 3 out of 10 actual Screenwriters -- who are not Writer-Directors or had their work adapted by one, or are functioning as lampreys attached to one, on Robinson’s list: Morais, Zmak, and Scott.

So, here is the problem, brought into focus by examining critically the writing of somebody who appears to be on the side of the Screenwriter with his heart in the right place, and recognizes the importance to increased Canadian films success, but isn’t aware of, or willing to admit to, The Elephant In The Room.

A Shining Truth at a Shining Genies

2007-02-13T22:18:00.000-05:00

What a happy night for Canadian Cinema this one was compared to past Genies award ceremonies. I am happy to see BON COP, BAD COP and THE ROCKET take awards. This is the kind of thing Canada needs. Not dreary, pseudo-auteur failures like old cross-eyes Don McKellar and buddies patting themselves on the back for throwing away millions making boring films Canadians hate, year after year. Nope. We had real winners this night.

What a fantastic quote from producer Patrick Roy:

“The successes that we've had in Quebec in the past were really because we were making films for Quebec people," he said. "The biggest mistake we can make is to try to do what Americans are doing. If we start making movies for Canadians, I think they'll go see them, but it's going to take a few successes in a row. People will realize that Canadian movies can be successful and they'll go see them."

This is exactly what I pound on about here. You’ll notice I’ve emphasized the key lessons. You see how this works? To make successful films, you must make them for an audience -- a substantial audience. In this case, for the people who are paying for them.

No, it's not about creating a fake Canadian star system. We can't compete with the American celebrity machine. No, it's not about pushing existing failed auteur filmmakers on the public with massive advertisement and marketing. No, it's not about endlessly supporting "made men/women" filmmakers regardless of project quality.

Mr. Roy pointed out the obvious tonight. It was a solid gold formula that‘s as plain as the snow that‘s falling tonight. Is Telefilm listening?

Telefilm's 1990's Policy and George Bush's Iraq War and Other Modern Disasters

2007-01-30T21:46:00.000-05:00

I’ve gotten some email recently, overwhelmingly positive for the most part, but I did receive one that I found particularly flawed in its thinking. However, it demonstrates a very common mode of thinking which is the norm when it comes to the weak arguments put forward in an attempt to defend our Canadian filmmaking failures. “Apologists” is a word that comes to mind. Here is the email in its entirety:

In your latest essay (January 10, 2007), you seem to
be claiming that the Canadian government should only
fund "genre" movies. What kind of culture would we
have if we only fund popcorn movies? A strong culture
makes a balance between popular and artistic culture.
Would you really want movies like "Trailer Park Boys"
to be nominated at the Genie Awards for best film of
the year? Many countries make art movies that are
popular with audiences.

As for your argument that Canadian culture "hates"
Atom Egoyan, Don McKellar, Bruce McDonald etc. etc.,
it should be pointed out that the typical Canadian
"art" film is poorly advertised and distributed. You
should wait until these kind of movies get the
publicity and distribution they need before you can
claim that Canadian culture "hates" them.

K.S.

In response, it seems that some clear-minded examination is in order. When we “do the work” and really examine the facts and reasoning, we see how this doesn’t make any sense when put in context with film history.

First, it makes the automatic connection that genre films are popcorn movies. In fact, genre films are simply films which have an identifiable audience because they have identifiable traits. However, they are hardly “popcorn movies” by default in some derogatory sense. On the contrary, the finest films ever made are clearly genre films. CITIZEN KANE is a biopic. THE GODFATHER is a crime film. THE SEVEN SAMURAI is a, well, samurai film -- a very popular Japanese genre. If one wanted to, one could go down the list of, say, the American Film Institute’s Top 100 greatest films and, with little trouble at all, identify which genre these genre films came from.

Go ahead, take a look. Which film is from the war genre, or the coming of age genre, or adventure, or horror, or black comedy, or, or… ?

And do something else while you’re at it: consider how each of these films did financially. And ask yourself why they did well financially. The inevitable answer is that they almost all cleaned house at the box office because they were superb films that also had an identifiable audience. And they had an identifiable audience because they were genre films.

Second flaw in this person’s thinking also demonstrates a very common and troubling flaw: that there is some sort of natural separation which must exist between popular and artistic culture. As the AFI list above demonstrates, this is ridiculous when it comes to considering the most expensive art form.

There is a truism in all modern art forms, and we would all do well to consider it. It occurs everywhere in example. Take painting. Back in the mid 1800’s, the French Salon held dominion, making pretentious works and promoting artists which few recognize today. Meanwhile, the impressionist guys where busy painting every day popular scenes in a fresh exciting way, which would appeal to a large audience. Who won out? And consider the story of Van Gogh. A common genre fanatic in taste himself, he purposely signed his work with his first name so that the average person would feel comfortable with his work.

The third flaw present in the email demonstrates that the author doesn’t understand the irony in his argument. He is unaware that Art House is a genre as well. It began, most would agree, with Bergman’s THE SEVENTH SEAL back in 1957. Some might argue it was the BICYCLE THEIF that kicked it off, but really that belonged to the Social Realist genre. At any rate, a new genre called Art House was born and flourished through the 1960’s. The French New Wave, the Italian New Wave were both sub-genres of the genre.

I’m not going to go through the whole genesis of it all, but simply put, it was where the concept of the Director as Auteur was born. It remains the high point for the Baby Boomer Generation. It’s what they remember seeing in college and studying if they went to film school. For them, the Art House or Auteur Genre is the thing to shoot for. And as Canada has chosen socialized film-making, run of course by Baby Boomers, this is what we’ve gotten.

And this is why Canadian film has been a culture of failure.

You see, back then there was a substantial audience for that then fresh new genre. But in the Canadian case, we see that when you try and pretend you’re something you’re not, the films end up being weak attempts at being like something else. I am reminded of many essays and interviews with Canada’s biggest failed filmmaker, Atom Egoyan. He constantly pointed out how he doesn’t make genre films in those interviews from way back when. He attempted to make a case about how he doesn’t like formula, and genre is weak filmmaking, and on and on. Well, not only does this demonstrate he didn’t understand that the Art House film is a genre, but as we can see in his more recent films like FELICIA’S JOURNEY (serial killer genre), ARARAT (historical drama genre), or WHERE THE TRUTH LIES (mystery genre), he has absolutely no clue about how to handle any genre. Gee, why did the guy who made all these rambling and opaque arguments against genre films (while making films in the Art House genre), turn to make genre films and fail so badly at it? Is it because he’s more a poseur than a filmmaker? And a poseur who can’t see the irony in how hypocritical he has been?

And the fourth and final flaw, getting back to the email, comes in the second paragraph. The writer attempts to make the tired argument that Canadian films have failed primarily because Egoyan, McKellar, and the rest never got the exposure they needed for Canadians to fall in love with them. Or something like that.

Well, we can look at the history of the American Independent film boom in the 1990’s to see where that argument falls apart. Look at all those great movies that came out in the 1990’s from America. Look at all those guys who came out of nowhere with low budget (sometimes micro-budget) cool movies that rocked Hollywood starting around 1990 though to 1999. In fact, most of the top filmmakers in Hollywood all came out of that decade. Raimi, Aronofsky, Tarantino, Smith, Rodriguez -- the list can go on for a couple dozen names. And all of them made their first films with very little money at all, risking it all, and scoring at the newly emerged force of The Film Festival. The Americans were not alone: many English and some German names also come to mind as part of the cool 90's indie film gold rush.

Why did those people all succeed in making culturally relevant and popular money-making films and the Canadian crew fail so badly? After all, the Canadian guys had government backing. A force at places like Sundance. A presence at Cannes. Those American nobody indies had nobody. They made it, and they made it big time, because they were not handcuffed to a fantasy notion that culture and popular culture are separate. Nor did they hate genre films or look down on them and hold up some 1960’s director as auteur model as the thing to emulate.

It is impossible to know how many indie film Canadian superstars might have emerged if they were not shut out of the Telefilm’s pompous “high culture auteur” anti-genre mandate that blindly backed Egoyan and his failed generation of filmmakers back then in the late 80‘s onward. Certainly we know what happened to the best in front of the camera talent in Canada -- they fled south and many became A list stars. Unlike the behind the camera people, actors may struggle, but they don’t have to raise a million bucks to get a role.

What we do know is that the policy failed. Not many big distributors stepped up at the films festivals, enormous cheques in hand, and then promoted Canadian films across the world including Canada. They couldn't. Art House is a difficult genre to promote in recent decades, and the attempts at it coming from Canada were really pretentious and boring and nothing like as interesting and innovative as the European originals.

We can only hope that Telefilm has changed and is more prone to back films that Canadians would like to see, rather than crazily supporting filmmakers that Canadians ignore and hate.

We can only hope that we hear less about the crazy idea that Canada should promote a “star system” to help improve things. Or that we should give millions more to our colossal track record failures to make yet another “cultural” film, but this time we need to follow that up with more millions to promote it. As if that’s the big key to success -- more money rather than realistic strategy. Hey, George Bush is on the phone -- he’s got a war he’d like to sell you.

New Year, New Genies, New Hope -- and a Common Sense Plea

2007-01-10T21:52:00.000-05:00

(Halifax) It’s an interesting dilemma this year at the Genie awards. Think about this impossible scenario: some Canadians have actually seen the films nominated for awards.

W.T.F. ???

Yes, as hard as it is to believe, some of the films up for the major awards were films that Canadians actually went out to see. Canadian tax-payers, the people paying for Telefilm, actually rewarded Telefilm’s policy of promoting viable films. Films which are culturally viable. Meaning films that are a part of culture, because Canadians embrace them as their own.

This is a point that cannot be stressed enough, and contrasted enough, with what came before. So let’s make this really simple and straight forward for everybody so that they understand the point. I’ll put it in capital letters.

CANADIAN CULTURE LOVES = BON COP, BAD COP, THE TRAILER PARK BOYS, THE ROCKET and other genre movies that are distinctly Canadian including many genre films in our history made by guys like DAVID CRONENBERG! This is true over all our history. They vote for them with their box office dollars. They vote for them with their TV ratings. IT IS OBVIOUS WHAT IS CANADIAN CULTURE.

CANADIAN CULTURE HATES = ATOM EGOYAN, DON MCKELLAR, BRUCE MCDONALD, PATRICIA ROZEMA, and all the rest of the poseurs and obscure film festival “darlings“. Canadians hate these bastards. They don’t patronize their films and see them as jokes. They have made Canadian film the laughing stock it is today among Canadians. IT IS OBVIOUS THESE PEOPLE HAVE NO PLACE IN CANADIAN CULTURE AND SHOULD NOT BE SUPPORTED WITH ANOTHER SINGLE PENNY OF CANADIAN TAX-PAYER MONEY.

Is there any mystery then, recognizing these undeniable truths, that the Genies have been viewed as pointless by Canadians? The pinnacle in uselessness being a Genies award show hosted with Atom Egoyan’s pompous unibrow war-pig wife. Who is going to watch that? NOBODY.

I apologize to intelligent readers who already “get” the obvious and don’t need all the capitals of this entry. Canadian film has, and always has had, so much potential. Telefilm the same. It is an institution with a noble mandate: enable the creation of Canadian culture. It is such a tragedy that that has happened so little before 2006. One can only hope that maybe, just maybe, the powers that be will look upon the Genies this year and something will “click” in their minds. Shockingly, there might actually be an audience -- a small one -- for this awards show this year. Will that be enough for the switch to be turned on in the heads of the people who make the decisions with our money?

How Telefilm is Missing the Contemporary Multiplatform Mark

2006-12-18T19:21:00.000-05:00

(Toronto) While at first left wondering what place Telefilm had in involving itself in the video game arena with the recently announced video game competition it does, on reflection, make some sense on principle.

Yes, video games are typically devoid of any cultural significance except on the most superficial level -- especially in this era when none are really cutting edge phenomenon. It wasn’t always the case. There are no Space Invaders or Donkey Kongs or Pacman games coming out in this era. And this is something to ponder. Those ancient games were unlike anything else in their time period and became icons. It was due to their originality and unique niche they created for themselves. Today, virtually all the computer games are highly derivative knock-offs of rip-offs based on sequels to feature films which were an imitation of something else. We did have Sim Earth and a few others in the relatively recent past, and a handful of others. But the overwhelming majority are not innovative in the least. And are at their weakest at the storytelling level -- which is why they always make such horrible feature film adaptations.

So, considering these things, it’s clear that Telefilm should concentrate on its supposed mandate and focus on winners for such a competition based on originality and especially original storytelling. By that meaning a story culturally significant to Canadians, without being overtly pretentious and unconvincing. A tall order.

But here’s the better, obvious plan. And I see no mention of it from Telefilm in their literature. Perhaps its there, but I don’t see it. Telefilm should be concentrating its efforts on multiplatform media releases. The video game version would be part of an overall package, which includes the feature film release and print and internet content. This is where entertainment is now.

However it would never fly with Telefilm, this intelligent contemporary approach to Canadian culture. It will remain hopelessly grounded, based on what we see them pursuing currently. The feature film projects being green lit for English Canadian film are more of the same director driven, and familiar “established” loser production company driven, projects that have bombed so hopelessly for a decade and a half or more. The new lists for films to be financed by Telefilm for 2007 release could easily be switched with a list from 1997. Instead of picking projects based on “the project”, focus remains on rewarding the usual suspects who the Canadian public have rejected so many times in the past, and following the misguided star of 1960’s auteur cinema as the model for current socialist cinema in Canada. Ignoring the fact that those guys back then were able to make film after film because there actually was an audience for what they were doing back then, and their films made a profit -- which is not the case today. Hell, there's even a new generation of groomed "auteur" directors being rewarded for writing their own audience-less material for the tiny "off-shore" film festival crowd. It's sad.

So Telefilm is not misguided in pursuing the video game angle. Nor are they misguided in pursuing the funding of some internet “new media”. Where they are missing the mark, is that they retain the same faulty thinking which has crippled English Canadian Telefilm since its inception when it comes to viable cultural product -- ie. product the culture of the country embraces as its own. Who can say when that will change?

Look, Tiny Tim: The Canadian Film 2006 "Top Ten"

2006-12-13T12:51:00.000-05:00

(Vancouver) The “Top 10” of Canadian Film for 2006 has been chosen. Courtesy of the TIFF Group. A quick Google search will reveal a list predictable and disheartening, as these list usually are. There’s one dramatic feature which is not too bad and has a little bit of appeal. There’s a couple of very earnest documentaries. And then the bulk of the list is filled out with pretentious art house style junk which certainly isn’t art, nor is it made for any discernible audience outside of the tiny group of faux intellectuals (or perhaps pseudo-intellectuals is a more accurate term?) who huddle around together patting themselves on the back, throwing away millions and millions of tax-payer dollars, year after year. All the while pointing a finger at big bad Hollywood as the reason nobody goes to see their films.

Notable about the list is the lack of “big name” Canadian filmmakers. That’s a big plus for Canadian film’s direction. You know, Egoyan comes to mind. Or Lantos, or a few others. The usual suspects who have sucked so many untold millions out of taxpayers in the name of “Canadian Culture” and produced film after film, year after year, which Canadians hate. Certainly Canadians look at their garbage as anything but Canadian Culture. It’s not embraced by Canadians as their own, that’s for sure. Unfortunately, Lantos has another hopeless bomb in the wings with “Fugitive Pieces” and Egoyan is hiding out at the U of T until the ill-wind blows over and maybe Canadians will never notice the $40 million or so thrown away on his boring pretentious flops. Hey -- when exactly are Lantos and Egoyan going to start paying back all those millions in government loans and public investments? Maybe Egoyan should sell his Land Rover?

But what is disheartening is that some obscure filmmaker once again pulled the old Canadian funding trick and placed old cross-eyes Donnie McKellar in as the star of his film Monkey Warfare. This was done solely to get Telefilm production funding and the “stamp of approval”. This list of really awful Canadian films that have starred the feeble actor is long and sad. All of them complete disasters, with one grating third-rate Peter Sellers on cough syrup “performance” after another. But, he’s one of the Canadian Film Illuminati. A made man. The kicker? He’s going to star in yet another pretentious go-nowhere film he wrote in the not too distant future. And we, my friends, will be throwing millions down the shoot for more faux Canadian Culture staring the faux Canadian star, Don “Old Cross-eyes” McKellar.

Other low points include the lack of inclusion of Bon Cop, Bad Cop on the list. Sorry to burst your bubbles, but Trailer Park Boys hasn’t come close to breaking even and is not a runaway hit. Although it is a decided move in the right direction. Bon Cop, Bad Cop did a lot more original things and was far more interesting. And it was a genuine hit film. That’s reality.

And where’s this stupid pet zombie movie, Fido? It’s not on the list? Canadians dropped $11 million on this also-ran Shaun of the Dead. Not good enough to be on this list? Geez, that really doesn’t signal good things for this film. Or maybe it does? The group of people who have been given credit for this list have a track record of being completely clueless with regard to Canadian film decision-making. Everyone of them with a really dark past of public fund waste. So maybe that means it’s worth checking out? You wouldn’t think so reading about it. It sounds like an awful riff in Dead Alive/Shaun/ a thousand other tired zombie comedies sub-genre.

And lastly, there is the wet stain of Sarah Polley. Super-activist. So super left wing hardcore she was ex-communicated from the NDP (seriously). Child star who never had to get a real job and knows very little about every day Canadians. Her “actor’s film” is on the list, of course. It’s oh so “Canadian” in its dreariness and lack of audience. What makes it all so distressing, is that once we get rid of a hackauteur like Egoyan, he’s replaced by a future repeat siphon for Canadian taxpayer dollars like Polley. There seems no escape. No doubt, she already at work at her next project. Her funding for next year squirreled away by Wayne Clarkson before Telefilm even gets any allotment from the government. Likely while she jets around to film festivals, paid for by Telefilm, for her film which was ruthlessly and expensively promoted by Telefilm to be in those festivals. The film a few hundred Canadians might go see in the theatre and rent. A few hundred, tops.

Merry Christmas, English Canadian Film. May God, if there is one, help the sad orphan that is English Canadian Film.

CRTC, Please Observe Reality

2006-12-03T19:22:00.000-05:00

(Ottawa) CRTC meetings over the past week fell off the national media radar quickly, but the questions linger for anybody who cares about this multi-billion dollar industry which has been so badly mismanaged in terms of federal subsidies and investment. And, very likely, the situation will become more hopeless when the CRTC makes its changes in the next year.

Why? It’s both simple and not so simple. Simple because it is obvious that changes must be made. Not so simple because the CRTC appears to be driven by a confused mode of thinking. Somehow, through convoluted logic, they appear to believe that the key to a thriving Canadian TV industry is to empower broadcasters to do whatever they propose that they need to do to be “competitive”.

Now, it’s not so hard to see that the CRTC has been assuming that Canadian broadcasters are functioning in a free market economy and that assuring strong competitive rules enabling profits for such a market ensures a strong industry. Oh boy, oh boy, this is where the big mistake is made.

Canadian broadcasters have not been operating in a free market economy for decades. They are beneficiaries of non-stop subsidies and government-funded production money for all that time. They don’t have to deal with the real world like US broadcasters do -- operating in a real free market economy. Canadian broadcasters leach off of the Americans, getting their best shows for relatively little money and, when forced into providing the miniscule amount of Canadian TV content they are obligated to provide (an insanely miniscule amount, beyond any good sense), they lean on the Canadian tax-payer for the major portion of financing. Hell, they won’t even develop a show without Telefilm money for the most part! It’s a complete joke, welfare system that has developed. And it’s a welfare system for billionaire corporations buying each other out like rich piranhas! Only in Canada, you say? Yes, only in Canada.

I outlined the obvious solutions to enable a Renaissance in Canadian TV in my last entry: IF I RAN THE ZOO (AND THE CRTC). I’m certain none of my suggestions will be enacted. Even though the Canadian taxpayer would come out kings and queens with an empire of quality Canadian TV on par with the best in Britain after a year or two shakedown, as pressure comes properly on the Canadian broadcasters to earn their keep.

Oh well, it will be interesting and likely depressing to observe the CRTC’s decisions. One can only hope they are able to see the big realistic picture, rather than some idealized fantasy which does not exist. I doubt it.

If I Ran The Zoo (and the CRTC)

2006-11-27T16:43:00.000-05:00

(Ottawa) If I ran the zoo, what would I do, Magoo? Why I’d fix the CRTC’s problems in a few quick strokes, and with it the problems of CBC and ACTRA and all of those folks.
Big meetings going on this week. CRTC suddenly woke up and realized that their policies have destroyed English Canadian Television, after bowing down to the corporations and their scary, backstabbing cutthroat executives who stuff their pockets with millions in revenue and subsidies by just picking up and recycling US shows.
Plus there’s the whole HDTV thing, which is a very real issue that hasn’t exactly just landed from space, but it seems like it has to the people at the CRTC, who in press releases seem to view it as breaking news.
Okay, let’s start with CBC:
CBC’s really screwed. They were formed as a Canadian version of BBC. So what’s happened? Well, BBC rocks, and CBC crocks. And now you’ve got that screw job Stursberg in there trying to make it “commercial”. Meanwhile, his Telefilm “commercial” plans tanked big time and weren’t made to function until he quit and left to go to CBC! Wrong guy for that job, eh what? And then poor CBC’s got the HDTV thing to deal with. Wow.
Okay, here’s how you fix CBC’s problems. Refocus on the successful BBC model, dummies! First move: TAX HDTVs. That’s right. Tax every damn HDTV that gets sold in Canada from now on, and put that money into the CBC. I mean, how the hell do you think the BBC is funded? Everybody is soon going to be buying HDTVs, it is a bonanza of money for the CBC to get back on its feet again, isn’t it? Then fire Stursberg and Fred Fuchs. These people have no business being in the public broadcasting business. Replace them, and retire most of the CBC old guard and put some new, cool people in there in their 30’s and 40’s, for gosh sakes. Their mandate: make the CBC as cool and vital as the BBC, or you’re fired! And make it internet friendly and popular and Canadian -- or you’re fired! Here’s a two year contract. Succeed or be, you guessed it, fired.
Okay, okay. CRTC can’t do all that, I guess. But those are the solutions to those issues.
Now the big non-CBC issue. Canadian drama is something the Canadian “commercial” networks don’t produce unless they can get Telefilm money to make it with. And we’re talking about development, the whole works! That’s the unfortunate truth about it. And if Telefilm won’t fund it, it gets dropped tout suite. The only exception is the temporary production they get forced into when they open new stations or buy each other out. One shot deals.
But then, to make it hopeless, the CRTC lets them get away with murder with insanely loose Canadian content rules which are supposed to exist so that Canadian TV gets made, so that Canadian stories get told. It’s at a state where Global came into the CRTC meeting wanting infomercials listed as Canadian Content. It has become that brazen.
Well, ACTRA has an okay proposal based on what I’ve read of it. But it’s extremely conservative. Only 7% of ad revenue to Canadian drama and two hours more of Canadian drama in real prime time. I would guess it must mean two more hours a week for each broadcaster. Which means two one hour dramas, potentially. Small potatoes. Especially considering how some of these weasels at places like CHUM and GLOBAL handle “Canadian drama”. They’ll make 6 episodes if possible and rerun them endlessly, or they’ll make nonsense like TRAIN 48 or whatever the hell that show was, that cost about $50 and episode and looked it and nobody watched.
No, the CRTC needs to go hardball on these people. Don’t worry, they’ll survive. Like cockroaches. Every network should be required to add at least one hour of Canadian made dramatic television in "real prime time" every night of the week. And there must be a regulation that each episode must only be rerun once! And no, Telefilm isn’t going to pay for it. In fact, there must be a regulation that Telefilm cannot increase its television funding activities. No extra subsidies. Imagine what will happen! The Canadian commercial networks will suddenly find themselves -- POW! -- in the commercial network business! Forget about the 7% ad revenue proposal thing. They’re gonna have to spend as much as it takes to function as a commercial network, which means they have to produce shows that people watch, and therefore advertisers will pay for. Simple logic.

Follow these suggestions, powers that be, and the result is INSTANT RENAISSANCE in Canadian TV and related internet and new media run-offs. Both at the CBC and at the other broadcasters. Give it a couple of years to find its feet, and then look out. But nobody’s going to take these bold steps to make Canada a dramatic TV (and related new media) powerhouse. It will remain a zoo, and I’m not running it.

AT TELEFILM, SAY HELLO TO THE NEW BOSS, SAME AS THE OLD BOSS (and say goodbye to any hope for English Canadian Film)

2006-11-16T09:35:00.000-05:00

(Toronto) There has been a lot of talk at Telefilm these days about the plan to increase English Canadian films at the Canadian box office. This approach started with the previous Telefilm Executive Director, and resulted in a bunch of misfires that were knock-offs of bad American films. For example FOOLPROOF or GOING THE DISTANCE. Complete crap.

Now they’ve had a New Boss for a couple of years at Telefilm in the form of Wayne Clarkson. The first year and a half under him were hopeless disasters for English Canadian film. For example WHERE THE TRUTH LIES or CHILDSTAR.

However, over the past year, a lot of things have developed that brought some hope. And really, all those awful English Canadian films were probably well in the pipeline before Wayne Clarkson arrived, and their approval was by committee. In the past year, many cross-country tours have occurred, lots of focus group meetings, reports, ideas and input gathering. And Wayne Clarkson even did away with the committee system, putting himself in charge as the Film Czar of Canada, with complete decision-making power over what English films would go ahead with production and what would not. Like an old time movie mogul. The whole thing was highly publicized in uproarious articles in all the major papers and even a cover feature Macleans article.

In an earlier article, my attention having been drawn to these unprecedented events, I kept watch on what he would do like a lot of people. All those millions for English Canadian film, and now one guy decides! Well, now fully 11 months into 2006, we have our first English Canadian feature film production decision of this calendar year. I clicked on the Telefilm news release: Read the release >>
and had a look to see what was going to be produced this year, the year when things seemed to get rolling at least a little with Trailer Park Boys and, though only half in English, Bon Cop, Bad Cop, seeming to shine some hope for Canada. Now what did Wayne Clarkson choose to follow them up?

Somebody hit me with a hammer. Every single one of them a dreary, hopeless Canadian tragi-comedy or a tedious auteur driven snooze-fest. It’s just all so depressingly out of touch with the new stated goals of Telefilm, “to grow English Canadian film popularity“, it’s stunning.

Here’s his picks for English Canadian production money. Virtually nobody is going to go see these films. You could fit them on a list from 1996 instead of 2006. Nothing has changed:

Regional production projects
Atlantic region
Pushing Up Daisies (Producers: Standing 8 Productions - Chaz Thorne, Bill Niven, John Watson, Pen Densham; Writer/Director: Chaz Thorne) is the story of Oliver Zinck and how his life changes when he inherits a Nova Scotian funeral home from his estranged father. Completely in debt, Oliver discovers that by creating corpses in his own way and then providing funeral services, he can make some fast cash. Pushing Up Daisies is a dark comedic exploration of the depths of greed, ambition and desire.
Ontario & Nunavut region
Amal (Producer: Rickshaw Films Ltd. - Executive Producers: Robin Cass, Peter Starr, Producers: David Miller, Steven Bray; Writer: Shaun Mehta and Ritchie Mehta; Director: Ritchie Mehta ) is a based on the short film by Shaun Mehta of the same name and tells the story of an auto rickshaw driver, who attempts to do the right thing following a tragic incident with a young beggar girl.
Breakfast With Scot (Producer: Miracle Pictures Inc. - Paul Brown; Writer: Sean Reycraft; Director: Laurie Lynd) is a contemporary comedy about a 'straight' gay couple whose lives are turned upside down when they become the reluctant, temporary guardians of Scot, a recently orphaned and flamboyant 11-year-old boy.
Young People F*!@king (Producers: Copperheart Entertainment - Steve Hoban; Tracey Boulton; Writer: Martin Gero & Aaron Abrams; Director: Martin Gero) is a wickedly funny sex comedy about five twenty-something couples who, over the course of one night in Toronto, try to have some seemingly straightforward sex but run into problems along the way.
Western region
Normal (Producer: Normal Film Company Inc. - Andrew Boutilier; Writers: Travis McDonald, Carl Bessai; Director: Carl Bessai) An accident in the past causes ripples of tragedy in the lives of the people connected to it, in particular the victim's bereaved mother, his best friend, and the middle aged man responsible for the crash. Normal explores the fragility and humanity of people who are searching for redemption.
Walk All Over Me (Producer: Chaos A Film Company - Carolyn McMaster; Writers: Robert Cuffley, Jason Long; Director: Robert Cuffly) is a darkly comedic thriller laced with love, latex and empowerment. Alberta, a twenty-something cashier, moves to Vancouver into the home of her former babysitter (dominatrix-for-hire Celene) and rescues a handsome "john" accused of stealing a fortune from his crooked boss/ex-best friend.

National production projects
Québec region
Emotional Arithmetic (Producers: Production Arithmetic Québec inc. - Suzanne Girard, Arithmetic Ontario Productions inc. - Anna Stratton; Writers: Jefferson Lewis, Paolo Barzman; Director: Paolo Barzman) Melanie Winters returns home from the mental institution to play hostess to two childhood friends who bring with them memories of their internment in concentration camps as teenagers.
Ontario & Nunavut region
All Hat (Producer: New Real Films Inc. - Jennifer Jonas; Writer: Brad Smith; Director: Leonard Farlinger ) is based on Brad Smith's novel of the same name and tells the story of Ray Dokes, a charming ex-ballplayer, who returns home from jail to discover the rural landscape of his childhood transformed. Ray must find a way to stop Sonny, Ray's nemesis and the spoiled heir to a thoroughbred dynasty, from his grand plan to turn the farmland into a subdivision. One false move and Ray will land back in jail, but he comes up with a plan to stop Sonny and right some wrongs.
Western region
Stone Angel (Producers: Liz Jarvis, Kari Skoglund; Writer/Director: Kari Skoglund) is based on the much-loved and critically acclaimed Margaret Lawrence novel of the same name. Hagar Shipley is aged and ailing - but would rather die than go into a nursing home. The witty, irascible and fiercely proud Hagar, faced with the prospect of a nursing home, sets out on a preposterous journey in search of the safe haven of an abandoned ocean side house she remembers from happier times.

The Co-production Treaty And How It Has Worked For Canadians

2006-11-05T07:43:00.000-05:00

(Toronto) I've been getting a surprizing amount of positive email, regarding a generally "negative" blog. Even I get kind of depressed reading what I wrote sometimes, but it's soon replaced with anger, seeing all those millions that have been funneled into a few key individual's pockets with this odd form of "cultural laundering", at the expense of the positive things which could come of an institution like Telefilm. Telefilm seems on the brink to become viable for English Canadians, thanks to some new leadership -- except that we continue to see horrible set-backs like the TIDELAND disaster. They really, really need to not only embrace new directions and filmmakers, but they also need to abandon the failed filmmakers who have cost so many millions of dollars and made English Canadian film a bad joke with the public, while also taking a hard look at how policies they had employed have not worked, and how they might fix them. I had some email regarding my article on TIDELAND, and received this email from someone who I will call G.W.. It opened up a little investigation for me, this Sunday morning, which led to a typically anger-producing conclusion regarding the state of co-productions:

In one of your essays, you state "Telefilm exists to fund Canadian stories and culture, right? That’s their mandate. Telefilm exists to assist Canadian filmmakers to tell Canadian stories, Canadian writers, Canadian directors. What in hell is going on here? Why did Telefilm fund Tideland?"
The answer is simple. Canada has co-production treaties with many countries, including the UK (Tideland is a Canada-UK co-production). In exchange for getting foreign funding for some Canadian films, Telefilm will fund foreign productions.

Well, of course that is the concept involved behind their co-pro treaties, I’m well aware of that, and how that was implemented to film TIDELAND. It was more of a rhetorical question which, hopefully, would open up a desire for a little closer examination and inquiry by readers as to how exactly that approach is paying off in obtaining the goal of Telefilm’s mandate. In other words, are we succeeding in promoting Canadian culture by paying for much of the budgets of other countries films with the Canadian public’s money? Are we scoring more investment from them for our films, which should be telling Canadian stories by Canadian filmmakers (ie. Canadian culture)?
It’s a complex question, but it’s not that hard to get a general idea by looking at some simple stats and reflecting on the films created which were promoting Canadian culture, and how successful they were with Canadian audiences (the undeniable, inescapable judge of what Canadian films are accepted as Canadian culture, and alternatively what Canadian culture rejects and disowns).
I’ve limited my selection of stats only to UK-Canada official co-productions over the past 3 years:
TIDELAND (British director, American author)
55% Canadian ($7-million Telefilm Investment)
45% UK
PEARL STREET BRIDGE A.K.A CHAOS (American Director, Writer)
59% Canadian (no recorded Telefilm investment)
41% UK
RIVER KING (British director, American author)
48% Canadian ($2.2-million Telefilm Investment)
52% UK
WHERE THE TRUTH LIES (Canadian Director, American author (based on))
73% Canadian ($15.5-million Telefilm investment)
27% UK
WITHIN (American, British, Other)
23% Canadian (no recorded Telefilm investment)
36% UK
41% Other
BUTTERFLY ON A WHEEL (British director, British writer)
45% Canadian (no recorded Telefilm investment)
55% UK
THE FLOOD (British director, Canadian writer with unknown other)
24% Canadian (no recorded Telefilm investment)
37% South African
39% UK
NIAGARA MOTEL (Canadian director, Canadian writers)
75% Canadian ($6.8-million Telefilm Investment)
25% UK
ALMOST HEAVEN (Canadian director, Canadian writer)
59% Canadian (72k Telefilm investment)
41% UK
FUNNY FARM (Irish director, writing credits to be determined)
23% Canadian
77% UK
So, of the films made, 4 of the 10 had significant Canadian filmmaker involvement as director or writer. Of those, WHERE THE TRUTH LIES was the most expensive disaster in Canadian film history and told a fictional American story, created originally by an American. While THE FLOOD is an English story taking place in London, and ALMOST HEAVEN is a story set in Scotland! The only actual Canadian story, which is told by Canadian filmmakers, is NIAGARA MOTEL. That’s one out of ten success stories for Canadian culture produced using the co-production concept. Unfortunately it was a complete bomb.
So, the question still stands: What in hell is going on here? Why did Telefilm fund TIDELAND?
I actually think that smartly promoted and carefully chosen international co-productions is a pretty good path to take simply because features are so expensive to make. However, it is painfully obvious looking at just the past three years worth of Telefilm’s Official Co-Productions with just the UK, that Telefilm’s mandate for creating Canadian culture is being very ill-served by the way it has been handled. To say the least.
And that Atom Egoyan and Robert Lantos got $15.5-million of the $32-million put out by Telefilm to play the co-production game to make WHERE THE TRUTH LIES (50% of the government money over the past three years!!!) to tell an American story from an American writer, on which Canadians lost their tax-payer shirts, is extremely infuriating. Oh, I guess that’s why Telefilm blew over $7-million for the TIDELAND disaster: so Lantos and Egoyan could throw away over $15-million of Telefilm money on WHERE THE TRUTH LIES. Now it makes sense.

Examining the Core Reasons Behind the Floundering of the Canadian TV Funding Model on the Eve of the Geminis

2006-11-04T15:27:00.000-05:00

(Toronto) In the absence of any significant news to comment on for several days with regards to the English Canadian film industry, I had thought of commenting on the Gemini awards. However mainstream media, both right and left biased ones, are doing a pretty comprehensive job on putting it in perspective. A very negative perspective, it appears. However, to be fair, and going beyond the first glance, it’s hard to gather a real diversity of opinions because, like so much entertainment news, most of the stories are just cut and paste from one or two sources of information, rather than having an actual entertainment reporter or editor based at the paper write up their coverage. Perhaps there is a more diverse group of opinions to be heard and read regarding the state of English Canadian Television and where it stands and where it is going, or appears to be going?

While I have a keen interest to keep on top of most of what’s going on in Canadian Film, I’m probably not the right person to comment on Canadian Television, based on my hours committed to the box. Personally I spend very little time watching TV because the onslaught of the empty Celebrity Culture Machine from the mega-multi-media corps that has developed in the post-Entertainment Tonight era is so overwhelming and irritatingly omnipresent -- even on what are supposed to be Canadian TV stations.

That said, I have made it a point to watch some Canadian TV. And, unfortunately, when I have tuned in to most new Canadian shows in the past two years or so, they were hopeless disasters like What It’s Like Being Alone or some of the terrible Showcase series -- basically anything but Trailer Park Boys on Showcase has proven to be terrible. Which is odd, because one would think they’d learn from their one success and allow the creators of other new series do their own thing without interference like the people behind Trailer Park Boys were able to do (at least that’s what you read in all the interviews), but Showcase doesn’t seem to have caught on to that and their other products all seem as insincere and as unconvincing as TPB is genuine. Perhaps they’re just empowering the wrong people? I caught a few episodes of Corner Gas. It wasn’t for me, but at least I could see how some people might like it. I could be wrong, but it seems to demonstrate the same aura of sincerity as does TPB. Reading interviews with the creator(s) behind that, it seems to reflect a not dissimilar situation as far as creator control.

If that’s the case with those two shows, this represents a difficult lesson to learn from, or rather something which is difficult to implement for future successes. Looking at the limited commonality of the two shows, and comparing them to the many failed Canadian series that surround them, here’s a model for a successful English Canadian TV series: It has a large populous base for subject matter and setting; it has a genre, but is not a rip-off of an existing identifiable American director or filmmaker or TV series; it doesn’t shove an artificial multi-cultural agenda down peoples throats, but rather it may use a diverse cast/creators mix organically; and the main creators of the show call the shots with minimal input by the broadcaster’s development team to keep it from becoming too safely predictable and manufactured in fabric, thereby preserving a distinctive voice.

The difficulty in implementation emerges because not only does such a model negate much of the input and usefulness of the bureaucracy of both a public broadcaster such as CBC (and Telefilm itself), but it also swings the other way and negates the development team and executives at a broadcaster like CTV, who uses an American-style bureaucracy for its dramatic TV development, which is even compromised further, because they base big decisions in this area on Telefilm’s decisions. Because broadcasters like CTV and Alliance and Global have been enabled by the government to rely so heavily on American programming for their bulk content, because they are also enabled by the government to spend as little as possible out of their big profits on Canadian dramatic television and rely on Telefilm and other tax-payer funded sources instead of themselves and corporate investment, and because they have been enabled not to depend on ratings for those shows for further government hand-outs for new shows developed the same way, the status quo of ineffectively providing Canadian television content is largely preserved.

So how did we get success stories like Trailer Park Boys and Corner Gas in the first place? Seemingly sustainable series that appear to run on their own power of public popularity? Why did they give those creators the chance? Unfortunately, while I think we can pretty effectively draw up a basic model for Canadian TV series success if we’re honest about things, the enabling of effective TV series creators is not so cut and dry and there are many paths to that and examples to reject it as a model, truth be told. For example, Ken Finkelman has had tonnes of chances on CBC, with real empowerment as a creator but his shows, which were okay, had little public acceptance.

Looking at TPB, and seeing how Alliance/Showcase operates, and reading all the articles/interviews that have come my way on it, the filmmakers got the power largely because of two reasons: a) The cast and crew were all there in place and acting as a pretty much uniform force, being mostly long-time friends, and having done a forgettable short film together that got into the Atlantic Film Festival and set up the whole concept before hand. b) The show is made in Nova Scotia and was cheap to make. Therefore, Alliance/Showcase didn’t have to dig very deep into their own pockets at all and could rely on a strongly supportive provincial funding agency and Telefilm to flip the bill for most of it.

Unfortunately therein lies the major, unsavoury truth of the English Canadian Television equation, and points to why things are as they are, overall. These shows only appear to run on their power of public popularity. The truth of why they were made initially and continue on in production, is not so wholesome.

I don’t know exact figures, but I would guess that Alliance/Showcase are still paying only a small fraction for the production of the TPB series, though it is a “success“ that has lasted some five seasons now. And I’d bet anything that if Telefilm and Nova Scotia had decided at, say, the third season to stop funding Trailer Park Boys, then a “success”, Alliance/Showcase would have stopped making it. If Telefilm and Nova Scotia were to withdraw funding for the show right now (perhaps arguing progressively that it is time to look at new potential success stories to fund to join TPB in the Showcase line-up), and point out that Alliance is going to have to operate like any other successful business and fund their own successful product, TPB would be dropped. Count on it. From what anybody can see from their track record, they aren’t any more willing to back Canadian dramatic series than, say, CHUM has been. Though the dramatic development team at CHUM, from the top down, must be the most inept in the world, based on their track record.

And that’s the glass heel that can be broken out from under even the most lauded Canadian TV show success stories: You cut the public funding to produce Corner Gas and Trailer Park Boys and require commercial Canadian Broadcasters to pay to continue to produce their own successful series from their profits, and watch them get cancelled. They don’t have to pay much for success or failure from the ridiculously minimal level of original Canadian dramatic content they must produce because it’s mostly all subsidized, while they enjoy big profits from American TV with zero Canadian culture content. Meanwhile at CBC, they appear to act largely with impunity it seems, and are able to put out show after show with miniscule ratings, answering to themselves. Or so it appears. At least in their favour, until the recent embarrassing talent show thing, they can make some claim towards attempting Canadian culture. However, it appears the pressure is on there these days.

So here’s the English Canadian Television welfare quandary: Culture is only truly created when the culture it’s created for embraces it and accepts it as its own, and continues to be created when the creators embrace it themselves. But when the creators of culture do not truly embrace it, are not required to significantly risk financially for what they create, and rely on the public taxation funding mechanism of the culture in order for it to be created (without which, they willingly let it perish), then there is no naturally sustainable authentic culture being produced.

ThinkFilms Sold: The Canadian Film Distributor Pyrrhic Disaster for Tax-Payers

2006-10-25T16:26:00.000-04:00

(Toronto) Canada’s ThinkFilms Distribution, the boutique film distribution company created and owned by Robert Lantos, was purchased by Los Angeles-based producer David Bergstein who will assemble it as part of a conglomerate. It was purchased, some speculate, with a price between $15-million and $25-million, according to The Globe and Mail today.

Mr. Lantos is subject to a regular pounding on The Canadian Film Insider (along with Atom Egoyan, Don McKellar, and various other individuals), but that is simply a matter of economics. Nobody has thrown away more Canadian tax-dollars on films that Canadians hate and don’t got to see and don’t accept as part of their culture (as is the Telefilm mandate for funding films). He has repaid virtually none of the perhaps $100 million in Canadian funding for his features over the years (this reporter is afrad to even look), and has emerged as Canada’s biggest cultural funding agency leach by an enormous margin. It is impossible to say how many good films that Canadians would enjoy and actually go to see were not made because Lantos scooped his sometimes 50% of English Canadian feature film financing and produced the astronomically bad 1% domestic box office, and often sub-1% record that Telefilm Canada is fingered with. One man is truly responsible for much of that, based on financing figures and economics easily drawn up from the Telefilm investment records by anybody who cares to dig. Yes, accountability is easy when we’re talking about half the money. We can look directly at Robert Lantos for accountability.

Now, let’s move into some speculation. Robert Lantos created Think Films Distribution a few years back. He did it for purely business reasons. He saw that Telefilm had moved in a new direction. It was drifting in mandate and the people running it started to expect that before they handed out the money for a feature to be produced, it would have to have a distributor attached. And they were going to pay out a few million in promotion budgets to those distributors as part of the concept. As no distributor in their right mind would bother with most of Lantos’s disasters, and with the likely concept hatched in his mind that: “Gee, if I am a distributor, then I will see a percentage of those couple of million that Telefilm is suddenly handing out for promotion of films, right off the top, just like I do with my Producer’s Fee right off the top of a film’s budget”, Mr Lantos formed ThinkFilm.

Sure, the last few years have been compete nightmares from a business standpoint if the millions he has sacked from Telefilm for marketing for his failed productions are taken out of the picture. They artificially propped up a failed distribution company that would have gone out of business in any free market economy situation. But Lantos, just last year, pulled in some $6-million plus from Telefilm to finance the failed marketing/distribution of turkeys like WHERE THE TRUTH LIES and BEING JULIA, neither of which succeeded in returning even half their initial investments. Complete bombs, in other words. Suicide for any legitimate free-market distributor, in plain terms.

But, Mr. Lantos did a smart thing. He drew attention to ThinkFilms by signing up a bunch of “controversial” films that drew headlines this year. He downplayed his Canadian failures and the money from Canadian tax-payers which propped up his failed distribution arm which was created to ensure funding for his features. He emphasised the concept that somehow ThinkFilms was edgy American Indy. A happening company. No doubt when he showed the books to Bergstein, he didn’t have to explain the fact that the company got its stay alive funding from Telefilm and the Canadian Taxpayers.

So the questions to come are: Now that ThinkFilm is in American hands, will Telefilm continue to drop millions its way to promote Lantos’s losers? Did Lantos sign an agreement with Bergstein that he must distribute another 100% certain Lantos loser with the upcoming FUGITIVE PIECES (filmed mostly in the Greek Islands, with millions in Canadian tax-payer money)? Most scary of all, will Telefilm start to advance Canadian tax-payer millions in marketing money to ThinkFilms now that its in an American’s hands?

And the big question, on which we can only speculate: Did Robert Lantos sell ThinkFilm because he saw the writing on the wall from Telefilm who is suddenly going to do the right thing and cut him off from funding based on his hopelessly disastrous track record that has cost Canadians so many millions and kept English Canadian film a complete laughing stock with the Canadian Public?

The Canadian Film Insider speculates that the answer is “yes”.

Globe and Mail Misses The Crucial Point of Telefilm's Report

2006-10-21T11:59:00.000-04:00

(Toronto) Today the Globe and Mail has commented on Telefilm’s latest report and offered two brief paragraphs without analysis. For readers of Canadian Film Insider, the basic inescapable conclusions of the document regarding English Canadian film were pretty clear in the article published two days ago: Telefilm's Annual Report: This Much is True... .
But, to quote the Globe and Mail, which is paraphrasing Telefilm:

According to Telefilm, the market share of Canadian English-language films was a paltry 1.1 per cent in 2005-2006, down from the previous year's 1.6 per cent. Their French-language counterparts, by contrast, reached almost a 27 per cent market share, an increase of more than five per cent from 2004-2005. Telefilm blames the imbalance on what it claims are weak relationships and a lack of co-operation among English-language producers, distributors and exhibitors.

Well, now, hold on. Hold it right there. If we’re going to play the blame game, let’s lay the blame where it belongs: right on the doorstep of the people who got the lion’s share of English Canadian Telefilm funding in 2005, and an examination of what they created with the money. Why don’t we call a spade a spade, and recognize that if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and looks like a duck, it’s probably a duck? So let’s look at the ducks, shall we? The ducks who had millions of dollars thrown to them; a virtual carte blanche from Telefilm, They were: Robert Lantos and Atom Egoyan. Added together this pair dropped, respectively, $17-million dollars for Lanto’s BEING JULIA and $14.5-million dollars for WHERE THE TRUTH LIES. With marketing money from Telefilm included. Which can be verified at the Telefilm site under their Investment Report section. The final budgets for these films were higher, because Telefilm funding attracts more money. Being Julia cost $18-million to produce (plus $3.3 million in promotion money from Telefilm and who can say how much elsewhere?) and Truth cost $25-million to produce (plus $4-million in promotion money from Telefilm). Julia grossed $14-million worldwide, which translates to a $7-million return on at least a $21-million dollar investment, while Truth grossed $2.8-million on at least a $29-million dollar investment. All facts from boxofficemojo.com.

Telefilm could not have been paid back a penny from their (our) $31.4-million dollar investment in the work of Robert Lantos and Atom Egoyan. The two key individuals, with a hopeless track record, who were handed half of English Canada’s feature film investment for 2005.

So Canadians were left holding the bag. In fact, Being Julia wasn’t even filmed in Canada as a sort of “make work project”! So did Egoyan and Lantos make money? Of course they did. Lantos and Egoyan made a handsome sum as they scooped lucrative Producer’s Fees. Normally this is 10% of the film’s budget. You can bet most of that $2.5-million from Truth went directly into Lantos and Egoyan's pockets, while Lantos, as the only full producer on Julia, got at least half of the $1.4-million from that film. It’s a great living being failed Canadian filmmakers, isn’t it?
In any other system, they would have been cut off long before that happened. Eliminated from the equation, with the recognition that there is no audience for what they are doing. Certainly Canadians have little interest in their work, and they are therefore contributing nothing to Telefilm’s mandate of creating Canadian Culture. Canadians don’t recognize it as their culture, plain and simple.

TIDELAND: English Director, American Writer, Telefilm Canada Loses $7.6-million

2006-10-20T13:30:00.000-04:00

(Toronto) TIDELAND, the latest misfire from English director Terry Gilliam and based on American author Mitch Cullin’s novel of the same name set in Texas, has recently been released from Capri films and is being savaged by the film critics. But that aside, the worst thing about the film is that it is being trotted out as a shameful Telefilm-funded film by the critics.

I put on the brakes there and backed up, as should anybody reading this. Wait a minute. Telefilm exists to fund Canadian stories and culture, right? That’s their mandate. Telefilm exists to assist Canadian filmmakers to tell Canadian stories, Canadian writers, Canadian directors. What in hell is going on here? Why did Telefilm fund Tideland?

I looked up the film on Telefilm’s website and was astonished to find, in their investment report, that they had spent some (or rather WE had spent ) something like -- what the hell? -- $7,681,913 on this film? Please, somebody check my figures here from the Investment Reports section of Telefilm’s website and typing in the title Tideland in the production title space at the bottom.

http://www.telefilm.gc.ca/01/18.asp

This is completely ridiculous. One can only guess this is a result of Telefilm's Envelope system, but aren't there any restrictions at all on that requiring it be spent on a Canadian film? It’s a disastrous situation when one can imagine that likely the funding for perhaps three or more features created by, written by, and directed by English Canadians, could have been made instead of this? Keeping in mind that $2-million from Telefilm usually triggers equal amounts or more from other sources. Speaking of which, it will be horrifying to see how much money came out of Provincial Ontario and Saskatchewan’s money towards financing.

I have yet to see it, and doubt I will bother as I find Gilliam’s love affair with the fish-eye lens extremely annoying and believe he’s the most over-rated director in the history of cinema. Though the Monty sketch comedy style stuff is certainly funny. But the only joke is on us here.

People need to be held accountable for this. It is reprehensible enough to have Canadian producers like Robert Lantos hanging out on yachts in the Greek islands filming his latest non-Canadian Telefilm-funded disaster like he did this summer, but this is beyond even that, incredibly enough.

The real potential tragedy here is that people with the power to do something will interpret this wrong. They may just see it as gruesome “horror movie” with no redeeming features and that Telefilm shouldn’t be funding genre films. That’s where this film has the potential to become a double edge sword. OF COURSE Telefilm should be funding genre films. Canadians love genre films. The big successes in English Canadian film’s history that English Canadian audiences embraced were genre films. But now we’ve got an English director who is on a terrible string of disasters, making another pointless film, based on an American’s novel, and this could be more damaging for English Canadian film than just the misguided initial investment. It is bizarre.

Telefilm's Annual Report: This Much is True...

2006-10-19T13:54:00.000-04:00

(Toronto) Wait! Don’t go away! I’m going to make this short, simple, and point out the obvious that you need to know in few paragraphs. YOU paid $400 million for this, don’t you want to know what’s wrong with at least the feature film side of it and why you, the English Canadian public, hate Canadian movies so much? Read on. It’ll only take a couple of minutes to get up to speed on the way things are and how they can be fixed.
Telefilm has released their annual report which reflects on 2005. It is a nice looking package and well designed, with a pleasing “new media” flare. Even the delivery of it is clever, in that one can tailor a specific package for a PDF file that you can download which covers the areas of interest to you. It is available at the Telefilm website or at this address: http://www.telefilm.gc.ca/annual%5Freport/
Needless to say, if you’ve read anything on the Canadian Film Insider, you are well aware that only stare-it-in-the-eyes truth is relayed here. Based on the truth that Canadians are paying for Telefilm, and they need to know where all those $400 million dollars plus is going. Otherwise, it remains some kind of “Black Ops” out of an American conspiracy theorist’s fantasies, doesn’t it? After all, the principles are perversely the same in a way: a government funded industry, of which the public knows very little about, costs them a great deal of money while various shadowy figures earn millions of dollars creating projects nobody sees. Difference is, in Canadian Film, the shadowy figures have publicists, a largely cow-towing print and TV media, and the funding is transparent. Their protection comes not from NSA and CIA and FBI, but from the more powerful force of public apathy.
Okay, let’s cut to the chase. Three things are obvious in this report, and this is pretty much all you need to know about it as far as English Canadian film goes:
1) In a pie chart, we see that Telefilm spent only 1.5% of its film investment on genre films like Horror/Suspense. In the chart on the top 20 Canadian funded movies at the box office here in Canada, we see that nearly 60% of the English Canadian created movie box office came from genre films categorized as Horror/Suspense. So now, putting 1 + 1 together we see that it makes 2. And then if we add most of the top grossing English Canadian films, and most loved Canadian films of all time into this, which are Horror/Suspense Genre films including those from, say, Cronenberg, Canada’s greatest stay-in-Canada director, then 1 + 1 equals 3, doesn’t it? Now, what percentage of the pie chart will be invested in genre films in the coming years by Telefilm? We shall see if a simple lesson is learned here or not in future reports, I suppose.
2) Although it is not obvious in this report without further research, the fact is that the biggest piggy at the trough of Canada’s “Black Ops” is Robert Lantos. He produced the two biggest turkeys in the report with Where the Truth Lies and Being Julia. Together they pulled in $986 thousand at the Canadian Box Office. Together they cost somewhere in the neighbourhood of $10 million dollars in production and marketing expenses out of Public Canada‘s coffers. Their actual total budgets much higher with a total of about $18 million for Being Julia, and $25 million for Where the Truth Lies. Each film failed to even begin to recoup half their budgets in world box office and DVD. Complete disasters. Lantos has been sucking Canadians dry for decades with this kind of nonsense, taking big, fat producer’s fees right off the top of the films’ budget. Good God, will this report finally put an end to backing that son of a bitch with our money?
3) Telefilm sure is pushing the New Media thing in this report and elsewhere. Let us hope that they recognize that most video games have little to do with anything resembling culture at all and are all about visceral thrills for 14 year olds. Almost all are rehashes of sequels of copies of remakes in a genre of one sort or another, and the enjoyment that comes from them comes from learning to play them until the player gets bored, and then they retain no cultural value whatsoever, because they had none to begin with. Very few “Canadian Stories” will come out of backing this avenue that will go anywhere. If Telefilm is smart, they will recognize that New Media from a cultural standpoint is best exploited as a way to promote Feature Films and Broadcast Network TV series and specials. That way, you actually do get Canadian Stories at the core of it all, and can hook a wide audience in interesting, and often cost-effective ways. And, just like savvy entertainment industries from Japan to Hong Kong to India to Hollywood, you can then market video game and New Media tie-ins to your product to soak up the money.
Those are the three points and interpretations to take home from this Telefilm report for those in the know.

Strange Brew Looms Over The Trailer Park Boys

2006-10-16T06:52:00.000-04:00

(Toronto) What happened to The Trailer Park Boys? All that hype put out in the press releases from about its miraculous $1.5 million opening weekend. The big story about it being the biggest opening weekend for Canadian film. Porky’s was beaten, they claimed. Now, looking at the box office for this weekend, it’s completely dropped off the map. Examining the stats, it had a pretty good release number for theatres with over 200 here in Canada. It had a lot of publicity, a lot of coverage, a lot of backing. Few Canadian films have ever enjoyed the kind of decent release that Trailer Park Boys: The Movie did. Not that many deserved it, to be honest.
At the moment, only speculation is possible. Naturally it’s disappointing, as it does stand symbolically as a film against the films that Canadians hate so much from Atom Egoyan and Don McKellar and crew. At least it did mop the floor box office-wise with garbage like Where The Truth Lies or the McKellar fiasco Childstar. But then, anything would with a proper release and some publicity like TPB got. And on the critical front, it certainly seemed to score a lot higher than McKellar and Egoyan’s regular piles.
Critics liked it. Or were the critics just being kind? I mean, they were probably just like me, wanting to like it. Wanting to champion a Canadian film which is actually entertaining and interesting. The people who went to go see it, they wanted to like it I bet. I’m sure a few did. However, it couldn’t have been many as initial theatre goers obviously were not recommending it to others.
And here lies a problem. Critics believing they’re standing up for “what’s right” and all the hype and backing in the world, cannot change fundamental truths. Hyping and inflating box office numbers is pointless. And the TV show is a minor success with viewing numbers only a fraction of what is portrayed by Showcase, if we‘re going to be honest. Re-running a show a half dozen times and trying to claim you’re getting all new viewers each run is a ridiculous lie. The audience was small, if loyal, and they obviously went to the theatres but did little to encourage others.
But where the truth really lies with Trailer Park Boys: The Movie is the point which I made a little while ago with the article Trailer Park Boys: The Movie, a Slim Hope on October 6th. The show doesn’t have the beans to be a feature, and the situation is old and recycled from American pop culture. The stories aren’t strong enough. The most likeable characters in the world can’t change those two things (and Trailer Park Boys does have likeable characters).

You can’t stretch a half hour show like that to feature length and hold an audience without learning from those who have done more with less. Like, say, the prototypical uber-Canadian comedy Strange Brew which ended up with over $8.5 million in box office way back in 1983 and many times that in video. With a budget no larger than Trailer Park Boys (estimated at $4 million to TPB’s $5 million), it was an actual success. Why? Because they had everything TPB lacks. They had a story (adapted from Hamlet, no less), they were original in concept (nothing else like it at the time), and they actually had a successful TV show with a substantial “hard number” audience base to get the ball rolling.

But this doesn't mean I don't want to see more Trailer Park Boys. Let me rephrase that, I don't want to see more Trailer Park Boys movies, but like most all Canadians, I want to see more films like TPB as they are moves in the right direction. ie: no Egoyan, McKellar, or McDonald in sight.

Don McKellar To Star In Blindness

2006-10-12T18:07:00.000-04:00

(Toronto) Rhombus Media recently revealed it plans to shoot Blindness, a US$25-million co-pro, next year in Toronto and Sao Paulo, Brazil. The screenplay comes from the book by reclusive Nobel Prize-winner José Saramago, and will be helmed by director Fernando Meirelles (The Constant Gardener). The company will make Blindness with Potboiler Productions of the U.K., Bee Line Pictures of Japan and Brazil's O2 Filmes.

This makes for a very heady brew of a co-pro, as it will be a Canadian-UK-Japan-Brazil co-ordinated effort. Surprisingly, the film is set to star the writer of the adaptation, Don McKellar. The film comes on the heels of McKellar’s disastrous turn as writer/director/star of the feature Childstar. As had been the case with all previous films staring Canada's ubiquitous fragile actor, Childstar was a $7-million financial and critical misfire and sunk from sight nearly immediately upon release, grossing $50,000 in Canadian theatres, and finding no release in other countries. Previous films starring Don McKellar include Rub and Tug, Art of Woo, The Event, and When Night Is Falling. Television guest spots include RoboCop: The Series.

Bon Cop, Bad Cop: Let's Be Honest, It's A Bomb

2006-10-11T13:46:00.000-04:00

(Toronto) The headlines are blowing the horn of this Quebec feature which has now "surpassed Porky's" and is a "huge hit" and whatnot.

It's all bull.

The film has, to date, made a very handsome-looking $11.5 million Canadian. Of course, 90% of that is in Quebec.

Now, that sounds like a Canadian movie success, right? Well, it is not really. And here's why:Bon Cop, Bad Cop cost $8 million to make. It has cost over $2 million to advertise. It has cost probably at least $1 million for prints and other incidentals that come with releasing a feature, and probably $2 million is a closer guess in that department.

So, the fact is, Bon Cop, Bad Cop cost at least $12 million all together.

Now let's add that to the fact that the standard rule of thumb is that distributors only see 50% of box office take in return -- it's a very complicated formula, usually heavily weighted towards more take in the initial week and less in following weeks, but because it's so variable, the standard for calculation estimates is 50%. The other 50% goes to the theatre owners (exhibitors).

And, by the way, there will be no release of this film anywhere else on the planet, so it will not have anything like a chance at being the super-mega-100-million-dollar plus bonanza of Porky's and its sequels.

Anyways, what we have is about $6 million in the hands of the distributor for Bon Cop, Bad Cop. Now, things get complicated here, and it is really hard to say how much of that they keep, and how much the production company keeps, but, in any realistic model or possible scenario, the distributor will never get less that 50% of their "distributor's gross".

So the producers of Bon Cop, Bad Cop are left with a take of maybe $3 million on a film (so far) which had a budget of $8 million. They are in the hole $5 million for Bon Cop, Bad Cop right now.

But wait, if you're still with me, they aren't really in the hole, you and I the Canadian Tax Payers are in the hole, because it's mostly our money. So we have dished out at least $5 million for this piece of Canadian Culture called Bon Cop, Bad Cop. Probably several million beyond that, because we also flipped the bill for most of the marketing and promotion of it. A conservative esitmate would probably be a total of $7 million.

So Good Cop, Bad Cop has cost Canadians $7 million dollars so far. Which puts it about in league with Men With Brooms, probably. Another "secret bomb" hype job.

But it's a whole lot cheaper than another piece of garbage Atom Egoyan/Robert Lantos snore-a-rama that Canadians hate, at least. A whole hell of a lot cheaper.

Did you hear that? It's the sound of one hand clapping.

Trailer Park Boys: The Movie, a Slim Hope

2006-10-06T10:00:00.000-04:00

I haven't seen Trailer Park Boys: The Movie yet, and I want to be able to like it, but this film will fail miserably to recoup its intitial investment, simply because it is a subject matter which has run its course a long time ago and the creators of the TV series really have only created a luke-warm rehash of what's been done a hundred times elsewhere, and much better.

Trailer Park Boys was amusing enough filler TV for the first couple of seasons and there was something kind of charming about its 'diamond in the rough' style, and it was a big improvement over the unwatchable Canadian TV network junk like 11th Hour and whatever. Best of all, it didn't cost anything to watch and it was only a half-hour. But it doesn't have the beans to make it on the big screen as Trailer Park Boys: The Movie, I don't think, in a media world awash with real life trailer park people who are million times funnier and more pathetic on a Jerry Springer and American reality TV, not to mention all the US studio attempts at this material already, and people like K-Fed and Spears and crew in tabloids 24/7.

That dose of reality spashed in the face of this attempt -- it will still be championed as a 'success' for Canadian film, simply because it is getting some sort of wide release in the country. But that doesn't mean it isn't a money-losing bomb and an artistic nothing. The multi-media corporations paying for it, mostly Telefilm Canada, will put as much spin on it as they can, and nobody will be countering them with facts with any media soap box to stand on.

I would like to see it succeed, actually. Not due to its questionable merits, but because of what it stands for. It stands against the fake poseur arteest approach of "Don McKellar" (old cross-eyes) and company who have figure-headed the Canadian Film Culture of Failure for the past decade and a half, almost all of it coming out of our pockets, while they pose and talk about how important their invisible films are to Canadians (even though the public hates them, and refuses to go see them or rent them). In that way, at least it is a refreshing different approach, with a little more honesty. So I can't hate Trailer Park Boys: The Movie, and I don't think the Canadian public will hate it -- Bubbles and the guys are likeable enough three-dimensional characters in a mediocre highly derivitative trailer park world. Just don't expect to see any big box office out of this.

Director Atom Egoyan Retreats to U of T Academia Owing Canadians $48 Million

2006-10-05T20:25:00.000-04:00

Toronto, Canada. After a series of four filmmaking disappointments in succession resulting in a total expense of over $48 million in un-repaid Canadian feature film investment, Atom Egoyan has agreed to teach a course in media at the University of Toronto for a three year term.

Egoyan will teach an interdisciplinary undergraduate course called Transgressions: An Approach to Interdisciplinary Practice and will meet and advise undergraduate and graduate students in addition to sharing his expertise and experiences through a series of annual public lectures.

Reached for comment was an anonymous Member of Parliament requesting confidentiality who remarked: “The big question is, what is wrong with this picture? Is this who Canadian students should be learning from? A master at manipulating government funding systems while not delivering cultural product Canadians value and, in fact, view as laughable? Mr. Egoyan and Mr. (Robert) Lantos will be under investigation for their activities in a public inquiry. They should prepare their case for promoting culture with taxpayer funded feature films shooting overseas about other cultures and even films set in the United States in another era.”

Reference for the figures quoted in this article are drawn from www.boxofficemojo.com. Where the Truth Lies was made on a $25 million dollar budget and grossing $872,142 in North American box office and proceeded by Ararat with a $15 million dollar budget and a combined global gross of $2,743,336 and by Felicia’s Journey starring Bob Hoskins with a domestic total gross of $824,295, Atom Egoyan has secured a position teaching a course at the University of Toronto.

Telefilm Canada: No Funding Decisions For Ten Months

2006-10-03T14:15:00.000-04:00

Toronto. As we enter the October of a difficult 2006 for Telefilm Canada and an embattled Wayne Clarkson, who is its director, there is an eerie silence over the Canadian film industry. It is ten months into the year, and not a single regular feature film green light decision has been made. It was a noisy ruckus during the first few months of the year when Telefilm was the cover story of Macleans Magazine in a damning April 14th article for Mr. Clarkson, which included scathing reviews of his performance by the Canadian film industry illuminati, which was picked up across the Canadian press, with even some international news services getting into the act. Following within a week of that, Clarkson announced a new “film czar” in the form of Jamaican-Canadian ex-patriot moved to Hollywood, Michael Jenkinson, who would have complete power to green light films over a million dollars. By the middle of May, the mysterious producer of the junky feature Undercover Brother, had resigned one day before taking office. And what it left was Mr. Clarkson as the man to take up the reigns and expand his powers and take over “extended responsibilities” according to Telefilm press releases. Meaning, of course, that he was truly the new Canadian Film Czar, and had no committees to decide what would be given a green light and what wouldn’t.
Shift to five months later. It’s October 3rd, 2006, and not a single new feature film over a million dollars for this year has been greenlit for the year of 2006. Now why is that? Why is there no news coverage about that? Why is the estimated free $50 million or so in English Canadian feature film funding that is sitting idle in the 10th month of the year, not being discussed by the Canadian media?
Meanwhile, French Language funding was exhausted several months ago and caused quite a ruckus in newspapers like the Montreal Gazette when more Quebec filmmakers went to the well but the well had already been duly dispensed. The filmmakers there, including Denys Arcand, went bonkers and had an audience with the Minister of Canadian Culture to plead their case. Of course, hands were tied as funding allotments are part of government budgets decided ahead of time, and funding more movies is desirable in a successful industry like French Canada, but it is not an emergency. Next year, they’ll probably get more money.
Back to Wayne Clarkson and Telefilm Canada. English division. Now, in that Macleans article and elsewhere, he met with heavy criticism from people like Robert Lantos and Paul Gross. Big names for Canadian film. Mr. Lantos has nothing to complain about as he has made millions making films that nobody watches, almost all of them box office and video release disasters, from which he has collected his producer fee right off the top from the films budget. One of his bombs which lost millions was Men With Brooms (it grossed far less than it cost to produce and market) which was written by, directed by, and starred Paul Gross. Paul Gross is a man who has forgotten that he is only a pretty good actor, and has decided that he is a writer & director of epic films which would include his stalled Canadian World War One epic Paschendale -- which Telefilm has refused to fund because, well, Paul Gross stinks on white bread as a writer. And, as Men With Brooms proved, he isn’t a very sophisticated or capable director, either. He was hoping to make his 15 million dollar epic completely with Canadian money. As anybody can realistically guess, no Canadian World War One epic would ever make back anything like 15 million dollars investment (plus the millions to promote it).
It all does raise some questions as to why we are now in the 10th month of the year without a new Telefilm Canada decision on new feature films of any significant scope having been given the green light. The only exceptions being those funded by production companies who had pre-approved Telefilm envelopes because of their previous successful commercially orientated American co-productions from last year. But no Telefilm decision is required there.
One could speculate that it is because it is necessary. Clarkson has changed the way in which decisions for major Canadian films are made. He has set himself up to be the film czar in a very old-fashioned Hollywood movie mogul sort of position. Pretty smart move if he has the head for good film investment decisions. Impossible to say right now if he does. However, he has a great deal of dead weight in the form of what can only be termed the Canadian Film Illuminati who believe that they are entitled to funding green lights no matter their actual record with the Canadian public. It doesn’t matter if the people paying for it hate their films and don’t go see them in the theatres or rent them on video, they are “established” in the vicious circle of failure that is the industry. One could speculate that Mr. Clarkson is perhaps starving them out so they move on to other things. Atom Egoyan, owing the Canadian public tens of millions of dollars from failed features over the past few years, perhaps saw the writing on the wall when he signed a teaching contract at the U of Toronto? Or maybe Clarkson is forcing some of Those Who Are Entrenched to actually have better scripts and/or better projects before they are given the green light? Or maybe he is actively campaigning other fresher and better talent to get their act together and submit things?
It’s a head-scratcher, not only in context of the time that has passed and what is happening or going to happen, but also because the Canadian press has not gotten hold of this story and realized what’s going on. Or maybe they don’t want to report it for some reason?

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