co-operation.

Not exactly an attitude or attribute that gets regular headline play in Variety or Hollywood Reporter.

But then again, this is Canada and either we’re pleased to take a more malleable spirit to the production table, or else financial imperatives have forced us to smile as we learn to work together. Either way, co-operation stands out as an industry-wide theme as 1993 rings out and 1994 sashays in. Where it’s not present, or where things are not working well, it should be considered.

Take, for example, developments at the ACCESS Network. Trying to cut costs (another Canadian theme if ever there was one!), Alberta wants to do all it can to keep government and public television apart. But perhaps there is another solution. With Prairie public tv services evidently suffering varying degrees of financial hardship, might it be possible to merge them gradually into a Prairie-wide service?

Instances of co-operation are, of course, running rampant throughout the industry. As we document in this issue’s Manitoba and Saskatchewan report, Heartland Motion Pictures’ Stephen Onda looked to rival Regina producer Kevin DeWalt at Minds Eye Pictures to get Guitarman finally off the ground. Elsewhere, the Prairie Initiative is, of course, making a go of interprovincial coproduction.

Obviously, coproductions of any scale take the co-operative spirit for granted. As we have seen time and again, when originating producers bring in foreign or domestic partners, they can achieve scale and scope of production otherwise difficult or impossible. As broadcaster Ivan Fecan points out, also in this issue, since cbc’s Love and Hate blazed the trail for Canadian content gracing primetime u.s. network schedules, Canadian coproductions such as The Boys of St. Vincent have a better shot at a sale south of the border. Reports are that The Boys is having a tough time finding a u.s. buyer, (although rumors were at press time that a deal was pending). If it had not been for previous export successes, this controversial coproduction might not have gotten much of a hearing at all.

As the long-form industries increasingly appreciate the value of a helping hand, so related businesses look to film and tv production for a boost. In Canadian commercial production, where stagnating advertising budgets are shrinking both absolute dollars available to production houses and job-by-job markups, shops are cross-pollinating. The Partners’ Film Company of Toronto, which has become a North American giant in commercial production, has hit a balance sheet watershed and recognized the way to growth lies beyond the exclusive domain of shooting ads. It has agreed to work with another Toronto production company, Skogland Films, on developing and executing long-form projects.

So it’s co-operation as an attitude, convergence as the basis of business planning. Global economies in an at-home setting.