Shop talk takes a second seat to deal-making at Banff ’94

Vancouver: The Banff Television Festival has changed. Gone is that intimate little mountain event that saw information hungry festival goers rushing to get a seat in the packed ballrooms to attend day-long trade sessions or the screening rooms to check out the latest and best in television from around the world.

Yup, those days are definitely gone.

Banff is now about deal-making. While there were plenty of empty chairs at many of the trade sessions, it was definitely standing room only in all the surrounding lounges and restaurants. And these days, if you don’t book at the golf course well in advance – or don’t play – you can forget about trying to get a meeting with that elusive broadcaster.

One festival event that continues to pack ’em in is Pat Ferns’ annual Market Simulation, which celebrated its 10th anniversary at Banff ’94.

Ferns outdid himself this year despite the absence of one-half of the sparring Laurel and Hardy team of the festival, u.s. producer Norman Horowitz and u.k. producer Patrick Dromgoole. Dromgoole, who was in the throes of preproduction in London, phoned in during the session to say it pained him not to be able to attend, if only because he hated to give his nemesis Horowitz a ‘free rein’.

The Market Simulation has been such a success over the years, that Ferns is ‘Frenchizing’ his let’s-make-a-deal session and taking it on the road for the first time this year, to mipcom in Cannes.

Anyhow, back to the session. The first project on the block was a package of tv movies being pitched by Winnipeg producers Kim Todd of Credo Group and Norma Bailey of Flat City Films under the master title Adventure Stories For Big Girls. The movies, featuring adventurous heroines living ‘on the edge’ in assorted eras, cultures and genres, struck many television executives in the audiences as ideal for international coproduction.

However, getting those execs to commit to a package of six movies before seeing the finished product was a little more challenging.

Arthur Weinthal, vice-president of entertainment programming for the CTV Television Network, said the project sounded like ‘a dirty version of the Harlequin movies (produced by Alliance Communications) which we already carry, and we’re very attracted to that kind of movie.’

And this from Jim Burt, creative head of movies and miniseries for cbc: ‘This sounds like a great deal of fun, but that’s not necessarily the first priority for cbc.’ Go figure.

Nonetheless, the gals came away with a lot of interested suitors.

Second up was a series of six documentaries entitled The Damned charting the history and development of the mass media and pitched by producer Eben Foggit of Ardent Productions in the u.k. Could be the staid subject matter was partially responsible for a less enthusiastic market response.

Horowitz stepped in to offer some advice on titles: ‘If you have to explain it, it ain’t the right title.’

Next came this year’s hot property, Stand Up Lawyer, a sitcom about a stand-up comic who makes a career segue to become a lawyer. Leading the pitch were Toronto-based comedy writers Hart Pomerantz and Gary Michael Dault.

Pomerantz, a dead ringer for Mel Brooks – only far funnier – dazzled the audience with more of a sit-down stand-up routine based on his life story than a pitch, but boy did it work.

Everybody except cbcers (who thought it might be too much fun or not ‘Canadian’ enough) loved this one and wanted to cut a deal.

Gary Randall, president of Paragon Productions, USA, always quick to recognize ‘new’ talent, offered to fund development of the series on the spot.

Pomerantz, who’s been around the block as a top Hollywood comedy writer in the ’60s and ’70s, writing with Lorne Michaels for Phyllis Diller as well as Rowan and Martin’s Laugh In before returning to Canada to do the cbc series This is the Law and then unfortunately vanishing into tv obscurity and back to the practice of law, retorted: ‘I don’t trust this guy. What, am I going to get money at the door? Did you bring any with you?’

When the issue of casting came up, Pomerantz asked a Telefilm rep: ‘Are you allowed to use an American star as long as you have 10 or 12 elk on screen at all times?’

After the pitch, both Randall and Steven DeNure, senior vice-president of creative affairs with Alliance, were elbowing each other to be first in line to woo Pomerantz.

When I caught up with Pomerantz after the session, he appeared delighted with the results but nonplused. ‘Hell, I’ve been calling all these guys for years and not getting through. Now I come to Banff (which he refers to as ‘a gift shop with a mountain’), make them all laugh for a half an hour, and now everyone wants me again. Ah, it’s a funny business.’

The Market Simulation ended on a high note with a pitch by filmmaker Bernar Hebert for a pair of twinned arts programs with France and Montreal’s Cine Qua Non Films entitled The Music Collector’s Dream and Bejart.

Hebert picked up two Quebec/Alberta prizes earlier at the festival for his productions of Legende de glace and Le petit musee Velasquez, an exquisite and innovative dance performance film. After viewing a clip from Le petit musee, Paul Gratton, who heads up the newly licensed arts channel Bravo!, rhapsodized, ‘This is exactly what we had in mind for our service.’

Gratton offered to pay top dollar for the production and make it one of Bravo!’s centerpiece productions when the service launches in the new year. He also offered to enter into an extended relationship with Cine Qua Non to acquire more productions of this caliber.

The next day, in a session entitled ‘Breakfast With Laurier,’ a substantial crowd roused themselves out of bed early to see crtc chairman Keith Spicer squirm as the opinionated, ‘always objective’ broadcaster Laurier LaPierre dished from a hot plate with nary an egg in sight.

LaPierre mirrored the mood of many in the audience with his opening quip: ‘What the hell were you doing on Monday (the day the new specialty channel licences were announced)?’

Most miffed were the unsuccessful applicants for animation and comedy channels, which most people considered shoo-ins.

When Micheline Charest, chairman and ceo of Montreal’s Cinar Films and chair of the unsuccessful fun tv application, angrily asked Spicer what the crtc plans to do about about the arrival of Ted Turner’s Cartoon Network in Canada, Spicer said the commission is very ‘sensitive’ to the problem and pledged to bounce any American animation service from cable here if a Canadian service is licensed.

Canadian producers had a few surprises during a panel on ‘TV: The Movie,’ moderated by Paragon’s Randall.

Joan Harrison, vice-president, miniseries for CBS Network, rang the warning bell when she told the rapt audience that while cbs films over half its movies in Canada, it is increasingly concerned about a ‘sameness of look’ to the projects shot here.

‘We keep seeing the same courtrooms, back alleys, doctors’ offices and supporting Canadian cast. We would hope to see them try and make it look more distinctive.’

l.a. producer Jim Green of Green/Epstein Productions, agreed. He normally films in Vancouver but is trying out Calgary to shoot a new movie for abc.