dramatic

new effort

Ottawa is kind of like a ghetto,’ says Neil Bregman of SoundVenture Productions when discussing the city’s preponderance of documentary and paucity of drama production. ‘It’s not historically a television marketÉbut we’re trying to change that.

‘Ottawa is a hard town to do drama in, there’s no infrastructure for it,’ says Bregman. With the production a few years back of the Christmas special The Tin Soldier (a one-hour ballet special that was sold abroad by Paragon International), Bregman was one of the Ottawa’s few live-action producers who managed to wedge something other than docs into the primetime broadcast mainstream. Given the corporate production base of the industry, he says documentaries are the easiest segue into broadcast production. ‘That’s why Tin Soldier was such a big deal.’

Bregman currently has several more arts entertainment projects in the works with Frank Augustyn, artistic director of the Ottawa Ballet (and star of The Tin Soldier), for Bravo! and cbc, and is also working with Dave Langer of the National Arts Centre. Bregman says that with the new specialty channels there is now greater opportunity to move into production on a lot of these projects.

Given that SoundVenture is a 15-year veteran – involved in television production for the past five years – with its own post facilities, Bregman now has a reputation for delivering broadcast-quality goods, which makes putting the deals together a lot easier. ‘It’s a question of maturity – proving yourself,’ he says.

While the entertainment tv projects continue to brew, SoundVenture has been busy producing documentaries which will be distributed internationally by Great North Releasing. Bregman just wrapped Surviving the Fear, a documentary on breast cancer, and is in production on Heroines of the Front, a one-hour doc on Canada’s nursing sisters which will air on Global in November.

He’s also trying his hand at comedy, working with former SoundVenture staffer Derek Diorio, who left to start Diorio Productions in 1985. Diorio’s series, Guests, Lines and Videotape, 13 live half-hour comedy shows, will be shot live-to-tape before an audience in August and will air the following month on chro-tv Ottawa in a prime Friday 10:30 p.m. slot. A second version will be broadcast by Rogers.

Currently shooting some pretaped portions, Diorio reflects on the ‘loaves and fishes’ approach he took to doing comedy out of Ottawa. He got some money from a&e to do one show, and did two; chro kicked in some money for a show, and now he’s doing 13.

‘If you’re in comedy and you’re in Ottawa, you might as well be on the fringe of the universe,’ says Diorio.

As part of the comedy troupe Skit Row, Diorio did three pilots for cbc: they never made it. Meanwhile, Diorio and company kept up their comedy work through live performances. A well-received Fernwood Tonight-ish show the troupe staged at a fringe fest was taped and led to the current series.

Keen to pick up on any Zen of being off the beaten laugh track, he is adhering to the Steve Smith comedy formula: ‘Keep making them.’ And therefore, despite everyone’s expectations of political content, the material will be generic: ‘We aspire to sell this down the road.’

He’s also doing Open All Night, a half-hour of ‘regional contact’ for cjoh, wacky things happening in the hood after the streets get rolled up.

But Diorio Productions has not restricted itself to comedy; the company has been involved in other sorts of productions, including some ‘offbeat’ industrial work like Landfill: The Musical.

Diorio is currently working with SoundVenture on a half-hour figure skating special for cjoh which features interviews with 14 of Canada’s world champ alumni.

Producer Michel Cloutier, president of Concep Productions, says more Ottawa companies are now interested in broadcast production. Cloutier’s seven-year-old company got its start in corporate production, but for the last four years has been concentrating on tv series, which now account for 80% of its revenues.

Cloutier just wrapped Jeune Autrement, a 39-episode youth documentary series for Radio-Quebec and tvontario, and is developing a few new documentary projects and a French-language series on amateur sport (the concept may be adapted for the English market). He’s also working as a producer with Nunacom Productions on The Last Franco-Ontarian, a one-hour with the National Film Board and tvo.

Discussing the difficulties involved in putting together a primetime deal from outside the large production centers, Cloutier says: ‘There’s no history here of fiction production. It’s a matter of credibility, if it hasn’t happened beforeÉ’

However, Cloutier and Ottawa are not giving up. ‘People, including myself, always have something in development to be the wedge. It’s changing, the expertise is getting there.’ Cloutier says the character-oriented style of the auteur documentary practiced by many producers is ‘the first step to fiction.’

While it’s still tough doing drama out of Ottawa – ‘there’s big gaps between work so there’s a constant talent drainÉno labs’ – one of the things that makes it easier now to work in fiction from a ‘Betacam town,’ according to Bob Krupinski of Winter Films, is the ease of communications, faxes and modems. ‘It’s easier to stay in the loop.’

Winter Films is currently in production with Getting Past Michael, a half-hour drama (series pilot) written and directed by Cornwall, Ont. native Doug Smith and being done in coproduction with Anne Stephenson for Mid-Canada Television.

Stephenson slid into the biz with a screenplay she did for one of the kid’s books she wrote. She and Susan Brown, her partner in Ubiquitous Productions, produced the resulting drama, Amber and Elliot (directed by Deepa Mehta), in Toronto with Lauron Productions exec-producing.

Stephenson currently has an mow in development with Lauron based on another mystery novel she wrote for kids, Paper Treasure.

Getting Past Michael is her first drama project to be produced in Ottawa.

Through her experience in Toronto, Stephenson says she ‘learned a little more about the producing game, and now it’s viable.’

Krupinski also has more drama in development, a tv movie based on the experiences of an information expert’s struggle to have input in his son’s medical treatment, and a series on minor league baseball.

Krupinski’s five-year-old company was started to do drama, but initially financed by corporate work. He points to the contract-work mentality engendered by industrial and government production as a hurdle Ottawa producers must overcome to make the leap into drama. ‘Drama is entrepreneurial.’

There’s more than one way to shoot a pictureÉ

Independent writer/producer Don Cummer doesn’t believe Ottawa’s production community should wait for permission from Toronto to forge ahead on creative projects. There’s a movement afoot, advocated by the likes of Tom Shoebridge and Bill Gough, to just grab those Betacams and go out and shoot. Cummer believes this version of guerrilla television may be key to getting Ottawa to tell its stories.

However, there’s one project that Cummer is developing which he would like to see become a national series, and so he’s making the trek to Toronto with Hill and Lavallee. It’s a romantic comedy based on Parliament Hill life, and Cummer, as a former pmoer, knows whereof he speaks.

And there’s more than one way to fund itÉ

Over the years, Carleton Productions has done a ton of videos for the federal government. While the volume has been affected by government cutbacks, the experience has stood the company in good stead. Producer Randi Hansen says as a result of the way the industry has turned, ‘we’ve found our own little niche.’

Carleton handles about 100 projects a year, not including what’s done out of its mobile, which accounts for another 70 or so. About one in 10 are documentaries for broadcast.

‘In the last year we’ve produced a lot of documentaries, much more than in the past 10 years,’ says Hansen. But it wasn’t a matter of deals falling together. Hansen has spent a lot of time beating on doors to pull together financial alliances from like-minded government agencies and private-sector corporations with a vested interest in the subject matter of each of Carleton’s broadcast/educational productions.

Internationale

documentariosÉ

Under One Sky, a 13-part series and educational kit on sustainable development and biodiversity, is an example of the kind of mega-project Carleton is undertaking. The premise is to match stories from youth reporters in Central America with similar topics in Canada. Hansen secured an r&d grant from cida to check out the project’s viability, and armed with the positive feedback from the location scout/investigation, put together a strategic funding alliance of half a dozen partners in Canada.

Hansen says it’s tough tracking down this money – finding the right fit, partners whose organizations’ mandates match the subject matter and who can all be seen to work together. ‘You need determination that holds no boundaries.’

The series, which is shooting in Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, should be ready next fall for broadcast on Baton Broadcasting System stations. In addition to Carleton’s association with Baton (it is a wholly owned subsidiary of Nation’s Capital Television, a Baton company), Hansen says the company has good relationships with northern and educational broadcasters.

Another project in development is Young Canadian Women, a documentary and educational kit. While the project has also garnered a bit of government money and ‘very positive response from a major corporation in Montreal,’ Hansen says it’s once again a question of marrying a bunch of diverse entities.

Another Ottawa documentary producer developing an ambitious project is Alan White of Corvideocom Productions. White says The Muslim Mind, a 13-part $2 million documentary series, will debunk a lot of North American myths about Islam. White has been to Iran, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, and is currently involved in tricky negotiations with a number of countries. Although White also had to hit Washington, d.c., he says, ‘one thing about Ottawa, you’ve got a lot of embassies here.’

Another of White’s projects, closer to home, is shooting a demo for a series aimed at evening up the West Coast lock on gardening shows. He also plans to sweeten his Gardener’s Question Time with Ed Lawrence package with some sponsorship money.

While cbc is the intended broadcaster, White says with more windows now open for this type of programming, the pressure to find a broadcaster is somewhat lessened for the producer. ‘Everyone’s going to respond faster now.’ The series, starring the popular chief of greenhouse operations for the capital region, is a fall ’95 launch hopeful.

Almadon Productions has yet to see its second birthday, and judging by the production slate, there won’t be time to celebrate. Everyone will be on the road.

In between deal calls before dashing off to shoot in Manitoba, Don Young sketches out his busy company’s agenda.

Nine Months to Life, an hour for the Witness series about prison mothers, women and babies in jail, is the next project to go before the cameras. The first site is a Dickensian jail in Portage la Prairie where kids are incarcerated with their moms; location shooting in Kingston’s P4W and a look at a Vancouver jail’s live-in programs follow. Young says 80% of the women in Canadian jails are there because they’re poor – they haven’t been able to pay fines, infractions of that ilk – and that the Canadian prison system is changing its attitude towards women and families, evolving more towards a Californian model.

Another hour Young is doing for the cbc is The Need To Know. It’s an exploration of journalistic ethics as demonstrated during coverage of the Paul Teale trial. Young is hiring four directors to follow four reporters out of various-sized markets and observing the journalistic process involved in how they cover something like Karla Homolka’s testimony. Young says this is probably destined for Rough Cuts.

Young, formerly a senior producer at The Journal, says one of the key considerations on where to base his tv production company was that he and wife Marnie Fullerton wanted a good environment raising their three young kids. They found that in Ottawa, plus ‘a tv community on the verge of booming.’ Young says there’s a half dozen good post companies and a wealth of ‘great’ craftspeople and technicians. Factor in proximity, via Hull, to coproduction opportunities that would provide access to Quebec funding sources, and Young concludes, ‘Ottawa is a great place to be based.’

However, Young’s family will be on the road this fall starring in Travels With Mom, a weekly half-hour series wherein the family (sans dad, who may direct a few episodes, but will otherwise be busy shooting elsewhere) explores different parts of Canada. The pilot was shot in p