Less is more

From creation to delivery, every aspect of the Canadian motion picture industry is changing. Producers are now ‘software providers’ and ‘content developers’ in their reinvention as broadcasters as they try to go beyond their traditional roles.

While some of this evolution makes one nervous, like teleshopping services that are planning music and talk shows, the change is inevitable.

Yet, while some films such as Atom Egoyan’s Exotica are merrily grossing away ($875,000 in Canada, $1,028,304 in France and $230,806 in Singapore – so far), the theatrical aspirations of many Canadian features is another area for self-examination and rethinking of the current system.

It’s easy to point at the obvious problems – only 6% of screen time in Canada goes to Canadian films, and the average Hollywood feature budget is around $30 million, with promotion costing an additional 50% of that figure.

The fact is all movie makers face u.s. blockbuster competition. Very few films make it on their own box office turf. In a Touche Ross survey of 26 u.k.-financed films released from 1991 to 1993/94, only three had earnings above their budget. Commanding a decent box office performance means being sure you have an audience willing to leave their tv sets and fork over cash, and that this can’t-wait-for-it attraction extends beyond your home turf, such as the border-crossing allure of Louis 19 and Thirty-two Short Films About Glenn Gould, both of which fared respectably at the u.s. box office last year, beating out some studio entries such as Warner Bros.’ Being Human. Even The Crying Game didn’t make its budget in its u.k. box office receipts.

Industry veteran Rene Malo believes that misdirected intentions are a big part of the equation, and that the more realistic audience for about 90% of the feature films produced in Canada would be broadcast or video.

And on the non-fiction front line, Andy Thomson spends a lot of time trying to steer doc producers off pursuing the 90-minute feature track which leads to the festival circuit but rarely to theatrical release, and results in an overly long program for selling to broadcasters. As Thomson told Playback: ‘tv appears to be a far more sensible way of getting your product out to people than going through all the hassle of trying to get it into theaters.’

Some blame a no-fault, no-risk funding system for fostering misplaced theatrical aspirations, and advocate the more commercial realignment of government financial incentives to allow for a tax-credit system which would enable bigger budget productions/promotions.

Rather than advocating theatrical abstinence, veteran producers and distributors advise wiser assessments of a project’s true potential in terms of audience. There are many new options, such as potentially a shot at North American pay-per-view via satellite, which according to Power DirecTv is a ‘vastly more promising vehicle thanÉtheatrical distribution.’

Filmline’s Nicolas Clermont believes that doing only really major, important features is the wise approach, and to do more tv in between rather than trying to do small-budget features (which are often, while solid drama, indistinguishable from product available on tv).

Fewer films, bigger budgets, with the spread between u.s. and Canadian production costs being closer, more akin to the tv side where the budgets are more comparable and – while the playing field isn’t exactly level – at least we’re in the same league.