In-de-pen-dent: adj (1611) (1): not subject to control by others: self-governing (2): not looking to others for one’s opinions or for guidance in conduct

Canada’s film and television business is definitively independent. No studio system, no mini-majors. Only a few public outfits stand out from an otherwise purely independent landscape. But beyond the most primary definition, there is all that the term entails in spirit, in aspiration, in ideas and in money resources.

It’s the voices from the fringe, the cutting edge, the creative risk-takers and generally the poverty-stricken, that all speak to an independent side to the business.

Playback went to some of the leaders in independent production to take the pulse of the industry.

Insight’s John Brunton

the fate of Insight Production Company, a 15-year-old tv production company that has been quadrupling its income each year in a row for the last three years, reflects the coming-of-age of Canada’s tv industry, as evidenced in our status as the second largest supplier of tv in the international programming market.

‘It’s not an anomaly; every single year since I’ve been running Insight, our influence and our abilities have grown,’ says Insight president and executive producer John Brunton, commenting on the increasing inroads Canadian programming is making on the u.s. nets.

‘People used to say, ‘I watched that show, it looked Canadian,’ or ‘it sounded Canadian.’ Now the work that we do, from the quality of the lighting to the slickness of editing and our set design work, is world-class. People now come to Canada from all over the world, not just because it’s cheaper to work here, but because we have some of the finest crews in the world.

‘And our ability as storytellers has also dramatically changed over the years; like anything, you can’t just wake up and write a fabulous script, it’s a learned skill. The reason that we’re making more inroads this year is that we’re just better at doing it than we were the year before, and next year we’re going to be better still.’

For Brunton, 1994 was a particularly good year. The company’s tween series Ready or Not won a Gemini (for Laura Bertram’s performance) and is also winning a high audience enjoyment rate in the u.s. (it’s the most successful show in its program category on Showtime), and Kurt Browning: You Must Remember This, which Brunton produced with the cbc, took another five of the shiny gold profile awards.

The Ready or Not pilot 32AA was born through Global’s new producers series; 39 episodes later it’s been sold in over 30 countries. Its creator, Alyse Rosenberg, who is coexecutive producer of Ready or Not with Brunton, is a prime example of someone who got a chance to wear the executive producer hat through the auspices of tv mentor-meister Brunton.

Brunton is proud of Insight’s open-door policy towards neophyte tv producers, and acting as a conduit to network programmers. ‘We like to be a place where people who don’t have a track record can come and break into the business. It’s one of the truly exciting things we do.’

Brunton believes recent events have created some cracks in the door for those who are trying to rack up credits. ‘With the development of the public companies, there’s been a strategy for some of those companies to buy up a lot of the writing talent. There’s a tradition at times for people to back the tried and true, but there are more and more opportunities,’ says Brunton, referring to new channels, and the number of busy established production companies.

‘I think the kind of opportunities that exist on cable with these new channels play into the kind of producer who can produce, direct, write, edit. Because the licence fees are small, one does worry that you’re going to see a lot of cheap programming, but quite often in our opinion, large budgets don’t necessarily make innovative programming.’

Brunton points to the modestly budgeted Pumped! series, produced by Dale Burshstein for Insight, which has been nominated for Geminis up against Goliaths such as the Olympics and Hockey Night in Canada, as an example of a David success story.

One of the issues Brunton believes producers find particularly disturbing is the difficulty in translating ratings into ad revenue.

Another disappointment is seeing the cbc’s budgets eroded year after year. ‘It’s a tragic situation potentially because, like it or not, there’s no one in Canada generating more original Canadian production than the cbc, and quite often the shows they will support are supported for reasons of being great Canadian stories rather than always because it’s going to be a great investment.’

Brunton refers to the Kurt Browning special that happened because of the cbc’s participation, and has subsequently been recognized internationally as one of the all-time great skating specials. ‘I don’t know in years to come if we’ll be able to do those kinds of shows with those kinds of budgets,’ he says.

Fellow Gemini-sweeper Life With Billy from Salter Street is another example of the powerful kind of show which cbc has enabled.

Switching gears from scary to terrific trends, Brunton is optimistic that since Canadians are viewed now as some of the finest showmakers and storytellers in the world of television, while some opportunities are shrinking at home, the opportunities internationally, and particularly in the u.s., have been growing by leaps and bounds.

Brunton has not experienced any Americanization of the programs to achieve this acceptance abroad. ‘There has been nothing but editorial support, and the shows are wall-to-wall Canadian (Ready or Not and Pumped!, which airs on espn).’

Brunton believes that from a Canadian viewpoint, you can tell stories with universal appeal, illustrating the point with some Ready or Not plot lines – such as a girl buying her first brassiere or having her first period.

‘This idea that a Canadian story has to be uniquely Canadian disturbs me… does it make it less Canadian because there isn’t a Mountie in it? I think there’s a weird obsession about what’s Canadian.’

As to how Canada achieved its number two status as international programming supplier extraordinaire, Brunton says: ‘It’s been a long, slow, steady path… of beating our heads against the wall, and beating the doors down at the u.s networks and European markets, and learning our skills. Fifteen years ago when I started in the business there were just half-a-dozen people – walking around with long hair and sandals – who were recognized as independent producers. And now they’re all running multinational corporations.’

And rather than anticipating a backlash, a la the market protection rumblings in France, Brunton feels the reverse will happen. As the technology of tv changes, audience segmentation will increase, and network ratings will decrease to the point that big-event television programming will require more partners to attract viewers from across the I-way. ‘The trend for coproduction between Canada and the u.s. is something that’s just going to grow.’

On a creative level, Brunton postulates that Canada is poised in a very interesting position. ‘We have half a foot in the u.s., and we have a bit of an influence from British tv. We’re also perched sort of on top of the world, and have always been great at watching the world go around.’

Brunton cites Canadians’ repute in documentaries and comedy as examples of our nation’s great talent for cultural osmosis. ‘If you look at the greatest parodies of American presidents, they’ve been done by Canadians. Sometimes we’re better observers of other people’s cultures than we are of our own.’ MM

CFC’s Colin Brunton

colin Brunton heads up the Canadian Film Centre’s Feature Film Project, a three-picture incentive. In the past two-and-a-half years, he has read about 200 treatments and scripts.

When Brunton started with the ffp, he was surprised to see a surfeit of scripts that imitated Hollywood film models. ‘At the beginning in September 1992 when the first submissions came in, Basic Instinct was still out,’ says Brunton. ‘In two weeks of reading a couple of scripts a day I’ll bet you about a third of them were about cocaine-sniffing lesbian murderers.’

Although the Sharon Stone syndrome was a bit disappointing, the crop was by no means all bad. ‘The ones that come up that are weirdly Canadian are a lot more interesting than they were even a few years ago,’ he says.

Feature film writing is the toughest nut to crack in this country, says Brunton. ‘Good scripts are rare. And although we need more producers and directors, it is really hard to find exceptional writing.’

While Brunton admits that in a country with such a powerful literary reputation the writing issue is a bit of a mystery, other elements are not nearly so nebulous.

One major problem, he says, is created by union stipulations that price writers out of the market. ‘I saw a lot of scripts in here and some were pretty interesting from Writers Guild members. But because of the enormous restrictions the guild puts on producers to employ these writers, you cannot afford to hire these people.’

The frustrations created by these barriers run on both sides of the fence, says Brunton, and there are a lot of guild writers he encountered ‘who would have loved to contribute to the ffp, but it was out of the question.’

Union woes aside, Brunton sees a positive change in feature films in the past five to 10 years. ‘The independent films that are getting done are really interesting, and whether they come off as Canadian or simply universal, they definitely come off as more cutting edge than they did 10 years ago.’

The talents who come to mind include Atom Egoyan, Bruce McDonald, Peter Mettler, Jeremy Podeswa, David Cronenberg and Denys Arcand, among others. ‘And if these are the people representing the country,’ says Brunton, ‘you gotta think people are going to start looking forward to seeing Canadian films.’

One thing Brunton would love to see more of are Canadian films set in remote locales – ‘places like Subdury; Moosejaw; Dildo, Newfoundland – I would love to see ideas and movies set in those places. With the ffp, I can’t actually afford to do that, but let’s try and get some of our own myth-making happening here.’

There is already one Canadian myth: the loser syndrome, that was created in the last decade, but Brunton is talking about a new myth. ‘There is a lot more Canada to explore in film and I think people should try and think of that. Why don’t we mythologize Sudbury? I mean the place is dramatically weird. I’ve been there and I’ve been to Tombstone, Arizona, and given the choice I think Sudbury is more interesting except for the toy ghost town in Tombstone. Let’s show us as different as we really are.’

Money, or the lack of it, is the major obstacle. ‘If it wasn’t for Harvey Keitel (who executive produced Reservoir Dogs), I bet you Quentin Tarantino would be sitting in a video store. And for every Tarantino in the States, I’ll bet you we’ve got at least one or two toiling away… the money is the problem.’

A $5 million budget for Canadian features is what Brunton aspires to. He’s got his own pet project he wants to make in a few years, and says, ‘I’m determined to get my five million bucks.’ PC

OFDC’s Geeta Sondhi

geeta Sondhi, co-ordinator of the Ontario Film Development Corporation’s non-theatrical fund since 1992, is now also co-ordinator of the agency’s recently established new-media program.

The non-theatrical fund is changing to suit an evolving marketplace where factors such as national funding, increased broadcasting opportunities and creatively driven incentives are critical.

Over the years, Sondhi has seen an increase in arts council funding as compatible financing sources for non-theatrical programs as well as a significant increase in competition.

‘There are more players out there and financing sources are more strained than ever before, and we’re questioning our method of working (whereby we) give more people less money,’ she says.

In the past, the non-theatrical fund was considered top-up money. Now a major issue in the non-theatrical funding scenario is the instability in the financing of the Canadian Independent Film and Video Fund, the national non-theatrical agency. As a result, the ofdc is relied on more heavily and it is considering switching to become a trigger fund.

A 10% threshold has been in place since last September and the fund has changed the application schedule from quarterly to monthly adjudications.

‘We’re also putting more emphasis on the creative,’ says Sondhi. The change – from a primarily market-driven fund – came about through discussions with distributors. ‘A lot of distributors said people do want Canadian product but they were concerned about the quality of the material. The market is telling us to judge from a market as well as a creative point of view.’

Director’s notes, as well as a proper treatment and proper script, are now requested as part of the funding process. ‘We want to know the director’s vision,’ says Sondhi.

The increase in players is primarily driven by the substantial reduction in pricing of non-theatrical videos and the additional fragmenting of the market due to the new specialty channels.

‘There is less of a gap between non-theatrical and broadcast, and the more narrowcast the broadcasters are, the more they will go with specifically directed non-theatrical product,’ says Sondhi.

New media and non-theatrical are not overlapping in any significant way yet, says Sondhi, but she does see the writing on the wall.

‘I received numerous calls for cd-roms (for the non-theatrical fund) and that’s partly why the new media fund was set up,’ she says.

‘In the near future they are going to come closer and closer together, and whatever gap there is will start decreasing. I also think there will be a few years here which are going to be transitionary, where people aren’t going to have the equipment, where things won’t be standardized. It’s kind of like Jell-O waiting to settle.’

The first applications for cd-rom were in the educational realm and the increase in cd-roms as educational tools is partly creating an overlap. ‘There is so much furor around the school system and changing it, and I think a lot of people want to have educational tools at home,’ says Sondhi.

It’s too early to tell whether the application of cd-roms as an educational supplement is affecting the shape of competing non-theatrical products, says Sondhi. ‘I don’t think there is an influence, not yet, other than non-theatrical producers exploring cd-rom.’

The prospect that new media will reduce the demand for non-theatrical will depend on the initiative of non-theatrical producers, distributors and end-users, who will have to take the initiative to ‘fashion it rather than letting it fashion them,’ says Sondhi.

Edutainment and education are both categorically part of non-theatrical and new media, but there are also definite areas where the two funds do not meet.

Sondhi says the ofdc is looking at new-media projects that are absolutely innovative and conceived for the medium and will use the explorative elements of cd-rom, ‘something that has an interesting interface and interactive elements beyond the kiosk and is not a repurposing.’

With only one new-media application period behind the ofdc, Sondhi says it’s too early to talk trends, although she has noticed a lot of kids’ edutainment that tends to be innovative. More than anything, Sondhi noticed a tremendous variety in the applications – interactive documentaries, cooking shows, science shows – and the applicants – multimedia companies, non-theatrical clients, film and tv producers, a scientist with no filmmaking experience, industrial producers.

In non-theatrical and new media, Sondhi says we will always have a need to teach analytical skills, ‘and I don’t know that we can get that from what McLuhan would have called ‘medium,’ although it’s hot in a way, because it’s an interactive medium.’ PC

CIFC’s Barry Greenwald

documentary filmmaker Barry Greenwald is one of the founding members of the Canadian Independent Film Caucus and vice-chair of the association. His most recent film, The Negotiator, was produced for a January broadcast on the cbc.

Documentaries are in fashion and the amount of broadcast interest in the genre has been on a steady increase for a number of years. With reality-based shows and current affairs cutting into the pie, the competition and definition of non-fiction programming is broadening.

On the money side, Greenwald says ‘we’re hitting a threshold in terms of the ability to fund documentaries. It’s quite critical.’

Years ago the focus was on getting documentaries broadcast, and now that there is a manifold range of opportunities, the funding is stretched that much further. ‘It’s the same old conundrum. Everyone accepts that what we do really well here is documentaries, and yet the kind of resources in terms of balance is too heavily weighted to drama.’

One ongoing problem is that Telefilm Canada has rough allocations for different sorts of programming, with children’s programming lumped in with documentaries. And both areas on the rise.

On the ethical front, the evolution of reality-based and current affairs programming is a thorny issue, says Greenwald. For some of these programs, subjects are paid and there is speculation the consent received from participants is dubious at best.

‘I think it’s really abusing the whole relationship we have with our subjects,’ says Greenwald, ‘and in a way, the documentary form gets pushed in programs like that. I think a lot of the cifc members would take issue with how the form is being pushed.’

This problem leads to another issue, which is abusing the audience’s trust and shaping expectations of what documentary delivers.

Another critical issue facing documentary filmmakers this year, says Greenwald, is news of the budget cuts to Telefilm, the cbc and the National Film Board. ‘Many of us are very concerned because we feel that each of the players – broadcasters, funding agencies and cultural agencies – all have unique mandates. We would be concerned in possible changes where people wouldn’t realize the importance of the uniqueness.’

One such example is the nfb, says Greenwald. ‘I still think the film board has a unique role where cultural, artistic and socially engaged filmmaking takes precedence over more commercial and industrial forms.’

In a time where the pressure of recoupment is increasingly floated throughout public agencies, Greenwald says there are documentary films that can return the investments to the agencies, and films that travel well internationally are the key. ‘Films need a sense of place, but they have to be universal enough that they work for audiences anywhere.’

At a recent documentary festival, where over 100 Canadian documentaries were screened for cifc members, Greenwald says he was most impressed with the volume of films and the emergence of new filmmakers. ‘I can think back 10 years, and I don’t think you would have seen this many productions and this many new filmmakers. It’s great that new filmmakers, come hell or high water, are finding ways to get their films made, and sometimes without broadcasters.’

Hi-8 and digital editing systems are transforming the look and the way documentaries get made. While Hi-8 is a promising budget-saver, it’s been said more than a few times that the format is great as long as it looks good. Some programmers and producers have shown reservation for the format, but a film such as Ali Kazimi’s beautiful Narmada: A Valley Rises stands out as a breakthrough. Greenwald says the key there is Kazimi’s experience as a cinematographer. Also, where waiting for money can kill a documentary, tape can be a saving grace.

As for digital editing, the fact that it saves time is an issue. Greenwald and at least one documentary programmer have expressed concern that without the time traditionally needed for a linear edit – and therefore without what Greenwald calls a forced period of reflection – the end product may not be as balanced as with the old system. ‘It’s not an inevitable result,’ he says, ‘but something that may impact the films and how they are made.’ PC