Ralph Zimmerman, president of Great North Artists Management, has been in the business about 25 years. He didn’t have homegrown mentors and there were moments when it proved to be a hindrance.

Take the time he was doing his first Broadway deal for a playwright. It was about 20 years ago and Zimmerman swept into the antiquated offices of some of the biggest producers on Broadway.

He found himself faced with a great long line of stogie-smoking producers who had eaten the likes of Zimmerman for breakfast. Speaking of lunch, just as Zimmerman thought he was catching on to the fancy money talk that was being shot rapid-fire at him, it was time to roll up the business and take a break for some bagels, cream cheese and lox. More brilliant strategy to throw him off?

When it was back to brass tacks, Zimmerman threw all the experience he had at the line of smoke. The garble that came back was Greek to him but he wasn’t completely unprepared. He had talked to his lawyer, waiting on standby in l.a., who had told him whenever he didn’t understand something, to reply: ‘I’ll get back to you.’

He squeezed by unscarred but remembers the experience vividly.

‘We don’t have mentors even in the non-formal sense,’ says Zimmerman. ‘We have some depth in the industry and some wisdom, and the industry is starting to take some shape. Now, there is a top, a middle and a bottom, whereas before there was what I called a fat middle.’

The time is here, if not long overdue, for the industry to pay back, says Zimmerman, and get some serious mentoring underway.

Today while the Canadian film and television industries forge ahead with production steadily on the increase, there are vast and varied pools of people working behind the scenes to ensure the writers, producers and other key creatives who drive production today will have competent replacements tomorrow. It’s all part of keeping the industry healthy. These days, one message rings loud and clear from all ends of the training business: amalgamation is compulsory.

The list of mentorship programs carried on annually across the country is dizzying. Never mind the scroll of private broadcasters, public companies and independent institutions that participate in the field of training.

While there are ample opportunities for nurturing the future of the industry, the question remains: how effective, fragmented or redundant is this electronic classroom?

Maria Topalovich, head of the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television, which runs four training programs, says a leaner future, already in sight, will demand more co-operation among industry organizations.

At this year’s Banff Television Festival, Topalovich attended a meeting with about 30 colleagues (including representatives from the Canadian Film and Television Production Association, praxis, Toronto Women in Film, the Canadian Film Centre and the National Screen Institute) aimed at setting up a communal database to disseminate information about professional development and training opportunities.

The cftpa, with some money from Human Resources, has developed a data bank and the plan is to have all these organizations feeding information into it. Says Topalovich: ‘It will be one-stop shopping in terms of understanding what’s out there for training and professional development.’

In addition to the data bank, Topalovich says the group will continue to explore other ways of working together. It’s a national movement ‘to organize in order to address the needs of the industry in a better way,’ she says.

wif is also undergoing some major reconstruction, streamlining efforts to maximize the effectiveness of its programs.

Danielle Suissa, president of the Toronto chapter of wif, says the organization’s focus is changing, as is the demography of its membership. wif is concentrating on pulling together a more mature group of members and channeling the experience of this talent pool into its ongoing mentorship program.

wif Toronto recently received a grant from Viacom to spearhead a task force to work on organizing more national projects in tandem with other wif groups across Canada.

The same initiative is underway on the international front. wif is working on three new global programs: creating a home page on the Internet, updating a statistics book to include stats on the types of positions held by women working in the industry, and orchestrating an international festival presence for the organization.

Suissa says the refocusing is really an emphasis on mentoring and training, and adds that whenever there is a job opening anywhere, wif aims to make sure there are suitable women candidates in the running.

Wayne Clarkson, executive director of the cfc, says two issues have created the cry for consolidation. Number one is that as the public purse is squeezed, the onus on the private sector to fund these programs becomes more onerous. Number two is duplication and fragmentation.

‘There are literally hundreds of festivals, special events and training programs across this country, and the national companies, whether it’s the large ones or the smaller ones, are being inundated (for funding). I think there is going to be a weeding out of the non-essential programs, organizations and institutions,’ he says.

Backing up Clarkson’s call for amalgamation is the new cfc/nsi joint venture, the TV Production Lab, which will oversee the development and production of three tv half-hours in one year and replace the existing cfc TV Drama Programme.

Is there a need for this new program in addition to the cfc’s existing programs? The proof is in the pudding, says Clarkson. ‘The centre, and I expect the nsi, would not exist without the production community. So if we’re not providing a valuable service, then it would become evident very quickly in the funding.’

Clarkson says because the tv production industry has deep pockets, 98% of the funding for the Centre’s tv program has come from the industry from the outset. Twice in the last two years, the cfc has raised over $200,000 for the 1994 and 1995 tv program.

As an example of the support the school has received, Clarkson says Alliance Communications has given $200,000 over four years and Atlantis Communications has donated $150,000 over three years.

This fall, a Quebec counterpart to the cfc – L’institute National de Son et Image – is expected to open in Montreal. Also, the cfc is talking to praxis in an effort to extend its presence and attract more applicants from across the country.

As part of the training in the new TV Production Lab, members of the industry will be called in as mentors.

Kevin Sullivan, head of Sullivan Films, says his training consisted of some production assistant work and the establishment of his own company.

Although Sullivan Films – which produces a myriad of family tv entertainment programs such as Road to Avonlea – has been a satisfied recipient of employees through the cftpa Mentorship Program and the Academy’s Director Observer Program, Sullivan has an alternative idea that he says may serve both the companies and the trainees better.

‘What might be interesting is a program set up for an individual company – maybe developed through the Academy – which would take a group of three or four people and let them work within one company. The producer might be forced to take it more seriously (than with one individual in training).’

Informal training, or training without a structured program, is favored throughout the industry as the bread and butter of professional development.

Alliance Productions president Steve DeNure, who is in his mid-thirties, jokes that he is too young to be anyone’s mentor, but he well remembers his own. DeNure went to Los Angeles to work for John Kemeny, one of the founders of Alliance, after he had made a number of short films on his own. ‘I think the whole notion of mentorship is about giving something back and I’m a great believer in the mentorship programs,’ he says.

ofdc head Alexandra Raffe, who says as a producer (I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing) she did not receive any formal training, echoes DeNure’s sentiment. ‘I personally believe that the lifeblood of this industry is informal mentoring, especially for producers and for emerging filmmakers. There is no substitute whatsoever for learning on the job and knowing you have at your back more experience to help guide you.’

Before Raffe started at the ofdc, she helped bring along a new generation of filmmakers in her role as executive producer of I Love A Man in Uniform, The Lotus Eaters and Zero Patience. ‘I spent hundreds of hours talking to (Uniform producer) Paul Brown, and most of the time I was saying, `Yep, I think you’ve covered all your options,’ – helping to give him the confidence.’

On the tv writing side, DeNure says what Alliance has found very productive is the creation of large story departments for series where a number of junior writers work under more experienced writers. ‘In terms of training, that is by far the most valuable school,’ says DeNure.

But when a writer is ready to move on from a story department to creating and selling an original show, it can be a difficult step.

DeNure points to the nsi pitching workshop as an esteemed training ground. ‘It’s an extremely useful thing in terms of challenging – especially writers – to create something of their own and figure out how to get someone’s attention.’

tvontario’s documentary commissioning editor Rudy Buttignol participated in the nsi session at Banff for the first time this summer. He came back with glowing reports. ‘I found it to be incredibly rigorous, focused and very useful.’

Things are not so cheerful in Quebec. Micheline Charest, ceo of Montreal-based Cinar Films – a major producer of children’s animated programs – says she finds the mentorship programs available ‘remote.We have a huge training problem for animation in Quebec,’ she says.

‘I am concerned about finding writers, directors, animators, background artists and storyboard artists, and that is a very specific need,’ says Charest. ‘I think my attack on this will be to do (a training program) with the school system.’

To make matters worse, the competition for animation talent is fierce. ‘We’re competing with everyone else – Steven Spielberg, Disney, Nelvana,’ says Charest.

Another area lagging in training is documentaries. ‘We are in an expansion phase in documentary where it is coming into its own on the broadcast spectrum, and I think some of the support systems aren’t there the way they are for other production,’ says Buttignol.

One training program Buttignol singles out is the National Film Board’s Program to Assist Filmmakers in the Private Sector, which provides post-production lab services to emerging filmmakers. ‘When I look at informal training I think pafps is the best informal post-formal education process for emerging filmmakers because it is the ultimate hands-on,’ says Buttignol.

Raffe also praises the pafps program and the informal support that came from nfb producers when she was making Mermaids.

She says the role of the bigger companies as distributors and facilitators of low-budget product is also enormously important, especially in theatrical production, an area she feels lacks real support.

‘I worry about producers, especially in feature film where they tend to burn out. It’s very hard to make a living because of the nature of the financial returns on feature film.’ Raffe says what the industry needs is the means to grow a crop of creative theatrical film producers. Although she doesn’t have an answer yet, she says the topic is a key issue at the ofdc.

‘Maybe there needs to be some financial inducement so they can stay alive between projects,’ she says, suggesting perhaps the money should come from the agencies.

While the cfc’s Feature Film Project doesn’t solve this problem altogether, industry consensus is that it has gone a long way to developing and promoting new talent in the feature film industry.

Clarkson reports that a first-time feature – ‘the riskiest one’ – is made for about a third the cost of subsequent films. ‘It’s a substantial cost saving given the money Telefilm or the ofdc invest in this program. They get three films for the price of one,’ he says.

In the last four years, Clarkson also reports about 22 feature films have been written, directed or produced by cfc graduates and as many alumni are involved in television.

The ffp, which supervises the development and production of three features every three years, has been widely accused of being an elitist institution. Responds Clarkson: ‘I concluded it is elite, but it’s not elitist. Making a feature film is not something everyone can do or should do. There are only in any given year a handful that have the luck, the skill, the talent and the resources to do it.’

Beyond who decides what is or isn’t elite, there is the indisputable fact that it’s a tough industry to break into. One industry member says his son recently discovered it was harder to get into film at ucla than to get into law at Harvard.

Raffe says while professional development has much improved since she produced her first feature in 1986, it’s a lot more difficult to break into the industry today. ‘There were so many of us in the ’80s that had very modest projects, and there were enough gaps in the system that you could make those projects without the incredible complexity of financing and marketplace requirements you have today.’

Are the training programs helping to open doors for those who weren’t fortunate enough to get started in the ’80s?

‘It’s too early to tell how valuable they have been,’ says Sullivan. ‘I think it will be seven to 10 years before we see the fruits of these programs.’