There’s always a great deal of talk about underfunded areas of production, with the finger often being pointed at the ‘commercial’ agenda of funding agencies. Curiously, the genres identified as underfunded vary widely depending on who’s writing the position paper.

Playback decided to check out what’s currently being funded in a cross-section sampling of allotments, and returns.

Nova Scotia Film Development Corporation: The budget isn’t enveloped – it’s allotted on a first-come-first-served basis. For fiscal ’94/95, $1.3 million of the $4.3 million budget was allocated, the remaining $3 million was set aside for the labor rebate program, of which $2 million was flipped over to the capless tax credit.

The investment breakdown by genre was: features, 19%; series, 31%; mows, 16%; miniseries/specials, 4%; docs, 12%; children’s, 15%; and non-theatrical, 3%.

Out of 11 projects developed (mostly series pilots) four went into production (drama series). For allotment of the ’95/96 $1.3 million investment, the genre breakdown looks to be within the same range.

The rate of return was equal across all genres – less than 10%. Total recoupment for the agency since its ’91 startup is less than $100,000, which is not considered bad, since the agency is building an infrastructure, and as an investment encourager, is rarely on the first tier of the recoupment schedule.

SODEC: Quebec’s cultural funding agency, sodec, has an annual envelope for audiovisual affairs of approximately $12 million.

Detailed disbursements for the agency in ’94/95 will not be published until the report is tabled in the Quebec National Assembly. The latest figures, for ’93/94, show that sodec, through film operations headed by director Andre Theberge, made direct investments of $4.7 million in film and tv productions in addition to a $1.5 million investment in its Jeunes Createurs (youth) program and a $1.8 million investment in broadcast variety and magazine programs.

The agency invested 55% or $2.6 million of its direct spending in feature films, 7% or $329,000 in short and medium-length films, 18% or $862,000 in documentary production, and 20% or $930,000 in tv production. Revenues of $332,000 were reported. The rate of return is historically around 5% on investment.

Ontario Film Development Corporation: Based on the 1994/95 unaudited financial statement, the ofdc spent $3,588,546 on production projects broken down as follows: feature film 46%, tv drama 13%, documentary 35%, and non-theatrical 6%. Children’s stats are not kept and ‘family’ programming isn’t split from features or drama.

A total of $1,135,322 was spent on development: feature films, 72%; tv drama, 23%; non-theatrical, 5%. Of those that received development funding, 8.5% have gone into production (this does not include productions that may proceed at a later date).

The return on investment is 8.3%.

The ofdc was oversubscribed last year by between $5 million and $6 million. At one point the amount climbed to $9 million but some projects were ineligible or could hold off production until the next fiscal. This year’s budget, fiscal April 1, 1995 to March 31, 1996 is $25 million, with recoupment, interest, and reserves bringing it up to $29 million. ofip is $14 million of that.

Ontario Arts Council: Between June 1994 and June 1995, 78 projects have received funding through the Film, Photography, Video Office grants program. Under the First Projects: Film and Video envelope, another 46 have been funded.

Total allocation on film projects to date is $728,309, on video, $145,000, and on first-time projects, $219,380. On average, one in five applications received some funding.

Since the oac has yet to be audited for fiscal ’94/95, ending March 31, the only numbers available are for fiscal ’93/94, when two-thirds of the oac’s $900,000-plus budget that funds independent productions went into 44 films, 20 video productions, and 21 first-project development. Out of the 64 film and video projects, nine were documentaries, nine were features, and the rest were short dramas or experimental works. The remaining one-third of the budget funded 21 projects and 16 organizations.

The oac doesn’t keep statistics on how many actually get produced (‘We fund raw creativity and leave the rest to the producers,’ says David Craig, the oac’s fpv officer), but ‘the vast majority’ do get made eventually. High-end drama productions dependent on other agencies for funding get held up most often, and take the longest to come to fruition, he says.

BBS/CJOH Concept and Script Development Fund: Of the 78 applications that were received for script and concept development loan funding, 24 applicants were granted development loans: five for children’s programming, 14 for documentaries, three for music/variety concepts, and two for dramas. Of the pack, only two received full funding ($115,000), Wacky Palms and Surviving the Fear.

Kids and documentaries bring back the highest percentage of recoupment because cjoh-tv is the first window and the audience is high enough to bring a partial return on investment, says Bryn Matthews, president and general manager of cjoh.

British Columbia Film: Currently 6% of British Columbia Film’s overall budget of $4.5 million goes into developing drama. That figure, says Wayne Sterloff, president and ceo of B.C. Film, will rise to 20% as a target for 1995.

Recoupment varies greatly, but generally, B.C. Film’s recoupment policy is weighted in favor of the private investor, says Sterloff. ‘We step back to make sure they have a rewarding experience. As a result of this position, our recoupment in terms of equity doesn’t reward us with anything.’ If they have a loan or advance, however, recoupment is more significant. At the end of the day, he says, it ranges from 10% during a bad year to 25% in a good year.

Overall, 32% of projects developed with B.C. Film assistance advance into production. Broken down further, 12.5 % of pilots go into production, 5% of mows, 9% of features, 45% of documentaries, 25% of arts and entertainment programming, and a whopping 62.5% of animation and children’s programming.

SaskFILM: Saskfilm gm Mark Prasuhn, says at this point the agency’s production investment/ return ratio is very low, under 1%. ‘This is reflective of the fact that we are still very much in startup mode. Generally we see a better rate of return on projects intended for non-theatrical markets that see a small amount of money trickle in over a long period of time.

‘On the drama projects we have done so far, Decoy was the first project to have a real commercial upside where we could expect recoupment. We haven’t seen the first report yet, so it’s too early to say.’

The development/success ratio is measured at three stages: treatment, first draft and final draft. Ten percent of projects funded for treatment end up being produced, but once you get into first and final draft the number increases to 25%. In drama, 11% of projects funded for development were produced; in non-drama, 35% of projects funded for development were produced.

CIDO: Manitoba’s cido only calculates an overall development/success ratio at three to one, but has no other stats available.