The Toronto International Film Festival’s Symposium, with 1,200 delegates, was an overall success, especially with the launch of an industry center and a series of meetings that took place throughout the 10-day film event.

Symposium head Debbie Nightingale says the micro-meetings did gangbusters, bringing together producers, government agency types, a new media ‘idea guy,’ American broadcasters, buyers and prebuyers, with groups of up to 20 producers per sitting.

Business cards, tapes and scripts constantly changed hands, and Nightingale hopes to see the sessions, often fully booked, back again next year.

‘We want to meld (the Industry and Sales Office and Industry Office) together to make it a big industry center,’ says Nightingale. ‘We couldn’t do it this year, but without a doubt there will be some version of it next year.’

In the two days of Symposium sessions some interesting nuggets cropped up:

Interactive media

In the ‘Virtual Money: The Business of New Media’ seminar, interactive media marketing guru Paul Giurata outlined stats showing the demand for media-rich software content and services is a high growth market, with multimedia pc, console systems, cd-rom and online here to stay and interactive tv as yet unproven.

With the top 10% of the cd-rom market generating 71% of the revenue, Giurata concludes the market fuels production of higher quality product, which means getting into the cd-rom game will continue to cost more. This in turns triggers the consolidation trend, with seekers of distribution relationships, demand generation capabilities, development investment and talent, forming strategic partnerships.

While the price of entree to the cd-rom game may be steep (about $1 million to develop a title), the players on the panel seemed to be hyped about the future of interactive drama.

John Baker of Broderbund demoed In The First Degree, a drama in which the player is the prosecutor who has to prepare a murder case and develop a strategy to get a first degree conviction. Baker quipped that just like real life, you’ll never know what really happened: ‘The object isn’t to find out, just to get a conviction.’

Joshua Greer of Digital Planet, the Culver City, California-based company behind the first interactive online marketing campaign for a major motion picture (Star Gate), is also doing interactive drama, but Greer’s delivery platform of choice is the Net.

More sites

Based on the success of the first film site, Greer’s company has continued to do movie promos for mgm and a site and full campaigns for all mca pics (Clockers, To Wong Fou). The Apollo 13 site had over 1.5 million (distinct) users, at a cost of two cents per impression. Digital Planet’s new NetCount, which will provide a comprehensive look at who’s going to sites, will be released in October.

Armed with the eyeball-gathering expertise and the means to prove it, Greer will be producing seven to 14 shows in the next year that will be ad-sponsored entertainment destined for the Internet, the beauty of which, says Greer, is that no distribution system acts as a gatekeeper, and he has direct interactivity with viewers.

‘Bandwidth is an issue’

Responding to concerns over the capability of the Net to handle the data flow, Greer admits that ‘bandwidth is an issue,’ but says he expects by June ’96 new bandwidth technology will allow faster content. Due to non-disclosure restrictions, Greer was unable to expand upon the technology advances.

Greer says 15,000 people a day are joining the Internet, and that when his company was formed there were only 10 firms doing Internet design, now there are over 2,000. The current impact of this was felt when Greer tried to dial into the Net to show Burn Cycle, an interactive doc, and was refused entry three times.

Whatever is happening on the technology side – advances in cable modem, fiber optic, wider bandwidth, interactive tv or high-def cd-roms – interactive drama needs some elemental tinkering on the content side.

Atlantis executive producer Marty Katz focused on the kind of interactive formula that would be used in Tamara, the company’s upcoming cd-rom (with online potential) based on the eponymous play.

Katz believes the current models of interactivity, wherein the user chooses the outcome, do not work in drama as it interrupts suspension of disbelief. More preferable to Katz is a ‘ghost structure’ in which the user can interact with objects, but only indirectly affect what the characters are doing.

European coprod front

On the financial interaction front, where there is a will, there is way. That was the message delivered by French producer Philippe Carcassonne (coproducer of Le Confessionnal), Rainer Grupe of Polygram, Mark Shivas, head of BBC Films, producer Margaret Matheson and efdo president Dieter Kosslick, who spoke to a crowded room of producers about the abundant opportunities for making European coproductions.

Kosslick lit up a few eyes when when he announced the Film Foundation of North Rhine-Westphalia fund does not always require a German coproducer if German locations are used. If shooting in Germany is not part of the plan, he recommends setting up a temporary German office. A French producer did it, he said, and he ‘coproduced with himself.’

‘Remotely respectable’

With anywhere from one to two million pounds to invest per feature film, Shivas declared he would happily coproduce with anyone ‘whose money is even remotely respectable.’

Said Matheson: ‘There is no reason why a Canadian producer couldn’t coproduce with a u.k. producer and access (European Coproduction Fund) funds,’ which requires a minimum of two coproducers, one of which must be British.

Carcassonne pointed out that, if requirements for obtaining French government funds are met, the payoff can be substantial, even if the demands are complex and sometimes arcane. He claimed that if Four Weddings and a Funeral had a French coproducer instead of one from the u.k., the film would have reaped, through government funds, an additional us$9 million at the box office.

Language requirements are not the key issue for Canada/France coproductions, he continued, because the film need only be made in the language of the majority producer.

What’s holding Canada back, he said, is money, or more accurately, the lack of it. ‘Our problem with our Canadian friends iswe do need some signs of Canadian money, even symbolically.’ Le Confessional was made on the basis of 60% investment from Canada and 20% from each of the u.k. and France.

New tax credit

The complexities of the new tax credit – a decisively dense subject – were hashed out successfully despite a clanging alarm in the Sutton Place Hotel, an incessantly interruptive pa announcement, cellular phones and a disintegrating set for the panelists.

Guy Mayson, who is heading up the tabling of tax credit issues for Canadian Heritage, hinted at some of the terms likely to shape the credit, which should be announced later this fall.

The Investment Canada definition for Canadian-controlled companies will likely fill the parameters for credit eligibility, and although Mayson says Finance feels strongly that broadcasters should not be excluded from the credit, the issue of their accessibility has yet to be resolved. ‘If broadcasters have eligibility, we will be monitoring it closely,’ he added.

Mayson said while the Quebec tax credit will be a model for many points, the federal credit’s parameters for variety, children’s and arts programming may be broader.

The curtailing of the foreign coproducer is a big issue, and while Mayson says the government is not trying to interfere, there are problems relating to the definition of Canadian ownership. Also, the call for a Canadian distribution requirement is new to the eligibility rules, as is a proposed separation of u.s. and foreign rights.

Although bankability of the credit was rumored to be off the table, Mayson said it is up for discussion.

‘It’s kind of roll ‘n’ roll government, which is fine,’ he concluded.

Heenan Blaikie partner Norm Bacal, also on the tax panel, raised the issues of cost implications and the stability of the terms of the credit once they are, in fact, drafted.

Whenever a tax system begins to cost a lot it is deemed ‘abusive’ and starts to change, ‘it won’t be static,’ he said. ‘The government will be able to easily monitor what they’re spending, and don’t think it will take very long to narrow – producers won’t be able to count on it over the long term,’ he warned.

Cable and Cancon

On the topic of counting on money, Peter S. Grant, senior partner at McCarthy Tetrault, made the point in the ‘Will Cable Competitors Support or Threaten Canadian Content?’ session that the crtc is responsible for finding fair and equitable criteria for contributions to Canadian content for all new distributors.

There may be cause for concern now that the dth providers have drafted their funding proposals, said Grant. For example, ExpressVu wants to begin with 2.5% of all revenue, moving to 5% when certain subscriber numbers are reached, and Power DirecTv is offering 5% on revenue from its basic package.

Decisions will have to be made on what percentage to use, based on what revenue, and whether it should vary with time and penetration. ‘It has to be a level playing field,’ Grant concluded.

At the ‘Marketing Genius’ seminar, some of the sharpest minds in movie marketing made the startling revelation that ‘sex sells’ to an incredulous Symposium audience.

The advice was driven home by Mark Gill, president of marketing at Miramax Films, who said that using the marketing formula ‘sex, betrayal, murder’ was the only surefire way to rouse moviegoers, particularly Americans, from their natural couch-bound state.

The marketing game

Gill, who has been involved in the marketing of Pulp Fiction, Muriel’s Wedding and Unzipped, joined representatives of Universal Pictures, Alliance Releasing, HandMade Films, France’s Lumiere Pictures and moderator Ann Medina in a discussion of marketing large and small films in an era of increasingly stiff competition.

Mary Pat Gleeson, vp marketing at Alliance, said the average marketing budget for an Alliance picture is about $200,000, which is stretched by using radio and by undertaking long-term co-operative programs for its ‘art films.’

The commercial spots for Shallow Grave, distributed in Canada by Alliance, were positioned next to spots for Pulp Fiction to capitalize on the compatible audience, which resulted in Alliance grossing 40% of the total North American box office. Gleeson said Alliance generally captures about 12% to 15% of box office, while the majors average 8%.

Gareth Jones, vp of film and tv at HandMade, said at the low-budget level it is key for the director and stars to be committed to a project and to help market the film.

HandMade’s beyond-cult classic Withnail & I is being rereleased theatrically in England, a milestone achieved with the help of director Bruce Robinson, who Gareth says is ‘still working to market the film.’

Gareth and Bruce Feldman, vp of marketing at Universal, agreed that a good film is marketable and financially viable even though it may not have the obvious commercial components of success. Feldman, who helped launch Jurassic Park and Schindler’s List, said the distributor’s refrain, ‘I like it but I don’t know how to sell it,’ is an ‘excuse for not having answers,’ and pointed to Kiss of the Spider Woman, which, shunned by distributors. ended up making $18 million.

Gill, in a rapid-fire delivery, stressed the difference between a film’s playability and marketability.

The former, he said, means a long run driven more by word of mouth and is demonstrated by films like Pulp Fiction and The Postman.

Titillating aspects

Marketability can be maximized by exploiting the most salable aspect of the film, which, in the case of Atom Egoyan’s Exotica, is flesh. Both Miramax and Alliance handled the marketing of that film by capitalizing on its titillating aspects in posters and in trailers.

Gill stressed the importance of understanding a film’s commercial value, stating that if it won’t play in the sticks, the budget is best kept low. Clueless, he said, was made for $11 million and will make $50 million, whereas Kids, lacking such broad appeal, will still turn a profit because it was made on a smaller scale.

Gill also pointed to stepped-up competition, citing the increased number of films released weekly. The week of Oct. 14 is crowded with 10 film releases.

TV’s societal role

In other production advice, Turner Network executive vp of movies and miniseries Allen Sabinson said, ‘The easiest thing in the world to sell (is) a writer when a script comes across a development executive’s desk.’

Sabinson spoke to a packed room atop the Sutton Place about the problems of the world and television’s role and responsibility as a tool to shape or change the world.

Once again, Canadians were admonished by an American network exec for failing to strengthen the reputations and output of our actors and, in particular, our writers. ‘The more you can develop your own indigenous writers, the more you’re going to be able to control the destiny of your product.’

with files from mary maddever, teressa iezzi and allison vale.