While Alberta Premier Ralph Klein has earned recognition by balancing the provincial budget by most any means necessary, many of the province’s film producers have taken a chapter from the book of Klein and are attempting a strategic move away from some facets of government involvement in their projects.

The Alberta film industry, currently the fourth largest in Canada, has been experiencing healthy growth, with the province evolving from providing a stunning backdrop to hosting three series last year: Nelvana and Great North Productions’ Jake and the Kid, season four of the Alberta Filmworks and Alliance coproduction North of 60, and Telegenic’s Lonesome Dove The Series (which was recently cancelled).

The film industry generated about $59 million in 1995 and contributed an estimated $118 million to the provincial economy.

Leon Lubin, executive director of the Alberta Motion Picture Industries Association, says the indigenous film industry has been assuming greater importance in the province and has been gaining depth. Lubin says Alberta has six good crews at the ready, and that figures from Calgary craft industry unions indicate a 33% increase in membership.

Colin Minor, general manager of Edmonton’s Studio Post, says with the acquisition of a film processing lab last year, his company can accommodate most of the post process, but high-end audio post is still handled out of The Beach facility in Calgary.

Minor says projects including Jake and the Kid have split post work between the two centers successfully and cost effectively, and that as the industry grows he plans to make the capital investment for audio facilities.

Alberta producers have generally reported success in the past year, but now stand in the shadow of the ax which has fallen all around, to the benefit of the provincial balance sheet. At press time, rumors were circulating that the new provincial budget, tabled on Feb. 22, would reflect immediate cuts to the ampdc, triggering intense lobbying by the Alberta film industry.

Word was the government would cease to support the corporation and its request for $2 million to make the transition from public to private funding entity.

While producers acknowledge the necessity of provincial support, they are devising ways to continue to thrive in Alberta’s climate of fiscal restraint.

‘There is an understanding by producers in Alberta that the government has moved away from directly supporting industry sectors,’ says Alberta film commissioner Lindsay Cherney. ‘So we have been working to find a way to move the corporation away from the government, to privatize it.’

ampdc chief Garry Toth says the seeds of the idea for privatization were planted last summer when the corporation and industry members sat down to discuss the future of the organization, and after examining alternatives ranging from status quo to shutdown, agreed on privatization as a feasible option. The plan was to privatize the ampdc slowly with a transition period of about a year, during which time support from the government would continue.

‘It’s very hard to know what (privatization) would mean,’ says Andy Thomson, head of Edmonton-based Great North Productions. Thomson says Great North has been working to distance itself from being dependent on the ampdc and Telefilm Canada, pointing out that among the numerous projects the company completed in 1995, the ampdc was involved in only one and two were supported by Telefilm.

‘I worry about what will happen to the ampdc because it’s nice to know it’s there when you need it,’ says Thomson. ‘But at the same time, we’ve been working hard not to need it.’

Producer Arvi Liimatainen says the privatization model put forward by the industry is an exceptional standalone approach to public agency funding.

‘It’s probably the best way to handle this kind of funding,’ says Liimatainen. ‘There is a stronger emphasis on the market potential of projects and a different kind of analysis undertaken toward projects when you are treating the money as a private rather than a public source.’

Liimatainen also cites the collective move of Alberta producers away from public agencies, and says sound market-oriented decision making and questions of culture can be compatibly addressed.

‘Producers in Alberta and elsewhere are being forced to look for other sources of financing. They are looking to l.a. and Europe for presales and broadcast licences and distribution advances,’ says Liimatainen. ‘In that way, you start making decisions about what is good for the project and what’s good for the audience as opposed to what’s good for the culture of the country. And you discover that decisions that come out of the market create a product that is also good for the culture of the country.’

While the idea of a privatized development entity has earned support in the industry, there is still a widely expressed need for a funding body and acknowledgment of the damage to the industry that could result from the government summarily severing financial ties.

Doug MacLeod, a principal in Calgary’s Bradshaw MacLeod and Associates and Alberta Filmworks, says given a transitional mechanism, an orderly transfer of funding responsibility from the public to the private sector is possible.

‘I don’t think the government’s objective is to strategically disadvantage the industry,’ he says. ‘We have to work out a creative solution to their espoused desire to get the government out of business.’

Thomson says the implementation of a tax credit or rebate system would benefit indigenous production and facilitate the creation of international partnerships. ‘It’s guaranteed, it’s predictable; when negotiating with coproduction partners, it’s easier to know I can bring in a set amount from Alberta,’ says Thomson. ‘With Telefilm or ampdc funding you can say, `I can try to get this,’ but it’s dependent on whether they have enough money, whether they like the project, whether they think it’s beneficial to the province. It’s a very difficult building block when you’re trying to put together partnerships.’

Liimatainen calls a tax rebate in Alberta a non-starter: ‘I don’t think the provincial government is going to look at a tax credit for the film industry in isolation from all other tax issues for other industries and communities across the province.’