In this report, Playback looks at the issues and people behind the casting business in Quebec, profiling casting directors, clients and the talent who work in the growing English-language film and tv production sector.

The report also looks at the evolving industry strategy for French-language audiovisual exports, with interviews with leading sellers and new market data following the MIPCOM ’97 and NATPE ’98 program markets.

* * *

Quebec’s international program producers and exporters are running a much tighter ship than in years past. There is real growth potential in the sector, but some of the old illusions related to the export business have been put to rest.

In the key drama category, one of the major new trends is the appearance of mid-range series like Sovimage’s Diva, commissioned by Tele-Metropole, or Verseau International’s L’Ombre de l’Epervier, commissioned by Radio-Canada, both shot on videotape with a ‘film feel’ for half the cost, $450,000 per hour, of traditional film-originated series. Quebec producers will continue to produce big-budget French-language drama series like Omerta, but increasingly this style of product is likely to require some coproduction investment.

The point is, faced with fragmentation domestic broadcasters here are looking for more and paying less, and Quebec’s leading audiovisual exporters say foreign buyers are really no different.

Late last fall, Quebec export consortium Horizon Quebec produced an export and coproduction study indicating its 40-plus member companies, exporters, producers, service companies and broadcasters, generated economic activities valued at $53 million in the follow-up to MIPCOM ’97 and NATPE ’98.

The figure in large measure represents signed and anticipated coproduction agreements at the fall program market, worth approximately $40 million, as well as market sales and derivative activities as reported by 31 of the export group’s 42 members.

Direct program sales totaled $3.9 million at last year’s mipcom, more than half to Western Europe.

The group’s more active coproducers currently include Pixcom Television, animation house Cine-Groupe, controlled by Lions Gate Films, Cinevideo Plus, Cite-Amerique, Prisma Productions, Telefiction and Verseau International.

The sale of Omerta

The benchmark for French-language product in ’97 was the sale of 26 hours of the Productions sda crime series Omerta to France 3 for an estimated $2 million. France 3 also took an option on 13 new episodes to be shot starting next month.

Jean Bureau, vp Motion International, says the deal required patience and took over a year to finalize.

With French-track product, Bureau says competitive international production values are a prerequisite to export, as is an aptitude for patience and persistence.

‘Without the quality and (domestic) ratings success we would never have been able to sell that show [Omerta],’ he says.

Jacques Bouchard, president of Multimedia Group of Canada and operations director of DramaVision, an export consortium with many of Quebec’s leading primetime drama series in its collection, is on the front line in the fight to build Quebec’s a/v export industry.

Bouchard says flexible strategies and a long-term perspective are the key.

First of all, tv buyers everywhere are demanding volume or critical program mass, he says.

Sales are being made for some four-hour miniseries product like Cher Olivier (Avanti) and Alys Robi (Telefiction), but foreign buyers want program consistency and the kind of volume they believe is marketable to their audiences.

So far, DramaVision’s catalogue has an industry-leading 100 hours of primetime Quebec drama including the Prisma medical series Urgence (26 hours), Sovimage’s Lobby (nine hours), the Bloom Films/Verseau cop series Jasmine (11 hours), Prisma’s Paparazzi (10 hours), Prisma’s hockey-based miniseries Le Masque (four hours) and Sovimage’s fashion world drama series Diva (40 hours).

Bouchard also handles English-drama product including the Prima tv movie Platinum, with plans for a 13-hour series extension, and product from Devine Entertainment.

DramaVision

And while buyers in the major English-language markets won’t buy dubbed drama programs, with some exceptions here at home, cbc and Showcase for instance, Bouchard says an active export strategy is worthwhile in business terms.

DramaVision’s target market is French-speaking Europe, which is handled separately from other markets, as well as the Latin markets of Europe and Latin America, and Eastern Europe and Asia.

As the catalogue and sales are expanded, the strategic goal, says Bouchard, is to build hourly drama prices per territory threefold over the next 24 to 36 months, from the current (MIP-TV ’98) price of $20,000 to $30,000 an hour to $50,000 to $75,000 a hour.

As for prices in the Latin markets, where potential is growing quickly, and Eastern Europe, they are closely tied to Quebec’s leveraging capability in price and marketing terms in the richer French-Europe markets of France, Belgium and Switzerland, both terrestial and cable/satellite.

Selling to French Europe is rife with historic and well-documented obstacles.

Accent is an issue, as is the controversial and seemingly unworkable condition that gives Union des Artistes members a rights option to dub their own programs into ‘international’ French.

‘We have several networks in Europe that are ready to buy based on the supposition we can solve this (dubbing) question,’ says Bouchard.

Realistic strategy begins

Bouchard says DramaVision and other players in the Quebec industry are developing a wide-ranging export strategy to deal with a multitude of issues including presale investments in dubbing and marketing, not unlike the successful approach adopted by the telenovella producers in certain Latin-speaking countries.

The Quebec program marketing plan calls for an investment of $15,000 to $20,000 an hour in dubbing and adaptation and advertising costs, an investment which is calculated as the cost of marketing Quebec drama, and not, as in the past, a cost related to the follow-up of closed sales.

Bouchard says dubbing has a regulated and market value in capitalization terms and talks are underway with both public and private-sector investors.

These investments in an initial 150 hours of drama and other programming, will be amortized over a seven-year period and are an essential ingredient in the strategy of targetting the lucrative French-European market.

Lobbyists are pitching this new export/marketing program to various agencies, including sodec and Telefilm Canada.

DramaVision, launched by mgc and Prisma president Claude Godbout a year ago, had export sales of $1 million in ’97. The consortium is set to expand its catalogue and attract other producing partners, says Bouchard.

mgc has ties to a format program distributor (Distraction, headed by president Michel Rodrigue), and intends to launch a documentary and information program division in the months aheads.

Focus on docs, variety

Because English-market broadcasters rarely buy dubbed to English drama, Lyzanne Rouillard, a vp with 19-year-old exporter Filmoption International, says the plan going forward is to focus on documentary, biography and variety program exports and phase out drama.

That said, Filmoption has sold French-track drama abroad including the Alys Robi miniseries sold to Canal+ in France as a 100-minute tv movie, and a package sale which includes (Telefiction) Bombardier sold to Festival, a lower-paying cable/satellite channel operated by France Television.

Alys was also sold to the ‘Southern Cone’ countries of Argentina and Chile, to Colombia, and to various territories in Asia, where product is broadcast with sub-titles.

Major Filmoption sales at last month’s natpe include concerts from the Montreal International Jazz Festival (L’Equipe Spectra) to Discovery Latin America and Discovery International. Discovery is also looking to buy the one-hour special Dolphin: Born to be Wild, produced in French by producer Paul Cadieux and Green Space Productions. The show was also sold to Animal Planet.

Another big jazz package has just been sold to Black Entertainment Television, based in Washington, d.c. ‘We’re inviting them to this summer’s festival. Let’s hope they come, because they may be interested in doing prebuys on the new ones,’ says Rouillard.

Wildlife specialists

Filmoption is also doing well with North American nature series from Edmonton-based producer Albert Karvonen, including Wild Encounters, 13 half-hours, and Treasures of the Wild, eight half-hours. A one-hour National Film Board special on the Rockies called Mountain Splendour, coproduced with Karvonen, has been sold to German tv (br) and public tv in Spain (tve).

An example of current prices for one-hour documentary specials in Europe: $6,000 to $10,000 for tve and $25,000 and $30,000 in Germany.

Filmoption attends mip-tv and mipcom, natpe, the Banff Television Festival and the important WildScreen festival in Bristol, Eng. Rouillard says she’s likely to attend the new mip-doc market in early April.

Filmoption operates an office in Toronto headed by Muriel Rosilio.

The company handles product from some 30 Canadian producers.

Ecce Homo

An important new export product from Coscient Productions, another Coscient Group subsidiary, is Ecce Homo (Behold Man), a 78 one-hour documentary series on the human voyage. This series is being produced at $250,000 an episode in its original French-language version. Bureau says Canal Vie and Tele-Quebec are onside while presale talks are underway with a u.k. buyer and a La Sept/arte for the Franco-German market.

Like OmniScience, an earlier best-selling Coscient doc title, one of Ecce Homo’s prime selling strategies is its capsulized, segment style editing, with half-hour and 15-minute program options, and domestic market host-insert capability. A two-minute clip and a brochure program outline have been the primary promotional tools.

Jean Bouchard, coordinator for Horizon Quebec, says one of the group’s primary goals is to build a credible statistical data base, and in the process find out what is selling, what isn’t and why.

sodec provides half of Horizon Quebec’s annual $600,000 budget.

Individual companies may also apply to Telefilm Canada’s International Marketing Fund and to sodexport for other marketing assistance.

‘Export is vital to the growth of the Canadian audiovisual industry because the domestic market alone cannot sustain the current high level of production,’ says Bouchard.

Horizon Quebec participation in the major mip and mipcom markets has doubled in the last two years to over 30 member companies last fall.

The umbrella group opted for NATPE ’98, as opposed to MIP-Asia, with participation doubling to 13 companies. Filmoption’s Maryse Rouillard is the president of Horizon Quebec. Horizon board members include Michel Rodrigue (Distraction), Louise Baillargeon (president and ceo of the apftq producers association) and Catherine LeClef (Films Transit.)

Horizon Quebec

Programs acquired by Horizon Quebec members – largely from Canada, the u.s. and Western Europe – represented another $5.2 million in investments at last year’s mipcom, while value-added, distribution-related activities including transcoding, dubbing, formatting and subtitling represent another $718,000 in investment. Anticipated revenues from the sale of imports is $4.7 million.

According to Jean Bouchard, the direct cost of business for members at MIPCOM ’97 was $223,431. More than 1,450 meetings were organized at the fall tv, video, cable and satellite program market.