With the help of government incentives and coproduction activities, combined with local enthusiasm and talent, producers in Newfoundland, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island are beefing up production slates and attracting attention from across the country and around the world.

In Newfoundland, Ken Pittman, head of St. John’s-based Red Ochre Productions and president of the Newfoundland producers association, attributes the growth of the province’s film and tv industry in part to ‘tenacity in hard circumstances,’ as well as support from the cbc, National Film Board and Telefilm Canada.

In particular, he cites the provincial film investment program, which provides a maximum 20% contribution of the overall costs of a project. The program, he says, has ‘made a world of difference.’

Newfoundland’s preliminary production figures for fiscal ’97/98 place indigenous productions at about $3.2 million and coproductions in the $4-million range. Visiting sponsors such as commercial shoots brought in about $465,000, nfb productions were responsible for $325,000, and location shoots are pegged at $200,000, bringing the total estimate for the year to $9.8 million.

After four years in development on Dooley Gardens, a six half-hour $2.1-million comedy series for cbc presently shooting in St. John’s, producer Mary Sexton says there were many times when she wondered if the project would ever get a green light.

‘There was always that feeling that if it wasn’t done in Toronto, it wasn’t going to be any good,’ says Sexton. ‘But we have been producing good new material, developing a small community, and the homegrown products are really good.’

While coproductions and visiting productions are welcome, Newfoundland producers say the key to developing a vibrant industry is indigenous product.

‘The danger is that because the coproductions and visiting productions have an appearance of more and quicker cash, we might latch on to them as solutions for developing the industry,’ says Pittman. ‘I think the challenge for us is to really have faith in our local ability, invest in it, and have remarkable products entering the world market with a Newfoundland brand on them.’

Pittman is currently in preproduction on the $7.5-million feature film Misery Harbour, the province’s first international coproduction and the first project under the new Canada/Norway treaty.

The project was set into action two years ago at mipcom where Pittman was approached by Scandinavian producers Sigva Endresen of Motlys in Norway, Claes-Goran Lillieborg from Sweden and Ulrik Boltjorgense of Denmark who were on the prowl for a Newfoundland partner since the story is half-set in the province.

Inspired by the writings of Scandinavian novelist Aksel Sandmose, Misery Harbour is about the adventures of a teenage boy in the early 1900s who boards a schooner to escape his oppressive village life in Oslo and sets sail for Newfoundland, where he jumps ship and spends the rest of his days.

Pittman is particularly excited about this project because of the compatibility of the countries involved and the fact they are coproducing for ‘creative reasons, not purely for convenience.’

Aside from introducing Newfoundland to the international market, Pittman says a production of this size will give crew members an opportunity to expand their experience on features and perhaps bring home those who have gone elsewhere to find work in the industry.

Key crew for Misery Harbour will be from Scandinavia, while the rest will be from Newfoundland, other Atlantic provinces and Central Canada. Nils Gaup will direct.

New Brunswick in state of flux

On the New Brunswick production front, ‘there are all sorts of things going on right now and there seems to be some kind of upheaval of people trying to figure out what direction it is going to go in,’ says Tony Merzetti, coordinator of New Brunswick Filmmakers Coop.

According to Merzetti, the New Brunswick film industry is divided into two components – outside productions which come to the province for the locations and those with an interest in telling local stories – which has led to debate on how the funding should be split between outside and local productions.

In Film nb’s first year, the majority of money went to coproductions where the New Brunswick producer had a minority interest in the project and little creative control.

‘I think Film nb’s justification for this was people were learning and there was an opportunity to give producers some experience, [but] at the same time [they were] giving away a lot of control,’ explains Merzetti. ‘There was a little over-expenditure on the part of the film agency, and unfortunately there is less money available this year for projects.’

While New Brunswick has not yet hosted an international coproduction, which Merzetti attributes to the lack of infrastructure, it has played host to many visiting productions such as the recent shoot of Sidney Furie’s courtroom drama In Self Defence, a feature film from Montreal-based Les Films St. Paul.

According to Merzetti, the Montreal producers were not interested in hooking up with a local company but instead were looking to hire as many locals as they could to take advantage of the province’s labor incentive tax credit (up to 40% of wages paid to New Brunswick residents) and mentorship program. Since the project didn’t qualify for equity funding, it meant the pot wasn’t depleted for local producers.

‘It was sort of low cost to the indigenous film industry and there was a lot to gain from it,’ says Merzetti. ‘Because of the way the labor rebate program is set up, it doesn’t have a cap. Basically, they could fund as many projects that wanted to come here without tapping out the equity fund.’

What the province’s industry needs in order to grow and build its crew base, according to Merzetti, is some longer term series work.

In an effort to develop the infrastructure and attract new productions, casting director/ production manager Bruce Dennis is currently in development with a number of Toronto partners on Fredericton’s first soundstage.

P.E.I. pushes for tax credit

p.e.i. Film Commissioner Berni Wood says 1997 saw around $16 million in production activity in the province, $14 million of which is the result of Halifax-based Salter Street’s Emily of New Moon series, with the remainder largely commercial and video productions. She estimates the numbers for ’98 will be around $18 million.

While the province has no formal tax credit, Gretha Rose, president of Cellar Door Productions, is working with government on implementing policy in the hopes something will be in place by next summer when she will be bringing two long-form projects to the island – mow Born Lucky with Topsail and a feature film called Strathspey – with combined budgets of $8 million.

p.e.i. producer Larry LeClair, co-owner of SeaHorse Films, believes a harmonized tax credit system for all of Atlantic Canada is needed to expand the region’s industry.

‘It cuts down on what inevitably happens, which is intraprovincial regional bidding wars, and it goes a long way to simplifying the structure,’ says LeClair. ‘It has been discussed for a few years, but it is lugubrious to put in place because everyone has to pitch in and participate.’

LeClair is in development on a 13 half-hour ‘edutainment’ math series for kids called The AweSum Adventures of the AfterMath Crew. The coproduction with East West Media in Halifax will begin shooting in September.

Cellar Door is currently in production on 26 half-hours of The Inn Chef, an $800,000 cooking show with Halifax’s Ocean Entertainment for Life Network. The show stars chef Michael Smith, who practises his culinary arts from The Inn at Bay Fortune in the first half of the program, then takes viewers to a local producer associated with the main ingredient of the featured menu item. If a lobster dish is the focus of the day, viewers are taken to visit a lobster boat.

Also out of Cellar Door is The True Meaning of Crumbfest, a $760,000 half-hour animated coproduction with Toronto-based Catalyst Entertainment for teletoon.

The special, which will air during the festive season, follows the adventures of mice living between the walls of a farmhouse who are overjoyed when Christmas celebrations produce an abundance of crumbs, but have no idea what is going on until one of them goes off exploring.