For the second year, Playback convened Vancouver-based producers to chat about doing business on the West Coast.

Phil Savath, writer/producer of the upcoming These Arms of Mine pilot for the cbc; Helena Cynamon, Madison and The Adventures of Shirley Holmes producer; and Nettie Wild, who is touring with her documentary A Place Called Chiapas, which will have a unique festival-broadcast-theatrical opening this month, provided the commentary.

As producers, they are currently working in an extremely dynamic film center. But even in a market like Vancouver that is vibrating with promise through attractive dollar exchanges, tax incentives and growing global demand, the real lives of local producers continue to be dominated by a passion for stories and long-distance affairs with the centers of power.

Playback: Have you ever been hampered by being Vancouver-based?

Wild: No. But let’s put it this way. Toronto-based filmmakers, in particular, have a real advantage. There is an advantage to being able to walk across the street and sit down with somebody who is head of an agency.

The $1,000-cup-of-coffee [required by Vancouver producers talking to Toronto power holders] is just not realistic.

On the other hand, there is something to be said about being on the other side of the Rockies – you don’t have people looking over your shoulder.

Savath: It’s really about them being more advantaged than us being disadvantaged. And you have to realize that there are advantages [to being out of the center of power] – whether it’s Telefilm Canada wanting to spend money in the regions or it’s cbc trying to revitalize themselves in Vancouver.

Rae [Hull, cbc’s regional head of television in b.c.] has invested in my pilot [These Arms of Mine] separate from the network.

Cynamon: We used to hear things that came from Toronto, that, for example, they thought the West couldn’t do a one-hour series – ‘There’s just not the talent out there.’

The climate has changed over the past couple of years because people have stuck it out here and said ‘We’re staying.’

Now, they [the central Canadian power brokers] come to us for political reasons as well as practical ones.

Playback: As producers, you did have an opportunity to `go across the street’ to talk to WIC Western International Communications as a broadcaster, but that is likely going to change with the sale of its assets to CanWest Global Communications and Shaw Communications. Do you think that the dismantling of wic will have a negative effect on your business?

Cynamon: I don’t know where the political winds will go. Global – or whoever is going to come here – is going to establish themselves, for political reasons, as a national broadcaster.

Politically, we’ve made a lot of noise out here saying we won’t be ignored. In the end, we can only focus on the storytelling. If we keep going after our passion, keep the fire in our belly – which is how Madison was done in the first place – I really believe that we can look at it [the dissolution of wic] as an opportunity.

Playback: As smaller producers located in Vancouver, how do you avoid being swamped by the big corporate machines you court?

Wild: It’s important that the partners that come together to finance a project don’t eliminate each other or create a whole series of catch-22s when it comes to distributing it.

That’s why it’s a big deal that [A Place Called Chiapas] is having this theatrical launch in Vancouver, because it’s the broadcaster finally saying, ‘Okay, it’s good to get this out into the theatrical world and it’s going to mean something that audiences will see that it was produced in association with cbc’ in the same way you can see a classic film from Britain that is a Channel 4 production.

A lot of people, I think, are so weary of what we call wienie wars [during negotiations] that they sign ridiculous contracts that don’t allow their shows to get out. A lot of really good films just die on the vine because there are all sorts of booby traps built into the contract that don’t allow the film to get out.

You could deal with a broadcaster, for instance, that has all sorts of stipulations that it doesn’t allow for second windows and then it doesn’t rebroadcast your show.

In Canadian distribution, we have to get away from thinking that ‘these are all our marbles and we’re keeping them over here because we paid top dollar and absolutely no one else is going to see them,’ even if it turns out we’re not so great at distribution.

Savath: Our position in the world is very different than the way we actually see ourselves. Two films of mine have been sold to Channel 4 and yet we’re going to go to panels at the [Vancouver International Film Festival] Trade Forum and everyone is going to ask ‘How come the cbc isn’t more like Channel 4? How come Channel 4 does all this stuff and cbc doesn’t?’

We do make that kind of product. I’ve sold to cbs and done well with the American networks. We have to learn that we’re not going to lose everything by partnering.

Cynamon: As [Vancouver producer] Matthew O’Connor says, ‘The success of one of us is the success of all of us.’ It makes you think, oh yeah, I don’t have to be competitive and clawing.

Wild: When we took our film to the Berlin festival, Vancouver producer Stephen Hegyes was there with Dirty and a lot of the networking was between two West Coast producers who were looking out for each other.

Cynamon: We don’t have big players, so I think that’s why we do band together.

Playback: The themes of this discussion have focused on forging production businesses on the fringes of the centers of power and the need to overcome territorialism. That sounds like tough going. Why not go to Toronto, New York or Los Angeles where the power is? Why do you stay here?

Wild: It’s home. That means a tremendous amount. It means you’ve grown up as a producer and an artist in a home base. It all has to do with the relationships we’ve been talking about. They’re not insignificant. That’s why you want to build them up rather than move away.

People know us here, have a sense of the way we work. The various institutions know us as well so that they’ll take a leap of faith.

Savath: Just like some people want to work with you because you aren’t a complainer or you’ve got great properties, what’s wrong with them wanting to work with you because of where you are.

People from Toronto, the cbc, they’re dying to come out here. Being out of the center of power can be an advantage because you can create your own axis, your own world.

Cynamon: And when we do call Toronto, we’re fresh and we’re new. They take time to talk because our time is limited. And I can still go into the epicenters like New York, Toronto and l.a. with a sense of naivete saying ‘I still want to learn,’ and in the process we learn together.