Montreal: Documentary filmmakers in the Canadian Independent Film Caucus say they’ll be shut down if obliged to shoot under industrial conditions and pay union scale. The cifc producers say they can’t pay union scale because tv licences for one-off docs keep shrinking.

The problem facing cifc members is that low-budget productions sold to broadcasters are not otherwise exempt from paying union scale, according to the unions and the standing definition of an ‘artisanal film.’

The issue arose last month at Commission de Reconnaissance des Associations d’Artistes hearings when the apftq representing Quebec’s producers asked to be recognized as the only professional association authorized to negotiate collective agreements with the eight primary Quebec film and tv unions.

The apftq argued that certain low-budget sectors should be exempted from collective agreements signed with unions, including the stcvq, Association des Professionnels de la Video du Quebec, Union des Artistes, sardec and actra.

Producer and cifc member Erica Pomerance says the unions are now preparing to ‘counterattack’ and want films financed by tv prior to the first day of shooting to comply with union regulation.

‘sardec has a basement figure of $15,000 or $18,000 for a script,’ she says. ‘I couldn’t have paid myself $15,000 to write Tabala. I wrote it for $6,000 [because] I wanted to get the thing made.’

And Pomerance says most cifc docs (as opposed to dramatic shorts) don’t match up with the ‘artisanal film’ definition used for sodec’s independent sector funding, essentially the same definition advanced by the apftq at the commission hearings.

cifc docs are financed through tv presales and licences, an essential trigger for funding from Telefilm Canada and sodec.

‘Most of the small producers are surviving because they are not paying union, and the minute we pay union our budgets would be bigger. A lot of the small independent producers would go under,’ says Pomerance.

With higher scriptwriting and technical fees, small producers would be obliged to ask for much bigger licences, she says. ‘And we know what broadcasters are paying for one-offs; they are not paying anything.’

‘Many of us are lowering our budgets in order to access funding because it’s so hard to get licences [and] so we have to do more things ourselves.’

A case in point, Pomerance says producers who supply the cbc doc anthology series Roughcuts can’t pay union on a budget of $100,000 or $150,000, even if cbc pays as much as $50,000 to $75,000 for an exclusive (first) window. ‘That’s a very exceptional licence and they don’t allow you to go to Telefilm with it,’ she says.

On a new doc project, Childhood Robbed, Pomerance says the accumulated licensing fees – from four broadcasters – is $38,000 or $40,000.

‘It’s like pulling teeth. History gave us $25,000, so we had to bring our budget down from over $300,000 to $250,000 in order to make the cable [ctf] fund.’

Says cifc member George Hargrave of Nutaaq Media says smaller houses ‘are getting cast aside,’ either merging with larger companies or obliged to make deals with even bigger operations, ‘because everybody is doing series or has six series in the works and nobody wants one-offs anymore. It’s just getting harder and harder to find a off-one market, especially with the specialty services.’