Will the real Pat Ferns please stand still! Although we reckon the real man behind the producer/impresario/visionary mask is unknown by most, we’ve tried to tap into his essence. Following are the musings of some who have worked with him, from the days he planted baby career roots at the cbc to today when his Rolodex is the envy of the production, broadcasting and new media industries. Elusive as the real you may be, Pat Ferns, these people have quite a bit to say about your life:

*Trina McQueen: executive vp, ctv; chairperson, Banff Television Foundation; member of the board of directors, Banff Television Foundation

*Richard Nielsen: president, Norflicks Productions

Arthur Weinthal: programming consultant; member of the board of directors, Banff Television Foundation; chairman of the board of governors, Banff Television Foundation

*Laurier LaPierre: chairman of the board, Telefilm Canada; member of the board of governors, Banff Television Foundation

*Annette Cohen: former president, Primedia Productions

*Alison Clayton: executive director, Rogers Cable Network Fund

*Patrick Dromgoole: chairman, Patrick Dromgoole Productions, u.k.; member of the board of governors, Banff Television Foundation

*Andra Sheffer: executive director of the Independent Production Fund, COGECO Program Development Fund, and Bell Fund.

*Phil Lind: vice-chairman, Rogers Communications; member of the board of governors, Banff Television Foundation

*Maria Topalovich: president and ceo, Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television

*Richard Price: chairman of Television Monitoring Services, u.k.

*Graham Benson: chairman and chief executive, Blue Heaven Productions, u.k.

*Herbert Granath: senior vp, ABC Inc. and chairman espn, usa; member of the board of governors, Banff Television Foundation

*Norman Horowitz: president, The Norman Horowitz Company, u.s.; member of the board of governors, Banff Television Foundation

*Chris Haws: senior vp, Discovery Networks International

*CBC, the independents and the Broadcast Fund

Trina McQueen: When they [Pat Ferns and Richard Nielsen] were at the cbc they were working in current affairs and they were considered, both of them, to have a great career ahead of them at the corporation. Then they suddenly left to form this independent production company and everyone at the time thought it was the craziest thing to do.

They had turned their back on what seemed then to be the powerhouse of Canadian television. They had gone out into an area for which there was almost literally no market. Where would they sell their programs? Everybody thought they were just crazy. Well they weren’t. They were more perceptive readers of the future than the people who thought they were crazy were.

Richard Nielsen: What happened was that the industry wasn’t used to dealing with independents and didn’t particularly like it – doesn’t particularly like it to this day.

Knowlton Nash credits Pat and I for our lobbying efforts in creating the Broadcast Fund. I’m sure there were an awful lot of people involved, but we were certainly agitators for it. It became important as to how the cbc in particular was going to relate to independent production, and we had input into that all the way from the president down. We had views as to how independents were to be related to by the networks, and I think that had a lot to do with the way the independent industry grew.

McQueen: Pat, in particular, is probably one of the most effective lobbyists (he certainly was in the early 1970s) for independent production. Almost single-handedly he developed – among the political community, the regulatory community – the perception that television would be better if it were not entirely done by people who worked on salaries for the cbc. Television might be more exciting, more invigorating and diverse if there were a number of outside producers.

This was absolutely anathema to the cbc. But the idea gained currency very quickly, and there began to be great sympathy towards it in the government, in the regulatory agencies. I believe there was a very strong independent report tabled saying that cbc must get into independent production.

The result is that cbc has completely changed. Most of its largest dramatic and entertainment productions are done by independent producers.

Arthur Weinthal: He was very instrumental in pushing independent production on the cbc and really demanding that the cbc not just produce everything in-house, but employ the independent production world.

He was very instrumental in creating the single producers association.

Aside from being a producer, he was really an activist in terms of being, as he’s sometimes affectionately called, the father of independent production in Canada.

Nielsen: When we left the cbc, we left together to create Nielsen-Ferns. And the expectation in my mind was that I would be the writer and he would be the director and we would both to some extent produce. Pat’s real interests lay elsewhere, but I think the world lost a good director.

Pat showed enormous promise as a director. He has a very good sense of humor and a good sense of irony. I think the whole thing in our business, if one can rid oneself of the journalism aspect of it, is the need to perceive what you’re showing in a fresh and interesting way, slightly off-centre.

I still remember him in a film he directed…with [notorious financier] Bernie Cornfeld. I remember Pat shot Cornfeld discussing his deep love of humanity next to a Great Dane that was chewing with enormous appetite on something. My sense of Cornfeld’s real interest was to devour and consume, and there sat his alter ego!

I think I started out as a mentor and [Pat and I] became peers. That’s what you hope. There was no doubt at the time he arrived he had some theoretical approaches to the business, and when we leaped out into the private sector not knowing what we were going to find, we were in a situation of learning together. But I was in the senior position, so I took more blame and more credit. He was a wonderful colleague.

Laurier LaPierre: Pat was a little cbc all of his own when he had his private company, putting Canadian authors on television, getting their books to be turned into television programs. Robertson Davies is an example of that. And Pat is deeply attached to this country.

Annette Cohen: I didn’t have a nose for television. I remember he gave me the script for Catherine the Great and I went back to him and said, ‘Pat, this is the worst thing I ever read. You can’t do this.’ And of course it was one of the greatest successes he ever had on television. Pat went ahead because he knew it was good stuff. That’s why I stayed in feature film and he looked after television.

Alison Clayton: I know from a lot of women in the industry that he is considered to be one of the big supporters of women and has given some amazing career opportunities to women. In his last company, Primedia, I think most of his staff were women. The women all feel their careers were supported and advanced by Pat, and that is a wonderful thing to say about somebody.

Cohen: Pat can work with women. Not all men can. And he works with women with great equanimity. It was just a non-issue from day one. I was a colleague. Period. Pretty rare in those days.

Patrick Dromgoole: We had a rare old problem on one series [Frontier], when the director, who was French, died. He died a short way in, very tragically, after we’d been shooting for five or six weeks. I remember when I told Pat he said, ‘Jeepers, that’s bad….His agent’s still alive isn’t he?’ That’s the guy keeping the show going.

Cohen: Pat is unflappable. He has more sangfroid than anyone I know. It’s not detachment, it’s not uncaring, it’s just he’s the guy you want in your lifeboat in a crisis. He thinks clearly all the time, he really does.

Clayton: We used to call him the ‘godfather of coproductions,’ he was so big on getting coproduction treaties going in this country.

*The point system

Andra Sheffer: I was working for the Department of Communications… when there was the initiative to set up the Capital Cost Allowance for film and television. In order to do that, we had to work on a policy to define what was a Canadian production.

At some point, after lots of discussions, we came up with this model of the point system. We were adding up the points and juggling them and we said, ‘It’s 10, it’s 10! This is going to work!’ And we said, ‘We’ve got to test this out. Who shall we call?’ And it was, ‘We’ve got to call Pat Ferns.’ If Pat thought it was good we had faith that everyone else would think it was good. We got a blessing more or less from Pat and…the point system to this very day is still the same basic point system.

*The Cable Fund

Phil Lind: There’d been some rumblings about a fund. The cable guys wanted to be seen to be contributing. We didn’t want to make it so that it was a government thing; we wanted to make the gesture and not have anyone sort of steer it for us. It had to be private, not public. The private sector was going to develop this thing, not the government.

So I was explaining this to Pat and we sort of noodled around different things. It was a long lunch, but in the end we developed the scenario for the cable industry to contribute money to a fund that ultimately became the ctf.

Pat always believed that things were together. So he would always urge broadcasters, cable companies, and production to come together, rather than operate in separate silos. He always understood the logic of the other person’s position, and therefore was always able to meld them in a way that very few people would.

If I ever had a problem in this business, certainly one of the first guys I would speak to would be Pat, because he has the potential of coming up with a solution. But more than that, he starts at a different place than I do, but I don’t feel it. I feel that he is right with me in talking about the thing. He genuinely strives to be as helpful as he possibly can.

*The Geminis and the Academy

Maria Topalovich: I think the notion in [Pat’s] mind was that we needed one national showcase that recognized all aspects of Canadian television. So what Pat did was work with the Academy, bringing all the various organizations together to talk about the creation of a national awards presentation.

He was at the centre of it all in terms of rallying the various parties. Pat always had a broader vision. He always had the bigger point of view in his sight. He knows how to bring disparate factions together…and find a common ground. He’s not a solo band.

Sheffer: That was an ongoing battle because there were different interest groups, those who wanted to preserve the status quo and those who felt that the Academy model and the peer group voting system was the way of the future.

Pat was the visionary; he saw the way of the future. And so he really pushed for the true formation of the Geminis as part of the Academy mandate, and the entire Academy changed from the Academy of Canadian Cinema to the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television.

Nielsen: The [Academy Achievement Award] couldn’t be more deserved because Pat really created the Academy as the head of the [then] cfta. He merged that organzation, which was mainly television producers, with the feature film producers assocation, and that in effect created the Academy. So really they’re honoring their father, in relation to that.

*Banff Television Festival

LaPierre: Film has Cannes and television has Banff, said the New York Times once, and I think a lot of that is due to [Pat Ferns], and he has revitalized it. I think he realized, sooner than anyone else in the Banff structure of operations that it had to be a national television festival. Consequently, he has built solidly his French-speaking base, and someone was appointed from tfo to go there this year.

Topalovich: He has a very broad vision of how this industry works…in Canada and globally. That combination helps him come up with where this industry should be going, where Banff should be going. How does it meet the needs of the tv industry in Canada and globally? It’s to bigger issue concerns that Pat has applied his tremendous energy and love for the industry.

McQueen: It’s interesting, when Pat was the chair [of the Banff festival], it was his firm conviction that the chair should have a very strong role in organizing the festival creatively. When he’s the president, he feels the president should have a strong role in organizing the festival creatively. So both as chair and as president, he was really a leader in developing the kinds of programs, of delegates, and the philosophy of what Banff should be. Pat has always used that strategic vision to make sure Banff was in the right place at the right time.

Lind: Pat is a tremendous follow-through guy. He doesn’t just set up and then, whether it happens or not, you can determine later. He follows the sessions, he follows up later. He has a great attention to detail.

Richard Price: If you said to most people in places like mip, ‘Who’s the most recognizable person in Canadian television?’ I think you’d find that a lot of people would put Pat Ferns there. because he has worked so hard at his international contacts, and he’s such a pleasant, respected fellow.

McQueen: He’s an impresario at heart. He loves nothing better than bringing together a great cast. And I think he looks on Banff as a production that he’s casting as an impresario. He has an instinct for the spectacular, whether it’s arranging Michael Moore or Michelle Pfeiffer or one of the great stars who can be at the festival, and creating buzz and controversy and all that kind of showbiz part of Banff.

Underneath that, of course, there is a responsibility to the industry….He has to be strategic in making sure that you not only have a great show experience, but that it also is a great business experience for the delegates. So Pat is always juggling those two aspects of producing the festival.

Weinthal: He’s incredibly devoted to Banff. And he’s really been the apostle who has traveled the world these past four or five years and kicked Banff up a notch big time.

Sheffer: If he believes in an idea, he makes it happen. In my term [at Banff] I saw the awards at the festival go from being a nice television event to being a major television event.

Pat rallied the board, he rallied his crew, he went out and raised money, he traveled internationally, and he went to every event he could to promote the festival. Under his leadership he wanted it to be the international festival for television, and he made that happen.

Graham Benson: Getting people together is not the most impossible thing in the world by a long shot, but people think it is now. Pat and I come from the old school. You get people in a room, you sit down and you say, ‘This is what we want to achieve. How are we going to do it? We’re not going to open the door till we’ve done it.’ It’s about trust, understanding, and making people feel that if you do business with us, if you deliver what we’re asking, you’ll enjoy yourself.

Herbert Granath: In my many years of experience in the television business, I have always felt that the mark of a good executive is the executives that he or she hires to surround themselves with. And Pat has always surrounded himself, to my observation, with very professional, strong people, and that is a credit to him.

Benson: What Pat has is the ingenuity, the talent, and the wherewithal to address a large crowd. And everybody he’s talking to thinks he’s talking to him or her personally.

LaPierre: At one point I don’t know if the Banff Springs Hotel will be able to hold us all in. The numbers have increased at the festival every year. At the beginning, of course, we met in the telephone booth.

Dromgoole: He knows a hell of a lot about the way the business works, not only in Canada but also on the international scene. Banff is one of the top three or four international festivals in the world. The prize at Banff now rates ahead of the prize you get at Monte Carlo. You get everyone competing, something like 1,200 entries. It’s got a lot of prominence. I never got one. I got two Emmys and most of the English ones, but I haven’t got a Banff prize. There you go!

Clayton: He probably has the largest Rolodex of international players of anyone in Canada. So when Pat Ferns invites the head of bbc drama to come to Banff, they come for Pat, and once you’ve got that drama person there, then all the producers follow suit.

He’s just raised the level not only of awareness but of the calibre, the quality of people who come to Banff in terms of buyers and sellers and coproduction partners.

Norman Horowitz: Pat was a commercial producer, not a dilettante, a technocrat or a bureaucrat from the government. Pat was and is a businessman. What he has done with the festival is a reflection of a commercial guy. He has done stuff to make it stronger, more appealing, bigger, better. And he makes sure important people attend. That attracts more people, more activity and more conversation.

Weinthal: I have never in my experience seen a better match in a job than Pat and the presidency of Banff. Pat knows everybody in this business in the western world…all the players in England, France, Germany, Italy, the United States and Canada, and no matter how often people come and go he seems to know them all. He’s an incredibly hard-working man and…essentially under his authority, under his drive, he is making Banff really an international word for television excellence.

LaPierre: He knows production galore and I think that the Canadian film and television industry, particularly the television industry, is made more prominent. He has these receptions all over the world, he makes announcements. He’s a very good crowd worker. He’s able to get everybody roped in, he’s very well respected, and he speaks French.

*Banff: Market S(t)imulations

Price: He has this little lecture series, pitching series, and it has gained him an awful lot of respect. I know it as Market S(t)imulation…because that’s exactly what it does. It has helped many younger people who hadn’t the ghost of an idea of how to put together an international coproduction. The track record of how many of those have actually been made is hugely impressive.

Horowitz: I arrive, and we do this thing for a couple of hours, and the preparation is none. I read the stuff as I’m sitting there getting ready. Every once in a while, Pat comes up with some idea about how we’re going to run onstage or something. He’s always producing.

Dromgoole is devastatingly brilliant, funny and articulate. And we have a good time trashing one another nicely and cleverly.

Chris Haws: He packs an awful lot of energy into his sessions and rushes around like a kind of [Phil] Donahue figure.

Granath: Pat’s thespian ambitions are quite evident. He roams the audience with a microphone, grabbing the head of programming at Showtime or a&e or other networks, putting them on the spot and saying, ‘Would you be interested in this and if so what would you pay for it?’ I think they [Market Simulations] are a major cog in the wheel that keeps Canadian production vital.

LaPierre: And he does this tremendous thing where he teaches people how to pitch and all of that. And he does that everywhere in the world and he does it magnificently. One would not expect it looking at him, and yet with a microphone in his hand, he’s transformed.

*Style and substance

Haws: Funnily enough he’s actually quite shy. He’s quite a private person, quite a restrained person, a contemplative chap. I think he has to sort of ‘put on’ the character of the public Pat Ferns when he does these Market Simulations. To some extent, so do we all.

Granath: He’s always got a smile on his face and he’s always up. He’s one of those eternal optimists and it’s infectious.

Dromgoole: He’s a great one for bringing people out. Except for rare moments of personal wickedness, he tends to sort of play himself down quite a lot, lets other people do the showing off in his presence.

LaPierre: He has a sense of adaptability to circumstances, which is quite amazing. You know, when his company was in trouble he emerged from that, perhaps with his pocketbook somewhat damaged, but certainly not his dignity.

Price: He has got this enthusiasm which comes through in everything he does.

McQueen: Pat lives large. He loves travel, he loves people. I think he is happiest in some international location at a dinner where leaders of the industry are talking about what’s going to happen next.

*Head of the class

Cohen: I was never just dealing with some driven guy who was out to score. In the media business, bullheaded aggressiveness will sometimes get you there, but that’s not how Pat did it. He did it with tenacity, but without ever losing humanity and decency.

Weinthal: Pat to his credit, was and is, a cut above many of the people who’ve contributed to the industry. I really just think he is one of a kind and he’s been of great, great service to the production community, to the broadcast community, and to the international television gathering community in this country. I mean, there’s nobody quite like him.

LaPierre: He should be given the Order of Canada, and in fact he should be made a Companion of the Order of Canada. He has contributed more to this country than many people. He should be honored that way.

Lind: He’s one of the few guys in this business who has no ego and who is universally admired and respected. Some guys have built up in their own minds that they are tremendously important. Pat is tremendously important, but he wouldn’t think so.

LaPierre: All in all, we are dealing with a rather remarkable human being who thrives in difficult times, in adversity, who has an astounding imagination and yet he can read the bottom line. Therefore he is a very good combination. He is exactly where he is supposed to be. Destiny has prepared him for where he is, and others are enriched by his presence.

Clayton: He is loved and adored.

*World traveler

Cohen: We did a lot of travelling to England. We would go into a meeting and I would sit there and he would sit there and everything was charming. And we would come out and I would say, ‘Now translate, what just happened?’ So he has a sort of a broadness. He’s not parochial. That’s one of the things that stands him in such good stead at Banff. He really understands the world.

Nielsen: It doesn’t surprise me at all that he is so superb at what he is doing now, because he always did have that tendency to want to travel. I have an explanation for it. He is a mid-Atlantic person and there’s no land there. If one was going to describe him in mythic terms, he is ‘constantly in search of a place to land.’

Pat grew up in England with a father and a mother who had really intense feelings about Canada. I think they were perpetually in two places in their minds. Pat is at home in both places in a very professional sense. But I think if you woke him up in the middle of the night and shook him and he was in a deep sleep he wouldn’t quite know where home was.

But the thing I’m suspicious of in him is all that air travel. I wonder about it. It’s like knowing someone with a secret perversion; you can’t condemn them because it’s not your own sickness, but on the other hand, you’re not entirely comfortable with it.

*What makes him run

Horowitz: Probably neurosis. It’s what I think motivates all creative people…craziness of some sort. We respond to pressure, and if necessary, we will create it in order to do stuff. It is his calling, his neurosis, to run and go and be and do.

Pat is a high-energy guy who likes to do stuff, build stuff, make stuff, create stuff. It’s not necessarily for the money.

Topalovich: Perhaps challenges. The pursuit of challenges and goals. To give it your all and also to have the wisdom to know when to move on.

Weinthal: I think that he is devoted to the industry and to this country.

Lind: Well, it isn’t dough. He wants to get things done. He loves putting people together, with the sense that they’re going to get something done in the end.

*Celebrator of life

Benson: There’s Pat the daytime worker who’s slugging his guts out, sweating to get the show on the road, and there’s Pat who relaxes over a glass of whiskey. And he’s immensely funny, has a great, very broad sense of humor. He’s a liver of life. These people are getting fewer and fewer. You’ve got these determined young bucks – and we were all one of those years ago – who are all so determined to make business work 24 hours a day, they have no time to celebrate life. Pat is a celebrator of life. *