MONTREAL: Perhaps the country’s busiest variety and performance show producer, Amerimage-Spectra is producing 18 specials and series this season, representing more than 35 hours of national and international programming.

The company is buoyed by new programming opportunities at Tele-des-Arts and CBC Showcase Opening Night. Cumulative production budgets this year are in the $6 million to $7 million range, says Pierre Touchette, president of Amerimage-Spectra, a production unit of the l’Equipe Spectra group of companies.

Amerimage will produce 15 shows during the 11-day Montreal International Jazz Festival, June 28 to July 8.

Financing comes primarily from TV licences and public funding, most notably the LFP, but also some presale advances from exporter Spectra International distribution, says Touchette, a former producer with TVOntario.

‘Licences haven’t increased (for performance programs), but there is an increase in outlets in Canada. Tele-des-Arts is new and, secondly, CBC has a new two-hour performing arts timeslot (non-commercial, primetime) called Opening Night, every Thursday night,’ he says.

‘Our [French] market being the size that it is, we feel we really have to develop English Canada and the world,’ says Touchette. Amerimage and Toronto’s Rhombus Media were the only two Canadian companies nominated at this year’s Golden Rose Awards in Montreux Switzerland [with Rhombus winning]. Touchette says: ‘Our objective in the international market is to be as well-known as Rhombus for the quality of things we do. The festival shows pay the bills but also we wanted to get into international coproductions.’ Touchette is also very determined to develop a Canadian pop music history anthology for the English TV market.

The super-charged jazz festival schedule includes five copros with Ex Nihilo of France licensed by ARTE-France and the soon-to-launch Tele-des-Arts, as well as shows for Global Television Network, specialty channel Bravo! and Radio-Canada. Coproduction program highlights include a two-hour special featuring Canadian jazz queen Diana Krall and specials with legendary jazz bassist Charlie Haden and sax player Wayne Shorter, the latter two shows also licensed by Montreal’s CFCF-TV.

The three-hour Global package series, Quebec Sings, features Steve Hill and Nanette, Lorraine Klassen and ‘a big concept show’ with ace blues-rocker Colin James.

Bravo! has licensed a six-part series (including Charles Lloyd, Bebel Gilberto, Haden, Michel Legrand and the Afro-Cuban All-Stars) which Touchette says, ‘They pre-buy every year.’

The festival’s closing-night show is licensed by Radio-Canada. Show directors include Pierre Seguin Mario Rouleau and Jocelyn Barnabe.

Amerimage’s frenetic production schedule includes taping three shows on July 1 at three separate venues. The set-up includes five to eight cameras and a crew of more than 100 technicians. ‘Usually what people want is a 60-minute show of one artist – that’s what really sells,’ says Touchette.

The producers have rented a spectacular 85-foot La Strada crane for the festival’s big outdoor show on July 3. The show, which draws a crowd of 125,000, will be broadcast live on TV5 and Global, and has also been licensed to ARTE.

LFP sponsored programs produced by Amerimage-Spectra, a specialist in jazz, classic music and dance, include Quebec Sings; Variations on a New Generation, a showcase for local Montreal talent licensed by CFCF; the TV special L’Outremont des beaux jours, licensed by SRC and Tele-des-Arts; Montreal meme la danse, a performance collection of the city’s best dancers including La La La Human Steps, O Vertigo, Margie Gillis and Les Grands Ballets Canadiennes licensed by CBC and SRC. The LFP contribution on the latter is over $52,000.

Touchette is also producing nine 90-minute monthly shows for the international variety series Studio TV5, hosted by Michel Rivard. This season’s LFP contribution is $256,200.

Other LFP-supported Amerimage specials this season include Sur un air de blues et jazz and Une folle nuit, a 90-minute showcase of hip-hop artists and other new music performers. Both programs are licensed by SRC.

EIP-supported variety production from Amerimage this season includes a six-hour chamber music series called En concert, en prive, licensed by Tele-des-Arts; and an elaborate, one-hour special Exaucee (SALT) produced by XOC Production, a partnership with dance troupe La La La Human Steps. *

-www.montrealjazzfest.com

-www.equipespectra.ca/amerimage