Montreal: Survey results from a dozen Canadian production and export companies point to a huge volume of program sales, presales and coproduction business set for this year’s MIPCOM. The big international television market, which runs Oct. 8-12 in Cannes, France, has emerged for many Canadians as the most important annual get-together, arguably outdistancing MIP-TV and certainly NATPE.

Everyone has all kinds of pressing business, but the problem is security, more specifically the lack of it, and the unknowns surrounding the anticipated response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the U.S.

One major Canadian producer won’t be stopped ‘because 80% of our European clients are booked,’ but others told Playback they’ll cancel, or their bosses will cancel, if major clients drop out. And despite the assurances of beefed-up security from Reed Midem chief Xavier Roy, everyone knows cancellation remains an option.

The national focus at the fall program market is China, with the promise of a more open market following the PRC’s admission into the World Trade Organization. Barring an official advisory to the contrary, all seven of the major Hollywood studios will be present at MIPCOM. Last year, close to 12,000 industry players from 89 countries attended, including more than 145 companies from Canada.

As for the regular business of producing and selling, players in the Canadian children’s and family sector are talking about the effects of near-total consolidation in the U.S. and Europe, but no one seems overly deterred.

Montreal-based CineGroupe is repositioning as a ‘family outlook entertainment company’ involved in TV programs, feature films (Wilderness Station, coproduced with Credo Entertainment of Winnipeg), interactive themes and Web applications, ‘all of which we now need when we try to attract an [international] broadcaster,’ says Marie-Claude Beauchamp, executive VP, development and production.

The company has invested in animation (Flash, digital visual effects and 2D), and especially 3D production, a major part of the mix at live-action subsidiary CineGroupe Images.

New projects include Emma, an animation/live-action show coproduced with Winnipeg’s Original Pictures. Sharing creative and financing is a ‘way to [manage] the rough period the industry is going through,’ says Beauchamp.

She says ‘development leaders’ in Canada like YTV and especially Teletoon increasingly stress originality and ‘properties with an edge,’ often ahead of trends in the Euro market.

As such, MIPCOM is where CineGroupe ‘builds the bridge’ between new shows developed for the Canadian market and European participation.

Brand new at MIPCOM, CineGroupe and Columbia TriStar International Television are selling the $25-million live-action/3D action series Galidor: Defenders of the Outer Dimension. It started shooting in late September in Montreal and has been presold to YTV and Fox Kids in the U.S.

Kids and family

CBC International Sales and Evening Sky Productions, a division of Anne Murray’s Balmur Entertainment with offices in L.A. and Toronto, will introduce the 3D character-driven animated series The Hippo Tub Company at this year’s market.

Hippo Tub debuts on CBC this month and is a coproduction with CAGE Digital of Halifax. EMI is releasing two musical CDs and a video collection.

David Corbett, president and CEO of Evening Sky, says his decision to attend MIPCOM is ‘day to day.’

Corbett says the $5-million series has been presold to VIP Promo in Spain and Portugal. It was financed with deferrals and Royal Bank interim financing, but without CTF money or a U.S. sale.

Corbett says Hippo Tub is ‘cutting-edge CGI with great animation and expression’ and ‘brandable’ potential.

The most discouraging thing about the kids business, says Corbett, is the degree of consolidation and vertical integration. ‘Certainly a U.S. sale will drive [our] marketing.’

On the up side, he says, consolidation has left many indie producers here and in Europe looking to coproduce. ‘We just need to be supported by our broadcasters and sometimes that’s difficult when they get these great deals from the big giants who offer trademark programs.’

Cinar has two episodes of Simon in the Land of Chalk Drawings ready for MIPCOM. It’s a magical story of a little boy whose drawings come to life and lead to adventures. It is the house’s second coproduction (Miss Mallard Mysteries) with Shanghai Animation Film Studio. Teletoon and TVOntario have licensed the show, originally from Cinar’s Filmfair library.

David Ferguson, president of Cinar Europe, will attend MIPCOM. Peter Moss, entertainment division president, will not.

According to Moss, the big conglomerates’ capacity to expand production ‘will be very short-lived. They can’t afford to expand their own production capacity because it costs too much. You need independents to be out there with the creative stuff. Think of it in terms of stores: they [the big studios] are retailers, they are not manufacturers.’

Moss says there are huge profits associated with ‘a monster hit,’ but the big companies ‘can’t afford to invest in every single project as if it’s going to be a runaway hit. So they need to have [other people’s] programs.’

‘We are in a state at Cinar where we are very close to a transaction,’ says Moss. ‘Merrill Lynch has put the company on the block, and there is a load of reasons to stay home. Until that process is complete, it’s hard to go much further into the future. Mostly MIPCOM is selling what you’ve got and also planning what you’re going to do next.’

Cinar organized about a dozen management presentations to prospective buyers earlier this summer.

Remarkably, Cinar will deliver more than 200 half-hours again this year.

Doc and factual programs

With reality shows, formats and national production mostly hurting sales for international primetime drama, doc and factual programming may be the best place to be.

Montreal-based Filmoption International specializes in documentary and variety programs today, whereas years ago it was known mostly for nature programming, although it recently set up a drama and long-form division.

Filmoption VP Lizanne Rouillard says she has plans for meetings every half-hour at MIPCOM. Rouillard’s cable and satellite clients in France, Spain and Italy are mostly looking for science and technology series. ‘The prices are still low, but there’s the possibility of a sale where there was none before. I can’t sell 26 hours to La Cinquieme [a major French terrestrial network] but [the new channels] will buy it.’ With the advent of specialties, the conventional networks are buying less doc programming, she says.

Filmoption reps as many as a dozen Canadian producers looking for international presales, as opposed to coproduction, which requires the participation of a foreign coproducer. In many territories, presales are worth more than a sale of finished product. A case in point is Spain, says Rouillard.

Key Filmoption product at this year’s MIPCOM includes Cosmic Odyssey, produced by Toronto’s Soapbox Productions, an astronomy series presold to French cable with multiple bids from Spanish satellite, and the Discovery Canada series Frontiers of Construction, produced by Toronto’s Barna-Alper and Moncton’s Fiddlehead Entertainment.

‘I fear a lot of Americans might not come or might send smaller delegations,’ Rouillard says.

Joanne Leduc, director, international program at the National Film Board, says one of the top titles for this year’s market is Obaachan’s Garden, a one-hour doc about a Japanese ‘picture bride’ who came to Canada in 1923 and is still alive.

The NFB produces unique one-off docs, positioning itself outside the run-of-the-mill industrial clutter. ‘There seems to be a market [mainly cable and satellite, but also terrestrial in markets like France, Australia and Japan] for that kind of experience,’ says Leduc. ‘More and more people are looking for what we call strong personal stories [about] some kind of unique or different lifestyle or life experiences with universal appeal and interest.’

Another big hitter for the NFB this year is Cordell Barker’s cautionary animated nuttiness Strange Invaders. Leduc says it has the potential to sell to 40 countries as well as to non-theatrical [institutional] clients.

NFB titles do travel

Through A Blue Lens was sold for top dollar to HBO and ABC as well as in almost 20 countries. Festival champ Cinema Verite: Defining the Moment has sold in about 30 markets in the past year and the NFB recently sold a 60-hour animation package to Spanish cable and Latin America.

Doc packages, mostly social and political, but increasingly science, are being regularly sold to thematic channels in France, including Planete and Saisons.

International sales are in the order of $2.5 million to $3 million a year, with 10 staffers in Montreal, Paris, London and New York.

Also at the market, Telefilm Canada will host a reception marking the launch of the new Canada pavilion on Monday, Oct. 8, while Nelvana International will host a special lunch on Oct. 7, marking its 30th anniversary.