While production in the Prairie provinces has been buzzing over the last couple of years, especially in the service sector with Toronto and Vancouver overflowing with U.S. productions, the region has shown definite signs of slowdown this year. As a result, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta are each trying to improve upon existing infrastructure and initiatives in an attempt to stimulate a turnaround.

With a gross production budget of $83 million, 2001 was actually the best year ever for indigenous production in Alberta, says Richard Horne, executive director of the Alberta Motion Picture Industries Association. However, Alberta Film Commissioner Paul Rayman estimates total revenue for the 2001/02 production year, foreign projects included, at $130 million to $140 million, down from about $180 million in the previous year. He cites the threat of strike action from U.S. writers’ and actors’ guilds as the chief cause.

The early part of 2002 is seeing activity, however, with projects such as the DB Entertainment/Ellora Pictures feature The Icefields gearing up to shoot in Jasper and the Alberta Filmworks/Galafilm MOW Agent of Influence having recently wrapped in Calgary.

The photogenic mountainous terrain and dusty charm of the Alberta wilderness is often the prime draw for projects, Horne admits. Another attractive advantage is Alberta’s absence of the 7% provincial sales tax other provinces must contend with. Horne puts the province’s number of full working crews at a half-dozen, the most in the region.

‘We have extremely competitive rates with our crews,’ he adds. ‘They are very open to negotiating deals and they all have an incredible amount of skill in that they’ve worked on everything from large American productions to small documentary productions. They have also taken the initiative to develop their own training resources standard in that regard.’

Calgary’s CFB Studio, a former military base, has been recently hosting the CBC crime series Tom Stone. Edmonton boasts the purpose-built CanWest Studio, although a CanWest representative acknowledges the studio has been dark of late, save for some commercial work.

For its part, AMPIA achieves its mandate to ‘foster a positive environment for production of film and television within the province’ with its control of the Global Marketing Fund, which spends $100,000 annually on sending producers to screen their work at various markets, corporate marketing and association initiatives.

Selling Sask. at the markets

Production revenue in Saskatchewan in fiscal 2000/01 totaled about $60 million, but Valerie Creighton, founder of SaskFilm and the province’s film commissioner, expects to see that number dip in fiscal 2001/02, which is just ending. She says the loss of the big-budget children’s series 2030C.E. (Minds Eye Pictures/Buffalo Gal Pictures/Angela Bruce Productions/Yan Moore Productions) to Winnipeg was a key reason for the drop.

The province traditionally has not had a large pool of talent and technicians (presently two full crews, according to Creighton). A writer on a production based in the province a couple of years ago told Playback that in order to meet the provincial tax-credit requirements, producers had to hire some local writers of very limited experience. Creighton sees the situation as improving.

‘We see a lot of emerging talent in projects that come to us for development, particularly in our low-budget drama under 30 minutes and low-budget feature program,’ Creighton says, adding that the province’s flexible tax credit provides an immediate fix to the problem. ‘We have successfully deemed as Saskatchewan residents writers, directors, producers and talent.’

The production infrastructure has also received a boost with the recent opening of a purpose-built production studio in Regina with four stages (15,000, 9,000, 7,000 and 6,000 square feet) and all the rigging of a major-market facility. The first project produced in the new soundstage is season two of the Minds Eye/Moose Jaw Light & Power children’s series Prairie Berry Pie. Also in the studio is the $35-million Minds Eye Canada/Germany coproduction Ice Planet and the soon-to-wrap WestWind Pictures/Autumn Productions feature Shot in the Face.

SaskFilm has been proactive about drumming up business at Canadian and international film markets, participating in Industry Immersions, a program sponsored by Telefilm Canada that gives homegrown producers a chance to open up dialogue and coproduction opportunities with other producers, broadcasters and funding agencies from around the world. SaskFilm has recently taken part in Immersions programs in the U.K. and France, covering off the European markets.

In fiscal 2000/01, SaskFilm invested $18,500 in six scriptwriting projects and more than $240,000 in 44 development projects. It spent nearly $1 million in equity investments on 23 projects in various film and television genres and new media (via the SaskTel New Media Fund). The corporation also saw 32 eligible productions receive tax credits totaling more than $4.2 million.

MOWs in Manitoba

Manitoba has recently seen cameras roll on a number of Hollywood gigs and indigenous productions. Without a Word, a U.S. feature serviced by Minds Eye, and Yellowknife, a feature from interprovincial coproducers Buffalo Gal (Manitoba), Transmar Films (Nova Scotia) and Les Films de L’isle (Quebec), used the province for exterior shooting. The CBC MOW The Many Trials of One Jane Doe, produced by Indian Grove Productions and Original Pictures, with Manitoba Film & Sound also on board, is currently shooting, as is the John Aaron Productions feature Fear X. U.S. MOWs, including Season on the Brink for ESPN and Framed for Turner Network Television, have also recently shot.

Alexa Rosentreter, interim GM of the Manitoba Film & Sound Development Corporation, says advantages for local and foreign producers include lower production costs compared to larger centers, no city location or permit fees, a variety of locations, and a 35% tax credit on eligible Manitoba labor. She says the province is just shy of three full crews.

Manitoba Film & Sound invested $1,016,883 in 14 projects in fiscal 2000/01 (numbers for fiscal 2001/02 were not available at press time).

Meanwhile, Winnipeg’s National Screen Institute, a film, TV and new media training center, nurtures talent and provides venues for their work through its Features First program, the administrators for which collaborate with first-time filmmakers from the development process through post. Features First has recently spawned films from first-time directors Sean Garrity (Inertia) and Robert Cuffley (Turning Paige).

John Pineau, NSI director of marketing and communications, says the organization will be launching a new initiative this year called Totally Television, sponsored by CTV. The network has committed $1 million for the first five years of the program, which will provide boot-camp-like training for TV producers, writers and directors. The exact program criteria will be unveiled at the Banff Television Festival in June.

-www.mbfilmsound.mb.ca

-www.ampia.org

-www.saskfilm.com

-www.nsi-canada.ca