Among the basic ingredients for a successful provincial film and television production industry are talented crews, a dollop of tax incentives and, as Saskatchewan is proving, purpose-built soundstages.

The April 15 opening of the $12-million, provincially backed SaskCan Production Studios in Regina is generating calls from around the world – from producers who hadn’t previously considered the Prairie province as a production oasis.

At press time, four productions were negotiating to rent the space. Valerie Creighton, CEO and film commissioner at SaskFilm, says the facility, which offers four soundstages ranging from 4,000 to 15,000 square feet, is expected to capture some of the production previously lost to better infrastructures elsewhere – losses pegged at $50 million in the studio’s feasibility study. (Production volumes in Saskatchewan were $60 million in 2000.)

Earlier this month at the new facility, Minds Eye Pictures and Barna-Alper Productions began production on the MOW Betrayed, a Walkerton, ON-inspired story about a town suffering water contamination. Directed by Anne Wheeler, Betrayed will air on CBC in 2003.

‘Just having infrastructure has raised our credibility [regarding] our ability to support service and offshore production,’ says Creighton, explaining that construction began on the facility in the fall of 2001 because of the identified need. ‘Our goal is to retain series work in Saskatchewan.’

Ice Planet, a $35-million, 22-hour science-fiction series copro with Germany and Minds Eye is planned for the facility but not yet scheduled. However, Minds Eye CEO and president Kevin DeWalt assures that his company ‘fully intends to maximize [the studio’s] use with some of our upcoming production slate.’

While SaskFilm needed little convincing that a state-of-the-art studio facility would attract production over the long term, it remains a fickle business.

Toronto and Montreal are, according to the studio operators, bursting at the seams, while Vancouver is in a bit of a lull and the major studio in Edmonton is mostly idle. The gold-rush spirit has real estate developers boasting about projects that have yet to materialize, as is the case with the two mega-studios proposed for Toronto earlier this year but that have yet to go forward.

By all accounts, financing studio space is a complex puzzle and marketing means competing with facilities around the world.

Vancouver

‘It’s been a slow period [in Vancouver],’ admits Peter Leitch, VP and GM of Lions Gate Studios. ‘Television pilots didn’t get picked up, we’re still dealing with some of the aftermath of Sept. 11 with features getting delayed, [the federal government] eliminated the limited partnership tax-shelter deal and it’s becoming an increasingly global market.’

Recent Lions Gate-hosted productions include A Very Muppet Xmas, John Doe, Cody Banks and A Wrinkle in Time.

While Lions Gate Studios and the other major West Coast facilities are booked, the slowdown means the smaller studio spaces and converted warehouses in Vancouver are not getting the overflow that keeps them lit up. Leitch believes that the ‘Blame Canada’ campaign is not an issue in the slowdown, which was reaffirmed at recent meetings involving industry representatives spearheaded by Premier Gordon Campbell.

‘When we were [in L.A.] July 1, the heads of the studios said they like coming up here and they want us to stay competitive,’ he says. ‘But we can’t expect to continue the rate of growth from the past 10 years. We’ve hit a plateau and a [more modest] level of growth.

‘We’ve been busy when they were slow,’ says Leitch about the fluid, if not competitive, relationship with studio operators in Toronto and Montreal. ‘We’re in a project-driven industry, and when you’ve got it, you’ve got it, when you don’t, you’ve got zero. The loss of a project can have a major impact. But we also tend to overreact. I’m optimistic and we’re starting to get more calls. I turned business away today.’

Toronto

‘In Toronto, it has been as strong as ever,’ says Ken Ferguson, president of Toronto Film Studios, which features 17 soundstages ranging from 1,500 square feet to 40,000 square feet. ‘In May, we recorded the highest revenues in four-and-a-half years. June was the second highest. We have extremely strong volumes – like before the threat of a SAG strike last year, but more sustainable.’

Ferguson says the value of production is also increasing, with budgets of US$75 million more common. TFS has recently hosted Jackie Chan’s Tuxedo and Bulletproof Monk with Chow Yun-Fat. The Music Man, a large-scale ABC/Disney MOW starring Matthew Broderick, is currently occupying much of the space, andVeritas, an ABC/Disney one-hour drama series that will air as a mid-season replacement, is also booked.

Ferguson says the industry is enormously skeptical toward Toronto’s proposed mega-facilities, Studios of America and Pinewood Shoot City Studios. Not only does the market not believe the studios will come to fruition, but they cause grief for existing operators because banks and other financiers see the potential competition as a threat to their investments. The act of raising money, difficult at the best of times, becomes even harder, Ferguson says, which impacts plans to expand.

The number of purpose-built stages in Toronto, says Ferguson, can be counted on one hand. ‘Fifty percent of indoor filming takes place in ill-equipped space,’ says Ferguson, raising questions of safety, environment, sound-proofing and adequate power.

Montreal

‘Business is very good,’ says Michel Trudel, partner in Mel’s Cite du Cinema/Technoparc Studios in Montreal, which features 13 stages ranging from 1,200 to 37,500 square feet. ‘There is nothing to compare it to. It’s going to be a good year.’

In 2001, he says, with the talk of actors’ and writers’ strikes and the after-effect of 9/11, business was essentially interrupted for up to five months.  

Among the projects in production or prep are TV movie Les Liaisons dangereuses with Catherine Deneuve and The Day After Tomorrow with Tom Cruise.

‘By the end of the month, everyone will be busy in Montreal,’ says Trudel.

Business in Montreal, however, is more domestic-oriented than service-oriented. According to Trudel, there are 44 Canadian shows in Montreal and 85% of his business is domestic.

‘We’re building the market for the long term,’ he says.

And if Trudel is nervous about potential mega-projects in Toronto siphoning business from Montreal, he’s not showing it. ‘I’m not afraid [of the competition],’ he says. ‘They talk, but they are never going to do it.’

Edmonton

While Calgary grabs the lion’s share of production business in Alberta, Edmonton’s purpose-built CanWest Studios, owned by CanWest Global, can thank the fifth season of kids’ series Mentors (Minds Eye Pictures/Anaid Productions/Family Channel) for keeping it from being dark all year.

‘It’s slow,’ admits GM Mark Wood. ‘We’re not busy.’

While production volumes in Alberta are slower, says Wood, the single, 15,000-square-foot stage suffers from a lack of marketing.

The Chevy Chase comedy Snow Day shot at the facility, along with The War Bride from DB Entertainment and Harvest Pictures, Illusion Entertainment’s Almost America and several commercial productions. Strangely, CanWest Global, which is commissioning production, is not a tenant.

-www.lionsgatefilms.com

-www.torontofilmstudios.com

-www.micheltrudel.tv