If 2001 was a bad party, then in 2002 the production industry reeled under a long, nasty hangover.

It was no surprise that the slowdown in the last quarter of 2001, triggered by earlier U.S. strike threats, 9/11 and general economic malaise, carried over into the new year. Industry optimists forecasted a strong comeback, but despite some signs of life, when the year’s production numbers come in they promise to be dramatically down from the record cycle of 2000.

B.C., dependent on U.S. service work for an estimated 74% of its production business, has been substantially stung by the tail-off. The province has had to contend with production constriction resulting from American and international economic woes as well as mounting anti-‘runaway production’ campaigns from the south. Production volume in B.C. was off by 50% in the first half of 2002 compared to the previous year.

The Vancouver scene has benefited in the latter half of the year from the mini Traffic, the features Freddy vs. Jason, the canine invasion flick Good Boy! and the blockbuster X-Men 2, as well as the steadily employing series Andromeda, Dead Zone, Jeremiah, Smallville and Twilight Zone.

Meanwhile, forces in the U.S. were trying to stem northern-bound production. Looking to counter Canada’s attractive exchange rate and tax benefits for Hollywood producers, California Governor Gray Davis put forward a proposal for a new labor-based tax incentive for lower-budget California productions.

Brent Swift, chair of the L.A.-based Film and Television Action Committee, has been the most vocal opponent of U.S. production in Canada, calling subsidies here ‘illegal’ and looking to have countervailing duties imposed on U.S. projects that take advantage of Canuck tax credits. FTAC put forward questionable statistics indicating that Canada is responsible for America’s loss of US$2.8 billion in production budgets and up to 30,000 jobs each year. (This contradicts figures reported in Playback indicating that, even in 2000, production dollars spent in Canada by all foreign productions totaled $1.5 billion.)

With the year coming to a close, U.S. craft unions have turned up the heat on the ‘runaway production’ debate, crying foul over Rudy’s Wars, a Carleton America/USA Network MOW about former New York mayor and 9/11 hero Rudolph Giuliani, being shot in Montreal. Adding insult to injury, plans are afoot for NBC to shoot a competing biopic in Toronto.

Quebec more immune

Quebec was somewhat more immune to wavering U.S. business thanks to a built-in francophone audience that continues to support indigenous productions. This is evidenced by the fact that six films on Playback’s list of the Top 10 domestic theatrical moneymakers are French-language features from la belle province. As for imported projects, Montreal has played host to the likes of George Clooney’s directorial debut, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Timeline, Shattered Glass and Tomorrow, a 20th Century Fox weather disaster epic budgeted at more than US$100 million. However, Montreal film commissioner Andre Lafond labeled the drought of steady series work a ‘crisis’ situation.

Ontario saw its fair share of high-profile Hollywood productions, including Chicago, the Meg Ryan sport biopic Against the Ropes, How to Lose a Guy, starring Kate Hudson, the Chow Yun-Fat actioner Bulletproof Monk and the Michael Douglas/Albert Brooks comedy The Wedding Party. However, the number of features shooting in the first half of the year was down about 50% from the previous year, according to the Toronto Film & Television Office.

At press time, Toronto crews were working on nine series (four from the U.S.), one U.S. TV pilot, five U.S. MOWs, four U.S. cable movies, three features (one from the U.S.), one TV special and one mini. These numbers do not represent a significant change from the same time frame in the slowed-down 2001; however, they are down or on par across the board compared to 2000.

Despite declining business and growing ‘runaway’ controversy, investors took steps to lure Hollywood’s biggest blockbusters Toronto’s way. Ground was broken in October at Great Lakes Studios, a 350,000-square-foot waterfront production facility that sees partners The Comweb Group and Studios of America eschewing public funding to provide Toronto with the kind of large, state-of-the-art facility many feel it needs. Although X-Men shot in Hogtown, the city lost out on the sequel to Vancouver after the filmmakers complained that Toronto soundstages could not accommodate the big F/X sequences.

The $100-million complex is set to open by late 2003/early 2004, and although no productions are yet confirmed, the controlling parties predict the facility will create 7,500 new jobs and bring $500 million to the area in the short term. Plans for another proposed mega-studio, headed by the U.K.’s Pinewood Shepperton Studios, remain uncertain at this point.

Canuck drama in death throes?

If FTAC succeeds in reducing the number of Hollywood projects coming here, the effect on film workers and ancillary service providers would be devastating, as domestic production is not positioned to pick up the slack, especially with the much-ballyhooed decline of Canadian drama series.

CTV’s cancellation of The Associates earlier this year served as a gloomy portend. Here was a series that was supposed to be the next Street Legal or Traders. That the lawyer drama couldn’t find a sufficient audience or international sales despite the efforts of broadcaster CTV and producer Alliance Atlantis Communications painted a bleak picture.

By ACTRA’s count, there are five true Canadian dramas currently being produced, although the definition of drama has become nebulous. To help give dramas a boost, ACTRA and nine other unions formed the Canadian Coalition of Audiovisual Unions and sent a policy paper earlier this year to the CRTC and Heritage Minister Sheila Copps. The document stated that the CRTC caused a 50% drop in English-language dramatic series when, in 1999, it removed expenditure requirements for broadcasters and put drama in the same category as regional programming and entertainment magazine shows.

But the CCAU’s actions have not had their desired effect. CRTC chairman Charles Dalfen recently responded in a series of speeches across Canada that it is too soon to revisit policies adopted just three years ago. The CRTC also argues that while the number of drama series might in fact be down, the number of overall hours of Canadian drama (including minis and MOWs) being shown and the number of dollars being spent have remained stable. Still others say let the market decide – if the audiences for Canadian series were there, then it would be in the broadcasters’ best interests to support them.

Meanwhile, the trend away from drama and towards reality programming can’t be denied. In a fragmented TV universe where the cost of drama is high and licence fees are low, reality TV has largely meant good business. The numbers for Fox’s American Idol were staggering (2.1 million viewers for Canadian broadcaster CTV), so it’s no wonder CTV announced at MIPCOM that it was in development with FremantleMedia and 19TV, producers of the other international Idols, on Canadian Idol, the search for a Canuck music superstar. Meanwhile, CanWest Global is returning next year with the similar Popstars 3, produced by Toronto’s Lone Eagle Entertainment.

The continued success of these programs means that actors might have to consider table-waiting a full-time vocation and dramatists might want to send their resumes to local trade rags.

Meanwhile, the only major new Canadian drama to emerge is Alliance Atlantis’ behind-the-scenes news show The Eleventh Hour, slated to debut on CTV Nov. 26. How it fares might go far in telling what kind of year we can expect in 2003.