The Canadian production industry is an ever-evolving animal, and the Canadian Film Centre likes to keep the makeup of its programs fluid enough to be able to adapt to changes in the biz.

The status of writers has certainly changed in recent years. Gigs on traditional dramatic series have declined, and so now more than ever aspiring film and TV writers must have both more business savvy and the imagination to envision projects with a more realistic chance of ever seeing the light of day.

For the past few years, those scribes that sought an education at the Toronto-based CFC were offered three primary writing strands. There was the Writers’ Lab, part of the Alliance Atlantis Film Resident Programme, focusing on the craft of writing for feature films, and the CTV Prime Time Television Programme, teaching students about scripting for the small screen. Finally, there was the Professional Screenwriting course, aka ‘Boot Camp,’ which instilled in its pupils the business acumen so vital to any kind of career in the industry.

Now, Boot Camp, which covered pitching, packaging, getting an agent, funding sources and portfolio building, will be rolled into each of the other two courses and no longer be offered as a standalone. The reason for the merger, according to Kathryn Emslie, CFC director of film and TV programs, is to make the other two strands stronger.

One conceivable problem with this arrangement is that students traditionally interested in Boot Camp may have been at a more advanced level in their craft than those interested in the Writers’ Lab or Prime Time. That would mean the Centre would now be teaching classes with students at varying stages of development. Emslie doesn’t see it that way, however.

‘We’re seeing an increase [across the board] in the caliber of writers,’ she says, citing programs at postsecondary schools such as University of British Columbia and York that have come into their own in recent years. ‘You’ve got a lot of other pre-Centre training opportunities in screenwriting as well. There are tons of [educational] books and terrific websites out there.’

Another change sees the TV strand expanded from 13 to 20 weeks to allow students more time to properly develop original series ideas. The CFC has also changed the timing of the program to October-February from January-April, which it believes benefits students since they will graduate close to the peak of the TV hiring season.

The new schedule also allows for some crossover between Prime Time and the Writers’ Lab (July-December), and the CFC believes the interaction between the two groups can only be beneficial.

One of the major challenges that the Centre has recently been facing is preparing students for a TV industry in which big-budget drama is dwindling.

‘Part of what we educated our writers on in the last couple of years has been ‘OK, can you come up with something along the lines of a Trailer Park Boys or a Paradise Falls?” Emslie explains. ‘[This means] more of an independent, low-budget but high-quality dramatic idea that is going to make it easier for a broadcaster and a production company to say, ‘We can do this and we can actually make a profit off it.”

The CFC’s recent changes come after it hired the firm The Strategic Counsel to survey past alumni, industry figures and other academic institutions on the pros and cons of the CFC’s film and TV offerings and the industry as a whole. This data, along with the results of focus groups, brought up a couple of key points.

‘One is that we as an organization really want to be fostering more international relationships,’ says Emslie. She adds that doesn’t mean admitting foreign students, but rather helping pupils get greater access to international festivals, markets and other schools. This initiative will be something the CFC looks to address over the next five to 10 years.

-www.cdnfilmcentre.com