While filming his third project in Manitoba, Stan Brooks, executive producer of L.A.-based Once Upon a Time Films, quipped that he should have a ‘frequent filming’ card he could get stamped each time he produced in the province (The prodco has been to the province for Call Me: The Rise and Fall of Heidi Fleiss, The Legend of Butch & Sundance and On Thin Ice). It was a joke Carole Vivier, CEO of Manitoba Film & Sound, decided to take seriously enough to champion.

In Manitoba’s April budget, the provincial government confirmed its commitment to the local film and television industry by extending and enhancing Manitoba’s tax-credit system, using an innovative approach to encourage production and help build local production companies.

Manitoba’s 35% tax credit, which was due to expire in March 2005, has been extended until March 2008 and the province has added new incentives, under which projects can access an additional 10%, bringing the total tax credit up to 45% for eligible projects.

A 5% rural and northern incentive has been introduced for productions shooting outside the Winnipeg area. The province has also introduced an actual frequent-filming bonus that provides an additional 5% tax credit to producers who have already shot two productions in Manitoba. Any projects shot after March 2003 will count towards the frequent-filming bonus.

‘There isn’t any other jurisdiction in the world I know of that rewards repeat business in the film and television industry, so I think this is a breakthrough way of looking at marketing,’ says Vivier.

Foreign producers such as L.A.’s von Zerneck/Sertner Films, which has produced eight projects in Manitoba, including two over the last year – Defending Our Kids: The Julie Posey Story and Killer Instinct: From the Files of Agent Candice DeLong – will automatically receive a 40% tax credit on their next production, and would be eligible for 45% if shooting outside Winnipeg.

The bonus will also apply to local production companies, something Vivier says she hopes will encourage filmmakers to stay in Manitoba and will act as an additional marketing tool indigenous prodcos can use to establish new partnerships and increase coproduction.

According to the most recent economic indicator study conducted by MFS, between April 2003 and March 2004, Manitoba’s production volumes came in well over $100 million, with 150 full-time positions directly related to the film industry created in the province. Manitoba producers spent more than 75% of their total production budgets within the province, representing in excess of $130 million over the last five years.

For local production companies like Frantic Films, which produced the doc series Quest for the Sea and the MOW Zeyda and the Hitman (along with Toronto’s Miracle Pictures) last year, the 5% bonus may not only go towards financing productions, but could also help producers grow their companies.

Vivier wants to ensure that the bonus will have additional benefits for local producers. While ironing out the details of the new tax-credit initiative, she is working to ensure that producers, when possible, will be able to take that 5% bonus out of production budgets and put it back into their companies. Previously it was required that all tax credits be included in a production’s budget.

‘The perennial challenge for production companies across Canada is adequately capitalizing, and when the tax credits came in, one of the major goals was that the tax credit would be money the production companies could keep to capitalize,’ says Frantic CEO and executive producer Jamie Brown. ‘The tax-credit system has helped get projects made, but it didn’t make projects more profitable for producers.’

Upcoming projects at Frantic include The First Year, a doc series about young lawyers in their articling years for Life Network, as well as The Flying Bandit, a one-hour doc about Winnipeg bank robber Ken Leishman for History Television. The company recently shot Last Chance for Romance in the Caribbean. The reality-style series for Global follows troubled couples through marriage counseling. Also in the works at Frantic is Sean Garrity’s (Inertia) new $2.3-million feature Lucid.

Both Vivier and Brown cite the support of Manitoba Premier Gary Doer and Eric Robinson, Manitoba’s minister of culture, heritage and tourism, as a major factor contributing to the successful implementation of the new system.

‘The new tax-credit system is more evidence of the continued and strong support of Manitoba’s governments,’ says Brown. ‘In Manitoba we have an incredibly supportive community outside the film and television industry for our business.’

-www.mbfilmsound.mb.ca