Does size matter? Apparently it does when it comes to film and TV production in Ontario.

Toronto, the giant, is seeing the number of Hollywood productions it is servicing shrink in the face of a high Canadian dollar and competition from as far away as Eastern Europe, while the number of smaller homegrown productions rolling in Ontario is up – but they are hitting the highway for Hamilton and Ottawa.

‘I wish it were busier,’ laments Rhonda Silverstone, manager of the Toronto Film and Television Office. ‘It’s kind of mind-boggling that we’re not busier.’

She says that statistics for 2006 will not be available until year-end, but it is evident from the lower levels of activity at her office, which issues local shooting permits, that it is shaping up to be a tough year. The slowdown is being felt despite the fact that New Line Cinema’s Hairspray, starring John Travolta, is in preproduction, Sidney Kimmel Entertainment’s Talk to Me with Don Cheadle recently wrapped, and the $75-million New Regency/Fox sci-fi flick Jumper is shooting until October.

Toronto has not been able to attract big-budget Hollywood movies on the scale that Vancouver has of late, and TV series production in the city has declined markedly.

‘There is no doubt that it looks a little soft this year for foreign television shoots in Toronto,’ says Brian Topp, ACTRA Toronto executive director and co-chair of lobby group FilmOntario.

Ontario Media Development Corporation figures peg total production spending in the province at $933.8 million in 2005, down from $934.5 million the year before. In 2005, 41 foreign productions spent $458.8 million, down from the $486.3 million from 38 foreign projects in 2004. The foreign numbers are likely to fall further by the end of this year.

Industry leaders attribute the slowdown in Toronto to a higher Canadian dollar ($0.88 as of this writing), competition from other jurisdictions that have introduced their own tax credits, and the city’s inability to overcome infrastructure shortcomings – particularly the fact that the FilmPort megastudio has yet to get off the ground. (It now has an opening date of early 2008.)

‘One of the things that protected Ontario for so long was that, money-wise, you couldn’t find a reasonable place to shoot [other than Toronto] that would double for Boston or New York,’ says Don Carmody, who has service-produced a number of Hollywood films in the city, including Assault on Precinct 13 and Chicago.

‘But that’s changing now,’ he adds. ‘Connecticut has introduced a tax credit that rivals Louisiana, and they can certainly double for New York and other places.’

Topp and Silverstone echo these sentiments.

‘There is no doubt that Ontario, which was a pioneer in the tax-credit game, got matched by many other jurisdictions ­- not just Quebec and British Columbia – but more than 40 U.S. states are in the game now,’ Topp notes.

Ontario’s current tax-credit structure allows producers of foreign shoots in the province a credit of 18% on labor expenditures, while domestic productions qualify for 30%.

Silverstone points out that Toronto once frequently doubled for New York, but hasn’t done so very much since New York State adopted its own tax credits. And to get the NY tax credit, productions are required to shoot a specified number of days in local studios, so it has also become more attractive to do even the interior shooting there, instead of coming north, as was previously popular.

Domestic production up

But the news on the domestic front is rosier. OMDC numbers show that spending on domestic productions rose to $475.1 million on 150 productions in 2005, up from $448.2 million on 127 productions a year earlier.

Without budgets considered, there were 25 productions – six features and 19 TV projects – shooting or in prep in the province as of mid-July. At the same time last year, there were 19 productions – six features and 13 TV series. And many of this year’s crop are domestic productions that aren’t converging in Toronto.

Topp says that the regional tax-credit bonus that offers an additional 10% incentive for domestic productions that shoot outside of the Greater Toronto Area has created a ‘film colony in Ottawa’ and generated ‘a surprising number of productions’ in nearby Hamilton.

Among the domestic feature titles making Hamilton their home are Bottom Feeder, The Mad, Harm’s Way, Still Born, Still Small Voices, and this fall, The Poet and Forgiven. Television movies and series going to Steel Town include the second season of the CTV comedy Jeff Ltd. and Shaftesbury’s forthcoming The Robber Bride.

Neil Bregman, president of Sound Venture Productions in Ottawa, situated between the production centers of Montreal and Toronto, has been able to partner with players from both cities.

He is currently involved in 10 projects with budgets of $2 million or less, all of which have shot or will shoot in the Ottawa area. Three are MOW copros with Montreal’s Muse Entertainment, including Trace Evidence for Granada and Lifetime, The House Sitter, starring tabloid stars Tori Spelling and hubby Dean McDermott – both of which have wrapped – and Tipping Point, which is being prepped. Six others are being coproduced with Reel One Entertainment, also out of Montreal with offices in Los Angeles. Finally, Bregman is a producer on the horror flick Jack Brooks Monster Slayer with Ottawa newbie Brookstreet Pictures.

‘The niche that we [in Ottawa] have found is in the low-budget area, where the movies are fairly straightforward and we can actually meet the demands of the producers that we’re working with,’ says Bregman. ‘We are not a sophisticated or developed market. We wouldn’t be doing a $10-million movie or something that required a lot of special effects.’

Outside companies coming to Ottawa include Toronto’s S&S Productions for History Bites and The Green Card, two shows for the History Channel, and London, ON’s Longshot Pictures and Halifax’s Helix Digital, which are collaborating on a nine-episode CBC animated series based on Pierre Berton’s children’s book Secret World of Og. Ottawa’s Title Entertainment and Australia’s Moody Street Kids are also producing.

In addition to its proximity to Montreal and Toronto, and its regional bonus, Ottawa offers attractive locations and a lower cost base. The local industry continues to grow thanks to an expanding and more qualified labor pool, a city that is easy to navigate, and the abandoned Algonquin College campus on Lees Avenue, which provides makeshift studio and office space, according to Ken Stewart, president of prodco GAPC Entertainment and chair of the Ottawa-Gatineau Film and Television Development Corporation.

According to the OGFTDC, production spending in the region totaled $4.2 million in 2003, ballooning to $33.4 million in 2004, and $47.2 million in 2005, with 2006 continuing the upward trend so far. But some issues remain.

‘We still need to improve very much in terms of infrastructure… We slowly hope to develop our resource pool and infrastructure,’ says Stewart, whose prodco is producing 13 half-hours of the children’s show Spellz for TVO.

One stumbling block, however, is that the three-year mandate and funding for the Ottawa-Gatineau Film Office, which was inaugurated in 2003, has run out and is currently in limbo.

Meanwhile, Topp says that efforts are underway to boost the province’s sagging production industry, which applies primarily to Toronto. Provincial and industry leaders are cosponsoring a PricewaterhouseCoopers study of the province’s production industry, due around the first week of September, which will be taken into consideration in the next Ontario budget.

The City of Toronto has also gone into examination mode in hopes of eventually dragging itself out of its production doldrums. This month, David Bergman of Economics Research Associates submitted a report commissioned by the city presenting a long-term strategic plan for Toronto’s film, television, video and commercial production industry.

The recommended strategy includes vigorously pursuing completion of FilmPort, developing film-related technical assistance for new market entrants, and considering incentives for relocating film-related businesses to low-cost brownfield/grayfield locations.

www.toronto.ca/tfto/

www.filmontario.ca

www.omdc.on.ca

www.ogft.com