On March 23, Telefilm Canada announced it would implement a set of ‘Best Practices’ for the English-language selective component of the 2009/10 Canada Feature Film Fund investment cycle.

As readers of the Harvard Business Review or any parent knows, ‘best practices’ is business speak for ‘common sense’. Rather than continually reinventing the wheel, an organization tracks its successes and failures while capitalizing on internal efficiencies in an attempt to reach an optimal environment. I teach it to my kids: don’t hold something in each hand while trying to open the fridge.

According to Michel Pradier, director, investment portfolio at Telefilm, the agency and its industry partners have reviewed the box-office results from its English investments over the past seven years – a grim assignment, no doubt – and concluded there are key factors linked to commercial success.

So what are these ‘best practices’ in practice? At the national English-language level, Telefilm identified genre, budget size, market interest and stakeholder risk. But we knew this, didn’t we?

Comedies do better than dramas, action films earn more than dramas, animated action-adventure comedies make the most money of all. And which films has Telefilm selected to finance? Over those seven years, according to Pradier, ‘Sixty percent of the yearly portfolio is adult drama. And even when they are good, they face tough competition in the market getting an audience and don’t realize the audience they were hoping for.’

Now, says the Telefilm announcement, ‘preference will be given to projects with production budgets of greater than $5 million, and with market interest of at least $1 million in the context of a detailed marketing plan demonstrating the project’s ability to achieve verifiable Canadian theatrical box office targets. Genre will also be a factor in decision-making since a diversified portfolio is important for success.’

So would a producer be wiser to pitch a comedy rather than an adult drama? Pradier insists that Telefilm is not seeking to filter the selection. ‘It’s just to diversify the investment portfolio we have.’

‘Just like any [Hollywood] studio would do,’ adds Stephanie Azam, Telefilm’s feature film executive for English. ‘Maybe we are doing too much of one and not enough of the others.’ She concedes some genres will be more difficult to tackle than others, notably action adventure. ‘But the obvious one is comedy,’ she says. ‘Canadians are known to be hilarious, so we’re saying, ‘Why don’t we focus a little more on comedy?”

Of course, that’s easier said than done. But it might explain why so many producers favor dramas: the difference between a good drama and a bad drama is often a matter of taste; whereas the difference between a good comedy and a bad comedy is one makes you laugh and the other does not.

On the regional level, under Telefilm’s best practices, preference will be given to projects budgeted under $2.5 million requesting less than $750,000. In this case, market interest – presales, etc. – will not be the deciding factor.

Sandra Cunningham, chair of the CFTPA and head of Toronto production company Strada Films, cuts to the nub of the situation: ‘There’s a certain low- to medium-budget range that represents a lot of money that doesn’t necessarily allow a project to obtain significant market interest in terms of advances or presales, and therefore the talent attracted is not strong enough to make it competitive in the market. So that can be an expensive experiment. Telefilm wants to see better-financed bigger projects and smaller projects.’

She adds, ‘It’s an interesting concept, but the devil will be in details.’

As for marketing best practices, the agency is encouraging all stakeholders to engage in ‘early and ongoing dialogue.’ And it adds, ‘Distributors should also be working with exhibitors to stagger the release of Canadian features and maximize the positioning of marketing elements.’

Ah, the distributors.

‘It only makes sense if there is a strong distribution commitment,’ says Cunningham, who speaks of bridging the gap between filmmakers and the marketplace. ‘That seems obvious. But what constitutes ‘interest’ and ‘commitment’?’

She suggests the real problem is that Canadian distributors do not have commensurate development departments to get involved early in the process.

Sounds like we need some more ‘best practices.’