Wayne Clarkson assumed the role of Telefilm Canada executive director in January 2005, taking over from Richard Stursberg, who bolted to take over as head of CBC TV. Clarkson came in with impressive credentials, as former chief of the Canadian Film Centre, the Ontario Film Development Corporation and the Toronto film festival.

Under Clarkson’s watch, Telefilm saw the Heritage goal of 5% market share for Canadian films achieved in 2005, only to see it slip away in 2006 – although he is optimistic about this year’s releases. He also oversaw the launch of a new partnership with the Canadian Television Fund as a one-board, one-administration organization, and displayed a strong push in new media with ventures such as the Great Canadian Video Game Competition.

In this recent interview, he addresses the challenges of properly funding the Quebec film industry, making more successful movies in English Canada, and Telefilm’s place in the multi-platform world.

How are you prioritizing the money going into feature films?

We all know about the firestorm that ensued in Quebec last summer. The pressures on the Canada Feature Film Fund are considerable. The demands for French-language production far exceed what we have to allocate. The fund is now nearly six years old. It’s not had additional dollars in that time. Inflation has eaten away at it. The cost of productions in Quebec has gone up. There’s no doubt that there’s a funding issue.

Having said that, money is never the singular solution. One distributor submitted 12 productions to us. There wasn’t enough money to fund anywhere near that number of projects.

The distributors have the responsibility to speak for their audience. They know it better than we do. They have to be more rigorous and accountable for their productions. Rather than submitting 12 to Telefilm and asking us to make the decision on which films to fund, what are the ones they believe in? What are the four projects that have their confidence? Then we’ll assess those and balance those against the one or two or three others submitted in the same way by other distributors.

But shouldn’t the Quebec distributors receive special treatment? Aren’t they the ones that are making money for Telefilm?

No question, films are playing very well in the Quebec market. But look at The Rocket. Despite [Alliance Atlantis] committing a significant amount of dollars, the English-language version was not successful [earning around $700,000 of the film’s overall box-office take of nearly $5 million].

The biggest challenge the Quebec producers face is how to access the world. English-Canadian projects attract coproduction deals more easily because the language travels well. Quebec producers are reaching a threshold in their market. How do they get financed beyond SODEC, Telefilm and tax credits? They need more foreign investment, more private investment. Their films can’t all be financed through the public purse.

Do you still believe in the goal of Canadian productions getting 5% of the domestic box office?

No doubt it’s a blunt instrument, but we have to start somewhere. Yes, I still want it. But what interests me equally is that Canadians see the films. What format that’s in is up to them. I won’t judge them. If a film gets $1 million theatrically – which amounts to 100,000 viewers – but another million people see it on TV or DVD or video-on-demand, that’s fine with me.

We have to get more sophisticated in our measurements, so that when we appear before the standing committee in Parliament we can say, ‘This is what the film did theatrically, but this is what the film did through all of its outlets.’

Should Telefilm be acting as a studio, choosing scripts and producing its own films?

No! How often has that question been asked in this organization over the past 40 years? ‘Studio’ is too loaded a term, so let’s use the term ‘proactive.’ How proactive should we be? It becomes a question of accountability.

At the moment, we operate as a bank – a fairly benign institution. Where we should be accountable is in developing emerging talents and new platforms. We should help on low-budget first films. But, as much as possible, we should stay out of the marketplace.

What can be done to make scripts stronger in Canada?

That’s the $64,000 question! The volume of scripts has to go up and we have to be more rigorous in our assessments. There’s got to be a push and pull between writers and producers. The more the writer is challenged either by a company or Telefilm, the better is the process and, ultimately, the script.

I want 10 good scripts so we can finance two. I say that with sadness because not all of them will get money.

Should certain genres be prioritized?

We talked about that. What would happen if, say, we took five to 10 scripts in the science-fiction/horror genres and decided to develop them? It’s an excellent idea. Vincenzo Natali’s Cube did very well for us years ago.

Conventional dramas often perform the least well of the films we finance. Looking at genres speaks to our idea of producing a portfolio of films.

Should Telefilm be helping young filmmakers to make features right away, or should they wait for a few years and work their way through the industry?

First films are ones that I’ve always held in the highest regard. It’s where you get innovation and excitement. I want to be able to reflect back, when my term at Telefilm is completed, and say that a generation of young, emerging talent was developed, more so than in previous administrations.

What do you think of new media, which seems to go hand in glove with emerging, eclectic talent?

I spent time at Digimart’s Global Distribution Summit in Montreal, which Daniel Langlois hosts at Ex-Centris. It was all about the changing nature of the media landscape, part of which is films. We’re in a multi-platform universe. You can conceive of a project now that is available on the Internet, your telephone and DVD. Each one of those platforms helps to define the project – and one of those formats might still be film, although produced digitally.

There was a panel of young filmmakers who said that they would viral market their works in a variety of different formats, including chapters on the Internet. You’ve got a digital technology that has made filmmaking more accessible than ever. YouTube is out there and filmmakers want to use it.

It levels the field for young talent from a cost perspective. If the film works theatrically and a distributor picks it up, it can be presented conventionally. If not, there’s YouTube and MySpace so people can see the work. It opens things up for emerging filmmakers in ways that would have been hard to imagine even five years ago. You hear stories about filmmakers getting 30,000 hits for their short film

Why the recent push into interactivity, with initiatives such as the Great Canadian Video Game Competition?

For us, the priority is to have Canadian talent own the intellectual property rights to works they produce. Sell them to the world? Absolutely. The core principle of this organization is Canadian talent producing Canadian works for the world to see. The project is intended to give that part of the industry a leg up in dealing with the world market.

Do you see a synergy between gaming and digital cinema?

Our five-year corporate plan is called ‘From cinemas to cell phones.’ The point behind that snappy title is that we’ve entered the world of multi-platforms. That doesn’t mean the demise of cinema on the silver screen. That will always be a great experience. But I take the train to Montreal all the time and the number of people I see looking at movies on their laptops is remarkable. More and more Canadians are going to choose to see films where they want, when they want, and on what platform they want to watch it.

As the federal agency given the responsibility to affect and contribute to the audiovisual industry and to provide leadership to Parliament, Telefilm has an obligation to play our part on that emerging stage. We hope to see the Canada New Media Fund grow in the coming years. It is where the opportunities are dramatically happening.