In today’s film and TV climate, an Alberta producer, a Toronto producer and a Montreal entertainment lawyer may each face very different challenges, but one thing they share is the desire to find the perfect coproduction recipe.

Over the last five years, rising production costs and flat government subsidies have increasingly driven Canadian producers to seek out budgets through coproduction. The coproduction landscape, however, is undergoing some major shifts, with adjustments to the U.K. sale-and-leaseback shaking the domestic industry and the American industry opening up to working with Canadian producers as partners. As a result, Canadians looking to coproduce are expanding beyond the official treaty coproduction model and seeking innovative ways to partner with other countries.

With an eye on these developments, entertainment lawyer Sam Coppola of Montreal firm Borden Ladner Gervais, Calgary-based Voice Pictures executive producer and founder Wendy Hill-Tout and Toronto’s Shaftesbury Films executive producer Scott Garvie recently conducted a seminar called Soft Money at the Atlantic Film Festival’s signature industry event, Strategic Partners, in Halifax. The event’s focus for the second consecutive year was coproducing or coventuring opportunities with producers from the U.K., Ireland and the U.S.

Although final changes to the U.K./Canada copro treaty, which include increasing the minimum U.K. spend from 20% to 40%, will not be clear until next year, potential Canada/U.K. coproductions are already suffering.

‘This year a lot of films have not happened,’ says Coppola. ‘With the 40% rule and nobody knowing what will happen next year, a lot of [projects] have been lost.’

As treaty coproductions become more complicated and some less financially viable, Canadian producers are working with traditional treaty partners such as the U.K. or German producers in unofficial partnerships.

According to Coppola, official treaty coproductions may not provide enough financial incentive for producers to work within their rigid, boxed-in structures. He says producers have to weigh the benefits of the extra money that can be accessed through treaty coproductions against the benefits of, for example, using recognizable U.S. talent, which is difficult under treaty rules.

Coppola recently worked on SuperBabies: Baby Geniuses 2, directed by Bob Clark (Porky’s). The Germany/U.K./U.S. production shot in Vancouver, utilizing the Production Services Tax Credit. While Coppola admits that such service shoots may do little to contribute to the growth of Canadian coproductions, he says, ‘the services credit was brought in because of pressure from the industry saying your content rules are too strict.’

For Hill-Tout, producing in Alberta, where any foreign companies looking to shoot in the province must partner with a local producer to take advantage of incentives, service productions have created a sharp divide between service and indigenous producers. She says it has not been beneficial to growing the industry and has in fact made it more difficult for her to form creative partnerships with American producers.

Over the last two years, Hill-Tout has been working to build relationships with American producers. She recently completed a series of MOWs based on the long-running TV show Little House on the Prairie with Touchstone Pictures, and is currently working on the MOWs Migration and Wheel to the Stars, coproduced with Turner Network Television and executive produced by Steven Spielberg, with DreamWorks distributing.

‘The cost of production is too high for what we can get in this country, which is why we’re coproducing and focusing on U.S. presales,’ she says. ‘The rest of the country is in a service production relationship with American productions, which has done a lot to develop crews, but I don’t think it’s done anything to build Canadian producers.’

According to Hill-Tout, American producers have started to become more open to working with producers from other countries. For example, she says American producers who are approaching her are willing to look at Canadian-content films, something that never would have happened three years ago.

‘It’s hard enough to be in the film industry and be in a country that actually has treaties to go looking for money, but if you’re an American independent, it’s a really difficult situation,’ she says. ‘Americans are facing what we faced 20 years ago – there’s not enough money, licences in the States have been cut back, and everybody is looking for money and having to partner with other people. It’s a pretty new situation for them and they’re not used to it.’

As more countries start to get into coproductions, Garvie says Canadian producers, who are familiar with the ups and downs of working with international partners, will have an advantage.

‘Canadians are particularly good at coproductions,’ he says. ‘Other countries have traditionally been fully financed by their own broadcasters, and now they’re trying to put together all the little pieces, which Canadians are very good at. We’re pragmatic, end-result-oriented and can embody the creative with the finance.’

However, when working with American producers, Garvie, Hill-Tout and Coppola agree that they still see Canadian producers as the little guys, a difficult perception to overcome.

‘The question for Canadian producers from smaller or growing companies like ours is how do you get the Americans to take you seriously,’ says Garvie. ‘They want to see your resume and what shows you’ve produced that have been on American TV. Until they see that you’ve done a number of things for U.S. channels, they don’t take you seriously.’

Another potential new financing possibility emerging between Canadian and U.S. producers is what Coppola calls reverse runaway production, which would enable Canadian producers to maintain Canadian funding while gaining additional money from the U.S. for shooting south of the border. While it is too early for him to reveal the details, he says he is currently working on a production that is looking to shoot in the States to take advantage of new incentives emerging there.

‘We’re going to see Canadian producers producing films in the U.S. As a reaction to runaway production there are currently 12 U.S. States that have brought in tax credit or tax incentive legislation,’ he says. ‘If we’re going to chase soft money all over the world, this is one of the markets we’re going to start looking at and we’re right next door.’

-www.voicepictures.com

-www.shaftesbury.org

-www.blgcanada.com