To varying degrees, film schools in Canada provide students with the fundamentals of film theory and a solid base in the practical side: writing, shooting and editing. But few secondary institutions afford students firsthand experience in the essentials of getting a film financed – the biggest ongoing challenge within the Canadian film industry.

Raising funds independently and through the complicated web of government agencies is often the only way filmmakers can get their movies done.

But while there is little disagreement that financial expertise is crucial to the whole package, few academics see post-secondary film studies as a venue to provide aspiring filmmakers with this level of experience.

‘Producing is a field all in its own right,’ says Chris Aylward, program director of film at Ryerson University in Toronto.

‘We teach production – the making of films. We obviously deal with how films come together [and] there are many different things that people need to know to produce properly. But I don’t know if a university is the best place to gain [financing] knowledge.’

Ryerson’s film program is weighted so that early theory and film history courses give way to greater levels of practical work toward the end of the four-year program.

Aylward sees little room for any advanced business courses in film financing within a Bachelor of Applied Arts program such as Ryerson’s, despite the high degree of entrepreneurship required by successful filmmakers.

‘It’s not until you have to raise money, significant amounts of that, and then be responsible for how that money is spent that you are really producing. That doesn’t tend to happen during the four years of film school.’

Rather, Aylward says, students can find this type of training at schools such as the Canadian Film Centre. ‘I think they assume that people know the nuts and bolts of filmmaking before they come to that. That is what we focus on.’

Indeed, one of the many voids filled with the launch of the CFC in 1988 was providing aspiring filmmakers an intensive program devoted specifically to the financial side of the business.

The CFC’s four-month Producer’s Lab, part of the Alliance Atlantis Film Resident Programme, is a series of workshops and case studies led by a producer in residence and focused on providing students with the necessary tools to develop and finance film projects.

Workshops cover off essentials such as how to find and apply for government and private financing, the ins and outs of tax credits and shelters across the country, how to put together production development plans, building guild relationships, and marketing and publicity strategies.

Wayne Clarkson, executive director of the CFC, says the centre offers students the next level in their development as film and television professionals. Students work with professional crews and confer with top-level producers and heads of funding agencies.

Still, unlike writing or directing, there are no specific skill sets that can be developed to help filmmakers learn how to raise money, says Clarkson.

‘I’m not sure there are any secrets to it, quite honestly,’ he says. ‘In producing and/or finding money, it’s making contacts…pure and simple.’

Once you’ve made contacts and have names and phone numbers, ‘you pick up the phone, make the pitch. If they like the material and if they feel there’s evidence that the director has talent…that will ultimately carry the day. It’s hard to teach raising money.’

One film program has, however, come up with an innovative approach to providing students a window to what it takes.

Tucked away on Galiano Island, BC, in the Gulf of Georgia near Vancouver, the Gulf Islands Film and Television School provides students with an option to raise their own tuition.

While doing so is not a prerequisite to attending the school, GIFTS director George Harris says it allows less affluent students a means to get money for school.

GIFTS was founded in 1995 to offer high school students a week-long intensive film program. The school introduced a one-month Independent Media Producers post-graduate program the following year.

Because of the relatively short duration of the sessions, GIFTS programs do not qualify for student loans, Harris says. Raising their own tuition forces students to immediately get into the mode of producing.

‘We give students a list of where they might find [funds] in their communities and we pitch it to them as if they are raising money for their first film. Learning how to raise money is for a filmmaker more important than learning cinematography,’ he says.

Additionally, ‘students who raise their own dough take the [program] more seriously than if their grandfather had paid for the course,’ he says.

The producers stream – which accepts 18 students per session – focuses on production budgeting, sources of financing, grant writing, and other successful production strategies for upcoming producers. Students also take workshops in directing and scriptwriting, and work in teams of three to four to produce one video and one film.

Like Clarkson at the CFC, Harris says bringing in top-flight professionals from the industry is a fundamental part of student development. This year, Genie-winning documentary filmmakers Nettie Wild (A Place Called Chiapas), Aerlyn Weissman (Fiction And Other Truths: A Film About Jane Rule) and National Film Board senior producer George Johnson were among the Vancouver-based professionals to contribute their time to the school.

While only about 10% of the students raise their own tuition, getting a chance to meet and cull knowledge from the pros is critical both during the program and after graduation, when they need industry contacts to begin their careers.

Indeed, this has become standard practice in most film programs across the country.

David Clark, professor in media arts at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, is taking a lead role in developing a four-year Bachelor of Fine Arts program in film production, set to launch in 2002.

Part of the program will include partnerships with East Coast prodcos such as Salter Street Films, plus a visiting filmmaker program that will give students access to the top people in the industry, says Clark.

The focus of the BFA, he adds, will be to train independent filmmakers who are ready and able to make films on their own.

As such, the program will address a range of issues key to producing films, including advice in legal issues and organizational management skills, Clark says.

‘I would hope to give them a real snapshot of the world when they go out,’ he says. ‘Film is a real-world thing. You can’t go out and make a film without money.’

-www.ryerson.ca

-www.cdnfilmcentre.com

-www.youthfilms.com (GIFT)

-www.nscad.ns.ca