Launch of the Canadian distribution Show Case, sponsored by Team Canada.
Left to right – Shelley Middlebrook, Brunico Communications Inc; Pat Ferns, Banff Television Festival; Trina McQueen, Discovery Canada and Team Canada/Heritage Canada Representative

Banff, Alta.: Attendance at the Banff Television Festival topped last year’s performance with over 1,750 registered delegates.

‘We had planned we could go as high as 2,000 [but] I’m glad we aren’t at that number because we have way surpassed our revenue targets from registration,’ says Pat Ferns, president and ceo of the festival.

Ferns holds the number of festival delegates is less important than maintaining the quality of the overall program, ‘and the buzz around here is that everyone seems to feel they had a great festival and a lot of business is being transacted.’

Highlights of this year’s festival include the launch of new initiatives such as the Alliance Atlantis/Banff Television Executive Program; increased delegate attendance from France, Asia and Australia; closed-door powwows between Canadian Television Fund reps and regional producers who are calling for guarantees of minimum funding for the western and eastern provinces; and, the central crux of the festival – the pitching of new tv projects via the Market Simulation, Sharing Stories and Selling the World strands, and one-on-one networking.

This year also saw the opening of new opportunities to sell properties involving hdtv and interactive components.

Ferns says the festival’s future is also closely tied to ‘what other businesses we get into.’

In that regard, the $1.8-million, six-year Alliance Atlantis/Banff Television Executive Program looms large. The festival will manage the joint venture, with former cbc program boss Jim Byrd appointed as interim exec director (see AAC, p. 10)

The investment, in effect, becomes a new profit center for the organization and will significantly assist in planning and predictability.

Ferns says the festival’s advanced craft master class sessions may be a key component going forward, with the number of workshops doubled this year and the addition of new sponsors, the National Screen Institute-Canada and Telefilm Canada, as well as the continued support of the Harold Greenberg Fund and the Ontario Film Development Corporation. ‘That is also an event that could be held at another time of the year,’ adds Ferns.

‘If I’m looking for growth, it’s not to make this a large event,’ he says. ‘It’s to keep it as a quality event and if necessary spin off other elements.’

As for the national and international mix at this year’s festival, Ferns says, ‘That is a challenge. I’ve been touring the world and we still seem to be hitting the same numbers. For those countries which I visited we have done better. What happens is that for every one international person that I attract, three more Canadians show up. But if we can get 450, 500 good international people here you have a very special environment.’ International delegates made up about 25% of all delegates this year.

Following the ’98 tribute to the u.k., ’99 attendance from the u.k. was down, while French attendance was up, in part because of the homage to the French-German pubcaster arte. Next year the festival’s focus is Germany.

‘The growth area is from Asia,’ says Ferns. ‘We had something like 17 people here from Singapore Television Corporation, a strong Chinese delegation and another 18 from Australia.’

More work with Italy

Work on the ground in Italy is starting to pay off with a sizable delegation this year, ‘but not quite in the numbers I had hoped,’ says Ferns.

‘The [Italian] delegation was led by the deputy minister of communications, and he thinks this [Banff] is the greatest thing since sliced bread,’ Ferns continues. ‘The ambassador flew in and there were [Italian] broadcaster executives here. But we are going to get more executives from Italy, more producers.’

Ferns says Banff is the logical meeting place for better coproduction ties with Italy.

‘We are letting them know this isn’t mip or mipcom in Canada, It’s not natpe in Canada. It’s a different event entirely and it’s about people trying to finance their new projects.’

Post-CTF pickup

With the advent of a more formal or regularized funding-approval cycle in Canada (the spring Canadian Television Fund decisions), and because demand outstrips supply, Ferns says the next step for producers is to seek out alternatives.

‘If you don’t get approved in the [funding] round in May, come to Banff and you may find it another way,’ he says. ‘I think we’re actually at the perfect time of the year so that if. . . somebody has a coproduction deal and has their Canadian financing, then why not meet their partners in Banff and go forward with what has been financed? If you haven’t got it approved, you may find another way to go [here].

‘And it’s important that when you get that disappointment [being turned down for Canadian public funding] that you can come here and get picked up again. There may be new projects or maybe [you’ll] be able to acquire somebody else’s project, et cetera.’

Lobby for regional `floors’

Still, producers associations and film commissions used the Banff forum to lobby for changes to ctf guidelines. ‘Floors’ was the operative word among Prairie and Atlantic producers, who are calling for a minimum amount of guaranteed support for regional productions in the fund and a more equitable distribution of monies across the country.

Specific formulas for calculating these floors were not articulated at Banff (although some talk of an amount calculated on a per capita basis was circulated), but will come forth in further meetings set for the week after festival, according to the groups which met with the ctf, including the Manitoba Motion Pictures Industry Association, Saskatchewan Motion Pictures Industries Association and all the Atlantic film commissions.

Their argument, according to mmpia’s Richard Horne, is that while western and eastern production has been rapidly increasing, ctf support has been diminishing, thus undermining growth in the regions.

The ctf has told the groups it will begin revamping the ctf regulations in September and by November the new guidelines are expected to be released

cafde’s Richard Paradis continued lobby efforts to ensure that broadcasters are not recognized as distributors under any revamped ctf guidelines. Such a change, he says, would leave producers with no leverage when making deals with broadcasters who will have the upper hand and likely take rights in exchange for granting broadcast licences.

Paradis also took the opportunity to continue talks with the cftpa’s subcommittee on distribution, headed by Kevin DeWalt, as to a potential merger of tv and film distributors under the cafde banner. Paradis says he also courted distributors not represented on the committee.

Both groups plan to keep discussions going, but no decisions are near, says Paradis.

Avid, ARTE saluted

This year’s Banff achievement awards went to Avid Technology (for technology) and arte (creative). The awards are determined by the festival’s board and Ferns says they are ‘utterly independent of any sponsorships or whatever.’

‘What we have maintained since the beginning of the festival,’ says Ferns, ‘is the fact that our awards cannot be bought. It’s an independent seven-country jury that makes those decisions and there has never been any accusation of trying to arrange the awards.

‘If you look at the technology award, Sony is probably `the’ technology company, and the fact they won the first award set a standard; then Silicon Graphics [in ’98] and Avid, and who knows who will win next year.’

This year’s festival also paid tribute to the National Film Board on the occasion of its 60th anniversary.

At its annual Banff TV Festival Awards Luncheon, the cftpa presented the Chetwynd Award for Entrepreneurial Excellence to Minds Eye Pictures of Regina. The award recognizes special achievements and private-sector excellence in the motion picture industry and the recipient is selected by the cftpa membership and finalized by a majority vote of a jury comprised of former Chetwynd Award winners.

The inaugural CTV Fellowship Prize was handed out to Helena Cynamon of Vancouver’s Forefront Productions. The prize goes to an alumnus of the CTV Fellowship Program whose professional achievements illustrate the impact of a fellowship on one’s career.

Hitman Hart: Wrestling With Shadows, a coproduction between High Road Productions of Toronto and the nfb, emerged as the one Rockie win for Canada. The doc, about the Calgary wrestler’s career, took the best sports program category.

Arts and Entertainment Selling the World
Left to right – Pia Maria Marquard, TV2 Denmark; Lynn Deegan, E! Entertainment; Catherine Cante, Comedy Central and Shelley Middlebrook, Brunico Communications Inc.

More from NetStar

Four years ago when Ferns tied up with the festival, NetStar Communications (parent company of Discovery Canada) made a commitment of $200,000 a year for five years. ‘Then three years in they’ve said, `We’re going to renew for another three years [to 2003] on top of that,’ ‘ says Ferns. ‘So in effect we’ve got eight years at $200,000 a year [or] $1.6 million.

‘They have been part of the transformation of the festival,’ he says. ‘They have wanted their money to go for high-profile [people]. They really wanted us to be out in the international marketplace so they finance that.

‘Essentially,’ says Ferns, ‘we run on a budget of about $3.5 million, of which probably about 15% is government financing [it was 80% when the festival started and has been steadily going down], 40% comes from industry sponsorship, international and domestic, and the balance is split equally between products that we sell – advertising, program entries and registration.’

Ferns says, in general, the festival’s finances are healthy but there’s always an eye out for unexpected contingencies, the ups and downs of audiovisual markets at home and abroad.

The trickiest piece is the revenues tied directly to festival week itself, when virtually all the funding is spent. Clearly, Banff is run as a tight and prudent ship. Its hallmark is its genuine and professional hospitality, and its value as a national institution is uncontested.

Market Simulation

Of all the events at Banff, perhaps the most informative is still the International Market Simulation (the 15th annual edition), moderated by Ferns himself, whose approach is a high-speed, entertaining mix of encouragement and brutal finality.

Toronto’s Deer Park Communications and showrunner Alyse Rosenberg made a drama and entertainment pitch for the half-hour family adventure series Ruby’s Hat ($500,000 an episode).

The trio of veteran producer-panelists – Norman Horowitz of the u.s., Patrick Dromgoole of the u.k. and Serge Siritzky of France – pointed out the ‘right choice’ of actress to play the 13-year-old series lead could represent ‘a quantum 60% leap’ towards a `Yes’ from a broadcaster. Ruby’s Hat sparked initial interest from cbc and BBC Wales.

Spin, and thinking on one’s feet were the key for a one-hour doc from Montreal’s Esperanto Productions called Shrinkage (budget $250,000), a look at depression from a humorous perspective.

Horowitz wasn’t sure who would commission the program, but thought it was ‘great,’ while Dromgoole warned there was inherent danger in turning mental illness into a joke.

The focus changed dramatically when popular cbc comedy czar George Anthony said he’d talked to the presenters, filmmaker Bobbi Jo Krals and writer Sherry Shaw-Froggatt, to see if they might consider ‘putting the doc element on the back burner’ and reshaping the entire project as a one-hour comedy special.

As a ‘passionate’ doc sort, Krals was initially more than hesitant, but when stand-up artist Shaw-Froggatt said she just ‘wants to be a star,’ it didn’t take long for Krals to realize the offer was real. However, he wondered whether trying to make a show that is both comedy and serious doc would in fact be self-defeating.

Siritzky dryly pointed out that ‘comedy is difficult to prefinance, and nobody knows about depression like France,’ while the wily Horowitz eagerly advised the presenters to refer to the proposal as ‘a program, not a documentary.’

A comedy-caper tv movie called The Catch (us$1.8 million) from Mago Films of Australia and award-winning writer Sarah Rossetti, featuring a storyline reminiscent of The Player but about the tv industry, received a mixed response.

The industry is ever leery of spoofing itself (too boring), but Siritzky said the Aussies are particularly good at this sort of thing. Horowitz thought long-form tv financing would be ‘very difficult.’

The producers said they had interest from Ten Network at home and were looking for a Canadian (or other) coproducer.

A-Channel’s Joanne Levy said, ‘We’d be interested if you can find an Alberta partner.’ A-Channel could ante up as much as $15,000 in development funds, as well as throw in a national licence and 10% of the Alberta portion of the budget, she said.

Margaret Mardirossian of Edmonton’s Anaid Productions quickly threw her hat in the ring as a potential Alberta partner.

Jay Switzer of ChumCity International said the project had ‘great potential’ and encouraged the producers not to be ‘afraid of rough edges, and the more raw, rough, the better.’

A bbc rep made it clear the network does not prebuy tv movies.

The fun only increased when Dromgoole pitched The Croppy Boy, a new but darker tale of betrayal and paramilitary double-dealing, followed by Horowitz’s global coproduction (‘integrity of concept’) proposal, Trapped, a tongue-in-cheek story about a holiday ship cruise, necessarily starring ‘the passengers from any country willing to pay [for the production].’

RealScreen Banff Panel – ‘US Land of Opportunity?- Fact’Left to right – Chris Haws Discovery Communications; Bill Harris, A&E; Sheilagh McGee, Court TV; Kathy Quattrone, Discovery Health and Media and Shelley Middlebrook, Brunico Communications Inc.

Two in a Room

In one of those ‘only at Banff could it happen’ tales, Vancouver composer and jazz musician David Johanns arrived at the festival to find work scoring films and went home a film producer with a $10,000 development deal.

Johanns and Erin Mussolum pitched the one-hour $250,000 documentary Piano Lessons to commissioning editors Hans-Robert Eisenhauer of Arte g.e.i.e. of France, and Paul Gratton of Bravo!, who negotiated the terms of a coproduction tender at the Banff rendition of Sharing Stories: Two in a Room.

Piano Lessons will highlight two international performers and their lifelong relationship with the piano and then compare the complexities of their reactions to the musical instrument with the relationships average people have had with the piano from childhood into adulthood.

‘My pitch really struck an emotional nerve with audiences because everyone thought back to their own relationship to the piano,’ says Johanns. ‘The piano is a medium to look at one’s past, family, dreams, fears and aspirations.’

Based on the strong reaction, Johanns and Mussolum are planning to develop the one-hour program into a longer-running series.

NHK offers cash

Japan’s nhk, in conjunction with a master class on hdtv, offered a purse of us$10,000 to the best hdtv proposal submitted by workshop participants. Three projects have been shortlisted and nhk commissioning editors plan to make a decision over the next month.

The projects include Flight of the Aquanaut from Stephen Low of Montreal and Ryan Mullins of Vancouver’s Big Picture Productions.

Their hybrid imax/hdtv project uses footage from a never-released imax docudrama in which expert test diver Brian Fuco of Vancouver is trapped for hours on the ocean floor while testing out a new ‘newt’ underwater exploration diving suit, combined with hd footage of the true story of how Fuco relived the film experience when he later had a stroke in bed and lay paralyzed and alone for days until found.

The one-hour $400,000 film will recreate Fuco’s real-life experiences and recovery from the stroke with the similar experiences he faced in the underwater entrapment.

Also hailing from Vancouver, Eunhee Cha of Uni-Cam Productions pitched Journey For Lotus, an hdtv project which looks at the Japanese occupation of Korea (1910-45) through the eyes of a 96-year-old Korean-Canadian woman who was a revolutionist during the time. Cha is also shopping the $400,000 project to History Television.

John Curtinn of Montreal’s Kaos Films Worldwide was shortlisted for his hdtv doc Ten Seconds of Eternity, which will follow the four fastest men in the world as they prepare mentally and physically for the 100-meter race at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia.

Curtinn says the 100-meter is the most popular event at the Olympics, attracting top audiences for broadcasters who air the Games, so the market for the doc is enormous. CBC Sports is interested in coming on board the $750,000 one hour, says Curtinn.

Curtinn previously produced a Life and Times documentary on Donovan Bailey.

First Cyberpitch winners

Two projects emerged winners of the Banff Centre New Media Focus CyberPitch: Wildlife Crossings from Matthew Todd Paproski, Sandy Flanagan, Martin Boryici, Pawel Boryniec, Rik Logtenburg, Pierre de la Roche and Peter Chrzanowski; and Cads Cooking from Toronto-based Darkyl New Media.

Wildlife Crossings was presented with $1,500 in development funding from BCE Media and Cads Cooking handed $3,500. Both projects will twin television and Internet components.

Leo Rice Barker, Montreal Correspondent from Playback Magazine moderating Drama Panel – ‘Selling the World’ as Kevin DeWalt of Minds Eye Entertainment makes his pitch.

Selling the World

The new strand, Selling the World, offered Canadian program distributors 15 minutes in the spotlight to sell new projects or catalogue programs to a selected panel of international acquisitions reps. Among the projects were Canamedia Productions’ docudrama Deadly Seas; Great North International’s social/political take on sports titled Doping and a piece on the world’s most infamous cities, Sin Cities; Filmoption International’s one-hour on people who voluntarily disappear titled Missing, and Ellis Vision’s one-off on loons and a series idea on historical mistakes.

The Selling The World session was, according to some attendees, most valuable in showing audiences what buyers did not have shelf space for – as opposed to garnering insight into dollar values of programming on the world market – since most of the projects pitched seemed not to match with the program needs of the acquisition reps on hand to discuss the projects.

‘We don’t do that’ was the typical first response from acquisition reps, suggesting that sellers and buyers were not well matched.

Networking

Banff is about deal-making and looking forward. The agenda covers a wide range of issues from tv and new media programming and coproduction to a/v policy issues, and the selling of technical and banking series.

Daniel Gourd, Radio-Canada’s general director of programming, met with other Canadian broadcasters at the festival. He says there is a concerted effort to share more programs with both the cbc and private networks and specialty channels.

Mandate oblige, src and cbc have asked Salter Street Films and Motion International (sda) to develop an English and French sitcom proposal which will work for both markets.

In a similar vein, Amerimage Spectra producer Pierre Touchette held talks on a couple of cbc music specials featuring ‘a name English artist with a Quebec connection.’

Robert Lang, producer with Toronto’s Kensington Communications, used Banff to pitch the new six-hour primetime doc series Sacred Balance, to be produced in association with David Suzuki and based on his best-selling book. Says Lang, ‘I made some good contacts, including a meeting with nhk.’

Christian Kubo of Docland in Germany had a dual mission at Banff – to scout out international crews for a new 22-part doc series as well as appraise possible doc acquisitions for a German premiere [pay] service.

Andy Nulman of Just For Laughs attended in his role as panel moderator and to talk up his upcoming festival, as well as to meet with cbc program executives on a new sitcom in development.