Feature film producers are casting a wary eye at the recent upheavals on the distribution landscape. Big players backed by high volume and the clout of output deals with the mini-majors bring more muscle to access screens, but distribco consolidation also means fewer doors for producers to knock on.

‘Before we used to have conversations with six or seven healthy companies – we just don’t have those choices anymore,’ says the Feature Film Project’s Justine Whyte. ‘I hope the players that remain increase their support in terms of numbers of acquisitions.’

With Everest Entertainment out of business, Norstar gobbled up by Alliance, and the future of Cineplex Odeon Films hanging in the balance, producers are particularly concerned by the loss of smaller distribcos on the narrowing playing field.

‘If I have a very commercial $10-million feature then sure I would go to Alliance,’ says The Edge Productions’ David Doerkson. But with lower-budget art-house fare, he says smaller distributors are generally more willing to put efforts into promoting the films, working them slowly and regionally across Canada, because they do not have the high-volume American deals to rely on for revenues.

‘If a film is viable but needs that extra staying time in theaters to build momentum, sometimes it is better to go with the smaller guys,’ says Suburbanators and Kitchen Party producer John Hazlett. ‘The margins are narrower but they will work a film much harder, and in some cases you can get a higher profile.’

The large distributors are also integrated with their own feature filmmaking undertakings and ‘often have a preference for films they are developing for their own production machines,’ says Stephen Onda of Heartland Motion Pictures in Regina. ‘So we look to other distributors who, unfortunately, don’t have deep pockets.’

Doerkson says there is room in the distribution sector for a midsize company with $10 million to $20 million in capital to get in on the game, a thought echoed by Triptych Media’s Anna Stratton.

‘The lower-budget indies need their equivalent on the distribution front,’ she says. ‘These smaller companies could work the smaller markets and theaters, and although the returns would be a lot lower, so would their overhead.’

The Telefilm Canada-commissioned Houle Report also argues that there is a place alongside the large distribution-production companies for a number of medium-sized integrated production-distribution companies which could distribute on a regional level or define themselves through a niche market.

This is the game plan of Vancouver television producer/distributor Forefront Entertainment, which is set to make its first feature this summer and has plans to integrate its own film distribution arm to release its slate of films and other Canadian product in North America and internationally.

The company is honing in on the specialized market of family films and is currently working on a deal with an American exhibitor to release product on American independent screens, says Forefront’s Helena Cynamon.

The business plan calls for the production and acquisition of commercial family fare in the $6 million to $8 million range, with private and public capitalization, and p&a budgets to match. Projections call for American box office results to recoup costs, with further sales anticipated as revenue. The first film is slated for a summer production start.

At Toronto’s Shaftesbury Films, a non-integrated film production company, principal Christina Jennings says opening its own releasing arm is too risky, but she would like to see Telefilm widen the number of smaller companies with access to its distribution funding envelope. ‘Distribution in Canada is a tough business,’ says Jennings, ‘and if you look around the landscape is covered with those who failed.’

Dirty producer Stephen Hegyes also questions the viability of new distribution ventures. Although filmmakers would like to see more competition on the releasing front, he questions whether these smaller distributors will be able to access screens in an oversubscribed and competitive market. While more screens in regional areas is one solution, the problem then becomes whether Canada has the market to sustain these new screens.

The emergence of Vancouver’s Red Sky Entertainment is a positive sign, according to Hazlett, because the company is mid-sized and has voiced a commitment to build long-standing relationships with Western Canadian producers.

‘In the bigger companies you never talk to the people who are marketing your films and putting them in theaters, and yet the director and producer can play a huge part in the release strategy,’ says Hazlett.

‘On the American independent scene, distributors spend a lot of money creating filmmakers as opposed to releasing specific films. That is what Alliance did with Atom Egoyan, stick by him and build him up. More Canadian distributors should think of fostering long-term relationships with filmmakers.’

Increasingly, tighter production budgets are also the crux of the problem in the production-distribution relationship.

‘Producers cobble together extremely fragile financing scenarios,’ explains Hegyes. ‘You overextend yourself and try to go into production as quickly as possible because crews making triple scale on u.s. shows are doing you a favor by taking time out to work on your project.

‘The easiest way to reduce a budget is to reduce the schedule, and you end up delivering an mow parading as a feature.’

The rule of thumb, says Onda, is ‘you overdevelop with all sorts of things blowing up and helicopter shots from above so the distributors love the bloody thing, and then you take it all out when it’s time to put together the production.’

Producers recognize that, as a result, the finished product often ends up a far different creature than the original development package described and the film ends up sitting on a shelf while the distributor tries to figure out what to do with it.