A crew crunch and a $1-million cut to Saskfilm’s annual funding are the challenges facing the Saskatchewan production community in the wake of a film and tv labor-based tax credit announcement.

The good news in the March 19 provincial budget was a 35% labor rebate, capping at 50% of the total production budget, with an additional 5% available picked up for shoots located outside Regina or Saskatoon. The government also committed to stable annual funding for provincial film and tv agency Saskfilm, which divvies the money among development loans, equity investment, locations promotion and professional development, but reduced its subsidy to $1 million from $2 million per year.

The equity investment program is likely to be the casualty of the funding cut, says Saskfilm gm Mark Prasuhn. In 1997, the program received $3.4 million worth of applications and was able to invest $1.3 million. Prasuhn questions whether with even less money to spend the program will have any impact.

A total of $180,000 was available for development loans in 1997; Prasuhn would like to beef up the allotment to $250,000. He also is looking at increasing the special project fund to $100,000 from $50,000 to support calling card shorts and culturally relevant and experimental films.

Saskatchewan Motion Picture Association president Rob King agrees that Saskfilm should get out of the equity game. The funding is drained quickly by only a few projects, he says, and the lengthy application process, which requires board approval before money is allocated, makes it difficult to lock deals in tight time frames.

‘Saskfilm would run out of money early and each production company generally could only get one film financed,’ says The Edge Productions’ David Doerksen. With the tax credit in place, he expects his 1998 production slate to be worth over $7.7 million.

Heartland Motion Pictures’ Stephen Onda is calling for ‘a balance of resources,’ noting that big-budget projects and some of the smaller pictures may require some equity investment.

Heartland has been greenlit for another order of The Maximum Dimension series for tvontario, Vision tv and scn. Also pending locked financing is the Baton tv movie Deadly Appearance (with coproducer Shaftesbury Films of Toronto) and the feature Last Place on Earth, licensed to TMN-The Movie Network and Citytv.

Prasuhn admits the industry remains split on the equity investment program. Deferral-driven projects, information series and documentaries which do not utilize a high volume of Saskatchewan crew are particular areas of concern. The equity program is also an incentive to bring coproduction partners to the province, he notes.

Although the impact of the credit will not be seen until next year, production volume for 1998 is expected to show a marked increase over last year’s $23 million, with projections putting this year’s tally in the $35 million to $40 million range. smpia estimates production budgets totaling $64.4 million in three years.

Staffing projects is the chief concern as the industry goes through its growing pangs. One top-notch a crew and half a b crew is the industry consensus on the labor situation in Saskatchewan and stacked projects require crew to be imported. As well, labor tends to be transient, often moving to b.c. in winter months to pick up work.

IATSE 295 business agent Geoff Yates says 40 members derive a full-time living from the province’s industry, with the number doubling if part-time crew are included. The key problem, he says, is that there are only one or two members in each of the crew positions.

Two to three shows landing at once will definitely necessitate crew to be imported, says Yates, and until the crew base can be grown, out-of-province labor will be required to keep up with production volume.

smpia chair Kevin DeWalt says the industry has proposed that former Saskatchewan residents who return to the province be considered eligible labor under the terms of the tax credit guidelines. The producers are also pushing for the legislation, expected to be passed by the end of April, to be calculated on imported crew if they act in a mentoring role with locally based trainees.

DeWalt, chairman and coo of Minds Eye, says his company has a hefty slate to crew this year, with the $3-million feature Bad Prospect, licensed by Showtime and the A-Channel, in prepro; a second season of The Incredible Story Studios for wic, scn, tv; and Escape from Rangoon, a $4-million tv movie licensed to zdf in Germany. The 13-part, half-hour preschool series Brenda’s Room, budgeted at $2.2 million, is in late development with ytv.

While growing crews takes time, the only quick fix is for iatse to encourage people to relocate, says Yates. With the increased production levels, he expects a second a crew will be in full swing after two more production seasons.

The Saskatchewan chapter of the Directors Guild of Canada has been in place for a year, opening with eight members and now counting 14, representing the cross-section of production assistants, location scouts, art directors, production managers, sound and picture editors and directors.

Chair Joanne Gerein says the membership has all the work it can handle under current production volume and the local industry needs new people. With the labor incentive, she projects membership to double in the next two years as more crew pick up the experience to meet the guild’s admission criteria and move up the ranks.

Crew development is already underway via Future Skills, a provincial government initiative which subsidizes the wages of trainees, and an individual assistance program, funded by Saskfilm, which pays travel costs for crew to work on a big project outside the province in order to gain experience.