Film and television production is driving towards record levels in Montreal in 1996, with the apftq producers association projecting indie production at over $400 million, up from last year’s $370 million.

One of Montreal’s major advantages as a production center is the Quebec Refundable Production Tax Credit Program. The incentive makes up 18% of a qualifying film or tv budget and is credited with fueling the city’s indie production – in both official languages.

This year the sodec-administered credit is likely to cost government in excess of the $51 million it spent in ’95. In 1994 the cost was $38 million.

Added to the new federal credit, worth about 7% of a production’s budget, a Montreal-based producer becomes an attractive production partner, bringing no less than 25% to the table, even before a deal with a domestic broadcaster or film distributor.

stcvq union director Pierre Lafrance says the film industry in Quebec has continued to expand since ’92, with 20% hikes in salary mass in both ’93 and ’94, and another 10% to 15% increase projected for ’96. Last year the province’s technicians took home over $32 million.

By mid-August, Lafrance says the union had nine full crews in action, with half a dozen projects in development. In the past, the stcvq has fielded as many as 14 crews.

In this report, Playback asked three prominent Montreal producers – Verseau International’s Aimee Danis, Prisma Productions’ Claude Godbout and Telescene Communications’ Robin Spry – to assess Montreal as a production center as well as comment on vital industry issues such as coproduction and program export.

Bilingual advantage

Verseau president Danis says Montreal has a number of advantages as a production center.

‘People work in both French and English, and film crews are entirely competent,’ she says.

She says telefilms shot in Toronto for cbc typically cost considerably more than comparable tv movies shot for Radio-Canada or other French-track networks. (cbc telefilm budgets are closer to $1.8 million compared to a maximum of $1.2 million for Radio-Canada.)

Montreal has an international film infrastructure in terms of post-production, labs, equipment, animation, cgi and special effects, and technicians, says Danis.

‘Look at all the animation (projects) coproduced here with the Europeans, who don’t speak any English or know the American market.’

Verseau recently completed shooting on the Pierre Gang tv movie L’Incompris, twinned with Un joli bouquet from France’s Septembre Production.

The company also produced Jean Claude Lauzon’s Leolo and is the producer of the award-winning young teen series Zap. It is developing an English-track feature film as well as a cbc tv series from producer Peter Pearson.

Export issues

Export is a major issue for the production industry, so Telefilm Canada’s $1 million reduction of its Versioning Fund to just over $5 million is currently an issue.

The reduction and other new rules may put another damper on export hopes. But while Danis says the dubbing fund is essential, she claims the big export obstacle for French-track production is the Union des Artistes, the Quebec performers guild.

She says uda rules won’t allow French-speaking actors to dub Quebec drama series for the French broadcast market.

‘We don’t have access (to France) because it’s a law between the two countries that French (programs) won’t be dubbed in their own language. It limits everyone, mais voila, we have to live with it. Until it changes we simply won’t sell. The French can’t handle our accent and I understand, we can’t force people to watch television with foreign accents.’

A strong proponent of coproduction and export, Danis says broadcasters everywhere prefer domestic production to coproduction.

‘If they pay the full price they’ll try to get the maximum (ratings). This is the attitude of broadcasters around the world. If they pay less (by sharing the cost with a coproducer) but still get a good product maybe they won’t have that many viewers. They (broadcasters) don’t have much money and must pursue ratingsand the French have the same attitude to our coproduced shows. They are not generally aired in primetime and they don’t expect the same level of ratings, and that is normal.

‘It’s easier in features because they are more international while television is very much a (local) consumer product everywhere,’ says Danis.

Close to the max

Danis says producers must have access to incentives for both English- and French-track production.

‘I think the market is too small in French, and because of the accent we can’t sell to France, which is the only (French-language) market where there is even a little money. We have to shoot in English, we can’t sell anything in French, period.’

Danis says the level of French-track production is close to its maximum. ‘We cannot produce more in French than we are at the moment.’

Broadcasters like Radio-Canada and Tele-Metropole typically produce one in 10 program proposals, or are recording financial losses as in the case of Television Quatre Saisons.

‘We are six million people just how much production can we do for six million people? I can see no reason why we shouldn’t produce in English as long as we have the ability and means to do so. We cannot pit one against the other,’ says Danis.

New interest in Europe

At the last mip-tv, Prisma’s Godbout says Montreal-produced series like Urgence, Jasmine and Omerta ‘started to receive more interest from the Europeans because of their perceived American quality and Latin sensibility.’ He says it’s essential French-track tv series win over audiences in France, Switzerland and Belgium.

Prisma and The Multimedia Group of Canada have joined with other Montreal producers in launching DramaVision, a drama financing and export consortium.

Godbout says ‘it’s a shame,’ but he doesn’t see an immediate future for France-Canada coproduction on (French-track) tv series. ‘Somehow we’re unable to find subjects that work for both partners,’ he says.

(Perhaps the one major exception this year, besides tv movies, is a wide-ranging $30 million tv movie, miniseries and series coproduction deal recently announced by SDA Productions and France’s Ellipse Films.)

Godbout says Prisma’s strategy is to produce for the domestic and international market, including Canada and the u.s.

Montreal is an excellent beachhead to the u.s. market for Europeans ‘who dream of’ access, he says.

Prisma’s impressive $45 million tv drama slate for 1996/97 includes the medical drama Urgence, the sports miniseries Le Masque, the 10-hour Paparazzi, set for a spring ’97 shoot for Tele-Metropole, and Platinum, an international showbiz saga budgeted at close to $20 million and coproduced with Andrew Lloyd Weber’s Really Useful Group and George Martin’s Air Studios.

‘I don’t think we could have developed Platinum with the French,’ says Godbout. ‘There are fewer constraints (in English). But if Quebec series are properly adapted to a French context, then there’s absolutely no reason at all they’ll prefer e.r. to Urgence.’

Prisma is also prepping on a number of kids’ series for u.s. broadcasters.

Beating the drum

Telescene’s Spry says there may be no major cost differences in shooting in Montreal, Toronto or Vancouver.

‘It may be a little cheaper (here) but not hugely so. I think Montreal’s advantage is that it has the 18% tax credit – which is bigger than any other (provincial incentive) in Canada – with the result that we can bring a little more to the table than the other parts of Canada.’

It’s a real consideration, he says, because syndication prices for drama in the u.s. have fragmented and dropped off to generally less than half the budget.

Another advantage, he says, are the crews. ‘The Montreal crews are fantastic. As far I’m concerned they are among the best in the world, so crews are the least of your problems.’

Spry and others ‘have spent years beating the drum on behalf of Montreal,’ and as a result he says many of the top crews and facilities are booked this summer.

‘By using the coproduction treaties and shooting in North America, European producers are able to get a foothold in North America and be part of a production which will make sense in a North American arena.

‘By coproducing with a Montreal company, (the foreign producer) is able to deliver a product that works on network or cable or even in theaters in North America, whereas even the very best European films don’t translate and don’t travel.’

On the production front, Spry is meeting with Tony and Ridley Scott for talks on The Hunger, a 22 half-hour horror tv anthology.

The first three episodes are being produced in the u.k. with ‘two very interesting directors as well as Tony Scott himself’ slated to direct, says the producer.

Preproduction begins in the u.k. in late August, with prepping to follow in Montreal. Showtime and TMN-The Movie Network are confirmed and the series is scheduled to begin airing in March 1997.

The $650,000 per episode budget includes lots of computer-generated f/x. The first three episodes, priced at $3 million, will result in a feature film.

‘We bring coproduction partners to Montreal as is the case with (the u.k.’s) Visionview on the Jack Higgins movies and Daiei and Cine Bazar in Japan on Hiroshima, but for the most part we don’t bring partners to Montreal so much as go out and make sales to distributors. We sell a lot to Showtime. We seem to have a very good relationship.’

Spry says the company has never been a service producer.

‘We’ve always held on to a huge chunk of the rights. It’s a fight, but that’s where the wonderful Canadian and Quebec tax (incentives) give us so much leverage, because we end up doing projects where our roughly 30% (participation) allows us to complete the financing and gives us ownership and control.

‘The `traditional’ (Telescene) structure consists of selling off u.s. cable rights for a period of 10 or 15 years against a sizable chunk of money, but we retain 100% of the ownership and we retain, normally, Canadian and foreign rights,’ says Spry.

In September, Telescene starts filming on two Jack Higgins cable movies coproduced with the u.k.’s Visionview and directed by George Mihalka.

Telescene is also filming By Dawn’s Early Light, a jazzy ’50s Doug Jackson gumshoe story for a&e

And there’s feature action on the horizon as well, says Spry, including the big-budget film Rififi, a coproduction with Cinevox of Germany and jld of Paris that’s planned for a winter ’97 shoot.

Telescene has mainly sourced cable interest in the u.s. but is shooting a half-hour sitcom pilot for the Fox Network. ‘It’s a high school sitcom and will be delivered in eight weeks,’ says Spry.

If the pilot is greenlighted, 26 half-hours will be taped.

Attractive union rates

The stcvq’s Lafrance says North American locations offer producers the best shooting rates anywhere in the world, which is one of the reasons producers like Avanti Cine Video and French partners are developing domestic series adaptations for the French tv market, but with the stated intention of shooting in Montreal.

Within North America, Lafrance says working conditions become a primary factor, but typically, the best film technicians in all major markets are unionized.

He says foreign producers shooting in Montreal often say people in this city still enjoy the business of making films.

‘We shoot with a North American level of efficiency but with what we might call a European or Latin-spirited kind of enjoyment or pleasure.

‘One u.s. producer told me he felt they same kind of joy filming in Montreal that used to exist in Hollywood years ago.’