In that classic pioneering style that creates bounty from a challenging environment, the Prairies film and tv production industry has been experiencing unprecedented growth in recent years. The Manitoba and Saskatchewan industries have benefited from a measure of government support and a great deal of vigorous bootstrap yanking that’s resulted in the forging of international and interprovincial coproduction partnerships that have kept production slates full for the next year and brought series production into the region for the first time.

Winnipeg’s Credo Entertainment will soon wrap the first season of the Atlantis Films coproduction My Life as a Dog, the first dramatic series to be produced in Manitoba, and president Derek Mazur sees it as an indicator of industry maturity.

‘There are three series being done in the Prairies now,’ says Mazur (Jake and the Kid, produced by Toronto’s Nelvana and Great North Productions of Edmonton, North of 60, coproduced by Calgary’s Alberta Filmworks and Toronto-based Alliance Communications, and My Life as a Dog). ‘What you’re seeing is a maturation of Prairie companies, and because of that maturing aspect there is a movement into series production because series production becomes important for the stability of any company.’

Kevin DeWalt, president of Regina-based Minds Eye Pictures, is also looking to a series to round out the schedule of his busy company, working with Toronto’s Film Works toward another seven episodes of On My Mind, for which a six-part pilot has already been completed.

‘We’re doing miniseries but we’re really working towards an ongoing series to provide some stability over three or four years,’ DeWalt says. ‘That’s our goal for this year.’

Minds Eye has about 20 hours of programming slated for production in the next year and about $30 million in production scheduled over the next two fiscal years.

Saskatchewan Film and Video Development Corporation head Mark Prasuhn says 1994 was a record year for Saskatchewan production, with about $16 million in total production, of which about $11 million was spent in the province. He pegs 1995 production at about $13 million. Projections for 1996, given proposed projects, will probably double to somewhere over $30 million, with about $20 million spent in Saskatchewan, he says.

Prasuhn says American service productions do not yet account for a significant amount of spending in Saskatchewan, but adds that a commission within Saskfilm is actively promoting that side of the business.

Cheryl Ashton, executive director of the Manitoba Motion Picture Industries Association, estimates production in the province last year was about $25 million and projects $30 million for this year. The last set of figures collected by the Manitoba Bureau of Statistics, in 1992, indicated production totaled $12 million that year.

To keep pace with brisk production levels, a number of initiatives are underway to bolster the Prairies’ film and tv infrastructure.

Prasuhn says for the past three years Saskfilm has been involved in ongoing discussions with the Saskatchewan government to develop a film investment program for the province, but ‘the situation with the new federal tax credit has thrown a bit of a spanner in the works for any province thinking of this because of the whole issue of how the feds will treat provincial credits and how you can best set it up to be most beneficial to your local producers.’

Nevertheless, he says, ‘we expect to see something in place, probably as some kind of labor-based incentive or rebate or credit of some kind that would harmonize or be consistent with the new federal program. That’s something we’ll get into serious discussions in mid-’96 with a view to putting something in place for ’97.’

The Saskatchewan film industry is also examining the possibility of expanding a Regina soundstage to provide the physical infrastructure to facilitate production during the inhospitable winter months. The industry and the provincial government have formed a partnership on a feasibility study regarding the upgrade of the 92,000-square-foot Park St. facility, which was used last summer to shoot Lyddie, a $7 million tv movie coproduced by Minds Eye, Film Works and the u.k.’s Wall to Wall Television.

The study, completed in December, surveys soundstage facilities across North America. Prasuhn says it suggests an expanded soundstage is an important next step for the industry and that the government and a consortium of private companies will likely assume responsibility for the facility.

Renovations of studio facilities are also proposed in Winnipeg, with Credo possibly undertaking the project with the provincial government.

Ashton says the mmpia has been lobbying the Manitoba government for some kind of tax incentive program for the past 18 months, which has led to the development of a five-year strategic plan for the film and tv production industry.

One of the major components of the plan is training. Last year, the mmpia created a training committee and, with the help of a consultant, developed a training strategy, the first phase of which has been accepted and will be funded by Workforce 2000, a provincial organization that focuses on job strategy and development.

Ashton says the training budget for the first year will be about $200,000 and the five-year plan includes an industry-based training trust fund.

According to Ashton, if an mfip program goes ahead, a small portion of every dollar given through the tax incentive on a project would be required to go back into a training trust so that within three years the province would be self-sufficient in terms of training its crews.

‘It’s one of the initiatives we’re working on so that we would require assistance in the first few years, and then hopefully by the third year we would have created an industry-based fund that would continue to train craftspeople and producers and directors here in Manitoba,’ he says.

Manitoba currently has one full crew and a nearly complete second crew. Ashton says by next fall the aim is to be able to guarantee three full crews.

Other components of the five-year plan include a request for funds for a series incentive program and a proposal that the locations program be strengthened so that one or one and a half full-time persons is dedicated to selling Manitoba as a location to out-of-province producers.

John Taylor, director of operations at Telefilm Canada’s Vancouver office, cites the growth of the Prairie film industry and acknowledges the role of Telefilm, but emphasizes that the Prairie industries have not developed an ‘overdependence on public funding.’

‘In these tougher times, an industry cannot depend on continued and sustained growth just from the public sector,’ says Taylor. ‘What you see certainly in Alberta, and in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, too, is the wisdom of the production companies and the industry in general to balance their indigenous production and service work, and initiatives to get out into the international marketplace and develop alternative sources of financing. That’s smart.’

Stephen Onda of Regina-based Heartland Motion Pictures says the nature of the Saskatchewan industry ‘has made producers as a group that much more aggressive to pursue projects in a more mature manner – projects that always have an eye on the market.’

Onda says Heartland has been diversifying and seeking outside financing to stay competitive, branching out into multimedia production and focusing on producing more feature-oriented tv movies, expanding from the ‘tv movie’ style project.

Taylor also points to the prevalence of interprovincial coproductions, facilitated by programs like the Prairie Initiative, a three-year-old agreement between Manitoba Film and Sound (formerly cido), Saskfilm, the Alberta Film Development Corporation, Credo, Telefilm and CanWest Global that was designed to create a six-pack of tv movies to stimulate the industry.

‘The program helped the producers see the benefit of interprovincial coproductions,’ says Taylor. ‘And the interprovincial agreement that was required to create it became a kind of model for how different provincial agencies could combine their funding with federal sources.’

Taylor points to interprovincial arrangements between Minds Eye and Film Works and Credo and Atlantis that have made projects financially feasible. ‘They have been able to some extent to step in where the ofdc’s (Ontario Film Development Corporation) own budget situations have jeopardized some of the projects that would otherwise have been produced in Ontario, like Lyddie.’

With the third of the six Prairie Initiative projects recently wrapped, there has been some discussion about the program’s future in the face of the changing Prairie scene.

Taylor says the program will likely be discontinued in its current manifestation due partially to expense but mainly to the dramatic increase in Prairie production in the three years since the program’s inception, which Taylor says has to some extent surpassed the need for the initiative.

Replacement initiatives were discussed during last month’s Saskatchewan Film Showcase at a meeting of the provincial agencies, Telefilm and the National Screen Institute and included the possibility of an ongoing anthology series of half-hour dramas.

Taylor notes the various provincial initiatives already underway or in development like Saskatchewan’s Kickstart program and Manitoba’s Prairie Wave, and says: ‘We’re exploring the possibility of putting our resources together and doing something even better on a consolidated basis.’

Prasuhn says the Prairie Initiative was a positive influence on the industry and the proposed anthology series program could help it grow.

‘What’s changed in the landscape, and it’s probably true in all three provinces, certainly in Manitoba and Saskatchewan which are newer on the block compared to Alberta, is a broadening in the industry where there are more people who want to come in as directors and writers and producers,’ says Prasuhn. ‘Based on that, from my perspective doing smaller projects may create a greater impact with the money we’ve got and provides more opportunities for more people.’

Although half-hour programs generally don’t have the same market value as movies, DeWalt says the benefit of this initiative is its potential for development of the industry and that a half-hour anthology package would be a marketable commodity.

DeWalt says this year will be the best ever for 10-year-old Minds Eye and forecasts a tripling in volume in terms of production dollars from last year.

He attributes the company’s success to a number of factors: a combination of government support through Saskfilm and the Saskatchewan Communications Network, and a carefully wrought business plan.

DeWalt says they go to the international marketplace to determine buyer demand and that the success of projects like their tv movie Eli’s Lesson outside the country helps international presales for other projects.

‘Pretty well everything we do now we bring in a foreign partner in terms of some sort of presale,’ says DeWalt. ‘This is really the future for Canadian production. There isn’t enough money in the system, so you have to coproduce with foreign partners or bring in foreign financing.’

DeWalt says this year about 50% of budgets will be from outside the province, an increase over last year.

Mazur says Credo has about 20 projects in development for the next two years, with most of the work consisting of coproductions, and that anywhere from 30% to 60% of project financing comes from foreign partners.

In addition to a bolstered infrastructure, DeWalt says success in the Prairie provinces is derived from ‘passion and quality.’

‘Choosing good, all-round projects and making sure all the elements are of the best quality helps on the international front,’ says DeWalt. ‘You’re only as good as your last project.’