Associations merging services

The Ottawa-Hull region has to be the busiest non-major production market in this country. Hundreds of people are active in this community as it prepares to give itself a little more organizational muscle in the months ahead, and a fair shot at a national primetime drama series.

A key development this year in the Ottawa production community concerns the planned administrative merger of the Ottawa-Hull Film and Television Association, the Summer Institute of Film & Television and a soon-to-be-resurrected film commission.

Denise Withers, president of the o-hfta, says the three organizations will share administrative resources and expenses, a computer network and possibly a joint marketing budget, and, of course, an expanded location. ‘We’d like to see something happen by the late fall,’ says Withers.

One of the major benefits of an eventual amalgamation would be a reduction in recourse to part-time workers and volunteers.

Ken Stewart, a former o-hfta president and president of General Assembly, Ottawa’s largest integrated post-production and production service company, says an administrative amalgamation would allow the three organizations to hire a skilled professional manager who can negotiate on behalf of the region.

In Stewart’s view, the three separate boards would share an umbrella administration.

Withers says the o-hfta has an active training program which could be managed and programmed by Summer Institute executive director Tom Shoebridge and the recently created Canadian Screen Training Centre.

As for the film commission, it suspended its activities in the fall of 1992, with less than $15,000 in its coffers.

According to Withers, Ottawa’s producers want a new film commission geared to servicing local producers.

The focus should be fundraising, sponsorships, marketing and new business, as opposed to an agency purely devoted to location promotion, she says.

A number of prominent Ottawa production personalities, including Sheldon Wiseman of Lacewood Productions, indie producer Cherylyn Brooks, o-hfta president in 1992/93, and Stewart have joined with representatives from the local economic authority and the National Capital Commission to set up a board of directors for the creation of a Metropolitan Ottawa Film Commission. The board is hammering out a mandate for the new commission, expected to have an annual operating budget in the $120,000 range.

In January of this year, the Summer Institute of Film & Television dropped its affiliation with Algonquin College and became part of the Canadian Screen Training Centre, a non-profit organization headed by Shoebridge.

Shoebridge, who was the first o-hfta president (1984/85), says the new center will specialize in organizing training opportunities to supplement the mid-June Summer Institute program. Activities will be carried on throughout the year, in Ottawa and elsewhere, he says.

Shoebridge hopes to expand the training program through partnerships with national and regional organizations interested in negotiating an extension or startup of their own training programs.

The program will be financially self-sufficient, he says, sourced from both the private sector and sponsorships and ‘diminishing government’ support.

Additional program details will be available in the fall, but Shoebridge says screenwriting workshops, in French and English, are already planned for Montreal, Sudbury and Northern Ontario.

Says Shoebridge: ‘In 10 years the o-hfta has become a sophisticated and growing organization, well organized with lots of talent providing programs which are starting to make ripples nationally.

‘Ottawa’s production scene compares very favorably with larger centers such as Calgary or Edmonton, even Montreal. As many as five continuing half-hour tv series (magazines, children’s shows) will be produced in the Ottawa region within a year or so,’ he says. At the moment they are three.

The o-hfta has some 130 individual and corporate members while the region itself has about 30 active production companies, half of whom belong to the association, says Withers.

Withers says she’ll meet with senior members of the Ottawa production community, via an informal advisory committee, to find ways of expanding the o-hfta’s influence and shedding the group’s reputation as ‘a bit of a clique.’

Because a fair number of producers on the Ottawa scene have five, 10 and more years professional experience and are now well networked across the country, Withers says this has led to a stratification characterized by two main groupings – older, experienced broadcast and corporate producers, and a new generation of younger a/v artists, programmers and producers active in multimedia.

‘There are a lot of new younger people starting out in multimedia,’ says Stewart. ‘They’re computer people, but they are calling themselves producers.’

In the months ahead, the o-hfta hopes to deepen relations with francophone producers and technical service personnel, many of whom are located cross-river in Hull, Que. ‘But it’s always been a bit of a weak link and a separate Hull chapter is under consideration,’ says Withers.

But some insiders in Ottawa say the region sometimes loses out on location support from the Ontario Film Development Corporation because the Toronto-based promoters worry some of the benefits might slip over the river to sogic territory in Hull.

According to Withers, very little Telefilm Canada funding currently finds its way into the Ottawa-Hull region. ‘Many local producers don’t qualify as established producers,’ she says.

‘There’s a bit of prejudice that plays against us. We can do top-notch video productions, but it’s not broadcast, and that creates a stigma. On the other hand, a lot of producers with corporate (production) backgrounds are driven by the market and want nothing to do with Telefilm.’

In general financing terms, many Ottawa-Hull producers tap into two local development/production funds, both financed by Baton Broadcasting – the National Capital Television Inc. Fund used to trigger programs often broadcast on cjoh-tv Ottawa and the Mid-Canada Fund used for similar purposes by chro-tv Ottawa. Quarterly fund allocations go as high as $7,500 for development purposes and $30,000 for production. Withers says ncti and Mid-Canada funding can trigger national fund mechanisms, additional broadcast commitments and an ofip tax rebate.

‘Producers will then often try to find a government or some tourism money through the ncc,’ she adds.

Following its takeover of Skyline Cablevision in Ottawa, Rogers Cablesystems vice-chair Phil Lind flew into town to announce a $300,000 investment in an Ottawa-produced series called Canada’s Main Street. This 20 half-hour English/French tv series examines historic buildings in the National Capital region and is expected to air this fall on Rogers and other systems across the country.

This series features a ‘ghost host’ and is being produced by Marcel Clement and Image Projection, who’ll do 15 of the 20 half-hours, and Ottawa indie producer/director/writer Katie Tallo, who is completing the other five.

Earlier this year, Lind handed over a cheque for $20,000 to the o-hfta’s professional development fund. Over the past two years, Rogers has disbursed more than $623,000 to 20 Ottawa-area producers via two production funds, the Public Service Announcement Fund and the Community on Display Fund.

Stewart estimates combined production activity in the Ottawa-Hull region, including government and corporate video production, broadcast and animation, but not in-house broadcast production, is in the $30 million to $40 million a year range.

People on the scene in Ottawa feel the city is close to playing host to the production of a national primetime drama series.

Both Withers and Stewart say a number of mature Ottawa producers have stepped up their networking activity in the past year aiming to partner with Toronto-based producers and broadcasters.

Lest we forget, Ottawa is both a strong regional production center and a national and international political and institutional center, and, perhaps not as trivial as it may sound, home of the best minor-league ballpark in the country.

‘We can do it,’ says Withers. ‘A number of these (dramatic series) proposals are in development and it will become a reality in the next couple of years.’

Technically speaking, a number of operations in the Ottawa-Hull region offer complete shooting and lighting packages for both film and video, and the region has many up-to-date suppliers in digital video editing (Media 100, D-Vision), sound recording and post-production, soundstages, animation and graphics, says Stewart.

Major Ottawa service suppliers include General Assembly, an 11-year-old production service (film and video) and post-production operation which is doubling the size of its production center; Affinity, a post-production and editing service; L.P. Animation Services, a Lacewood Productions animation studio located in suburban Nepean and headed by studio director Lee Williams; Animatics Multimedia, a computer graphics, multimedia and animation service; Ambience Recorders, a multi-studio recording complex; United Video, an equipment rental and sales operation; Kinetic Imagery, an animation and graphics supplier; Southam A-V Group, an equipment rental – including cameras and technical service – company; Image Projection, a camera rental, lighting and editing operation; Erebus, an experienced lighting and grip supplier headed by Marc Poirier; Marc Productions, a digitally equipped recording studio and soundstage with editing facilities; Carleton Productions, a cjoh affiliate operation with studios, editing suites, camera packages and an ever-ready mobile; and SoundVenture Productions and Blue Turtle Sound, two sound recording and sound posting facilities; and an operation directed by Gemini-winning composer and sound specialist Ed Eagan.

Ottawa is also an important center for writers, directors and talent who work in both French and English in Toronto and Montreal.

Leading talent agencies include The Mensour Agency, headed by Kate Mensour; a.k.a. Talent Artists, headed by Gail Leibovitch; and 4 Winds Talents, one of the country’s leading sources of professional Native actors headed by Laurie Stewart-Clements.

Ottawa still hasn’t acquired a film-to-tape transfer or laboratory service, and ‘it’s the biggest thing we’re lacking,’ according to Withers. But much of the production in Ottawa is done on videotape, and for film producers, Montreal is only a couple of hours away, she says.

Big on the o-hfta horizon are the third annual Reel Awards, a celebration of talent and excellence in the region’s video, film and broadcasting community.

This year’s awards have been expanded to include university production and will take place Sept. 23 at the Canadian Museum of Civilization. The highlight of this worthwhile program is the presentation of the Budge Crawley Award, sponsored by the City of Ottawa and presented to an individual who has made a long-term contribution to the industry.

Interestingly, while the award preselection round is done locally, Reel Award finalists are judged by members of the Toronto production community.

Also coming up is the Ottawa International Animation Festival, which runs from Sept. 28 to Oct. 2 at the National Arts Centre.

In addition, o-hfta general manager Phil Rose says the association will soon update its Production Guide and possibly produce a promotional video and cd-rom profiling the region.