That's rain outside my window that looks suspiciously like it wants to be snow. This is the kind of weather that makes a rewrite much, much easier. Blueglow will be relieved that I shant be haunting the coffee shops today. (Still gotta write about that.)
So the better to get to work, and ease into the weekend, I need something easy to write. Hmm. Let's see. Here we've got an email from Nicole. Nicole is a journalism student somewhere here in the fine Province of Ontario, and she writes:
For my final assignment I am doing an article on Canadian media—specifically how America affects Canadian television and Canadians viewing habits. If you feel like you could give me any insight or views into this subject, I would like to interview via-email.Sure Nicole, sounds fun. And since everything is repurposed for content here at Dead Things Labs, let's have a giggle and share Nicole's questions and my answers to the group, shall we?
Here are my questions..thank you so much for taking the time and helping me out. You rock!I really don't. At best, I sway. But Thanks. Shoot.
Do you think there is any difference between writing tv for Canadians as opposed to Americans? Explain.I think so. There's several ways to answer that question. First, though I truly believe there is a difference, I'm not sure our industry has done a very good job of exploiting what that difference is, yet.
On a basic level, the difference is that Canadians are not as insular as Americans are. The great bulk of Americans have very little curiosity about other cultures or an international perspective. (They have more now than they did five years ago, to be sure, but it's still tied up in post-9/11 fear and a sense of threat, not genuine curiosity about the world.) Americans tend not to be too interested if the show isn't about Americans, or something happening in America. I have a hard time explaining this to Canadians, a lot of the time, but Americans tend to kind of be isolationist as a people. (Their government's experiments in imperialism notwithstanding.)
What that means is that I think you can write a bit more about the situation in the world, or feel free to set something other than Chicago or New York, or have a character from a different part of the world in a Canadian work, rather than an American work.
The peculiar thing about Canadians, of course, is that they spend their whole lives absorbing and observing a culture that they're intimately familiar with, of which they aren't really a part. I think that might make Canadians more introspective as a people. So maybe characters who are more thoughtful, and more considered, rather than "men of action" could play here, more than in the U.S.
If you believe the ratings, smarter shows that use irony do a little better with Canadians. God bless'em, the great bulk of the American people don't really cotton much to irony. They didn't get it when Mark Twain tried it a hundred years ago, and they don't get it now. Irony rules the internet, and snarky magazine pieces, but not that mass TV audience.
On a more practical level, the differences have to do with social pressure. Because the religious right isn't quite as militant or influential in Canada, you can portray things that you simply can't in the USA: teenagers can have sex on TV here, without immediately getting pregnant. If they do get pregnant, they could actually have an abortion, not be forced to keep the baby or have a magic miscarriage. Degrassi actually had lots of trouble getting some of their shows past the N, though it's their most popular show. Shows that aired here and were no big deal were too hot to handle down south. That's telling. The Sopranos runs on CTV here unbleeped. Dropping an F or an S bomb won't be thought of as bringing the whole of western civilization to a halt. And, of course, Canadians are mostly allergic to jingoism, that kind of "My country right or wrong" rah-rah stuff you see in a lot of CBS shows. Oh, and people here who smoke pot do so without immediately trading up to heroin. They are not necessarily evil.
But on the other hand, there are lots of things that are going to be similar in writing TV for Canadians. They demand the production values, pacing, and quality they see from the best U.S. shows. And so they should. That's the place where, sadly, we have to do better. And it's a challenge, because we're never going to have the money most U.S. shows have.
That's a long answer, Nicole. But that's what you get for asking a complicated question.
What do you think makes a successful Canadian show?I don't think there's a magic bullet or yardstick. And again, that question needs to be parsed a little bit, because are you talking success in terms of ratings or revenue, or in terms of being artistically successful? I'm going to assume the latter, because I think it's a more interesting answer and I'm the one answering the questions here, Nicole, let's not forget that.
Oh..you're getting a text message? I'll wait.
There. (I'm kidding, of course, this is an email interview. I've never even met Nicole, though I think she has superb taste in interview subjects.) John Doyle, the TV writer for the Globe and Mail, thinks there's a gentleness to it. And I tend to think that's part of it. American comedies really evolved to a place where we were laughing at people being nasty to each other. Corner Gas is a lot more gentle, and a million and a half people watch it every week, which is a huge number for Canada. The people on Corner Gas tolerate each other, and may get annoyed from time to time, but there isn't nastiness. Trailer Park Boys has a ton of swearing, but the characters form, in their own way, a sweet, supportive family. (One of my favorite things in TPB is the way they handled the gay relationship between Mr. Lahey and Randy. Nobody cared. It was just matter of factly revealed. Nobody has a problem with the two of them because they're gay. It's a far bigger deal that Lahey is always drunk and Randy never wears a shirt.) Degrassi, in all its incarnations, was successful because it spoke to its audience about subjects that U.S. TV wouldn't touch, and it didn't judge or talk down to them. So that's something.
I think successful Canadian shows come out of not replicating U.S. formulas -- but in trying to speak to the parts of the Canadian psyche that don't get represented on U.S. TV. Sometimes that's executed in a clumsy or unsatisfying way, but when creators here do a series with the audience in mind, and not so focused on "what they want to say," that helps. And being different because we're different -- not being different than American shows for the sake of merely being different, is huge, too. I don't know if you see that there's a huge difference between those two things, but there is. If you take another Canadian show that I think works, Rent-A-Goalie, the obvious, surface thing is that it's about hockey. But the thing that makes it work isn't that -- it's the gentleness underneath the fart and jock jokes; the sense of family, just like Trailer Park Boys.
How is Canadian TV affected by America?Profoundly. We're the only country in the world that receives U.S. network feeds in their entirety on our cable systems. So their shows are all on at the same time as in the USA. No other country has this burden, and it is a burden, because in many ways we really are what Hollywood would like us to be: an extension of the U.S. domestic market.
The USA is the largest and most successful exporter of culture the world has ever known. And we're right next door. In other countries, people love U.S. shows, but they also love their own cop shows, their own lawyer shows, or family dramas, or soaps, or talk shows. Canada is an anomaly in the sense that most of our top 20 shows are American.
What makes it even stranger is that you'll see lots of Canadians stand up and wave the flag for Canadian music, or Canadian books, -- hell, they'll get all misty eyed at Hockey Night in Canada and the "I Am Canadian" beer ad, but they're more than happy to watch another nation's values and obsessions on TV every night. It's a disconnect, to be sure. I just happen to think it's a disconnect that we in the Canadian TV industry have sometimes made worse.
The new season of Degrassi seems to be sexed up. Do you think this is this a way for CTV to compete with American shows kike the OC?I really don't think so, no. I think it's just a function of where those characters are in their lives right now. I actually haven't watched Degrassi for a few years, so when I tuned in I was shocked by how old they've all gotten. No wonder they're all sexed up -- they're all 19 and 20 years old and totally hot.
Degrassi always aged the kids in real time. And now that they're practically adults, well, all those hormone stories aren't so taboo anymore. And the great truth that Canadian TV can say that U.S. tv can't is that by the time kids get to the end of high school, the majority of them are sexually active -- at least in some fashion.
What is your opinion on the Cancon mandate?I think it's important. There are some really radical people in my industry who think that we should have a quota system like France where I think 60% of their prime time has to be homegrown fare. I think that's totally unrealistic, and you'd probably have a viewer revolt, and the Canadian networks would really suffer. And Oh My Lord that would mean a whole lot of crap on the air. So I don't favor that at all.
But the arguments that people make against Cancon quotas are exactly the same arguments they made against forcing stations to play Canadian music. And for a few years, yeah, that meant playing the same bad stuff a little too much...but the industry matured. And now, I think you've got to say that Canada's domestic music scene is arguably more vibrant and interesting than the U.S. scene, especially since we're ten times smaller. Whether you're talking bands that only really succeed domestically like Blue Rodeo or Tragically Hip, buzz bands that are indie music darlings in the U.S. like Broken Social Scene, Feist, Arcade Fire. K-os, Sum 41 -- hell, none of these bands would be around if not for the regulations that allowed Canadian artists to get a toehold and not be overwhelmed by the much larger American market.
If there's a consistency to support for Canadian TV, we'll get to that place, too. Because people will be able to get better, get more experience, move up in the ranks and not have to go south to work in TV, which is what happens now. In fact, if they hadn't changed the rules in 1999, I bet we'd have more hits on the air right now than Corner Gas. It takes a few years. But I think we saw with the rule change where the Networks' priorities are. Once they didn't HAVE to put Canadian drama and comedy on the air...boom...they stopped. Overnight.
I also think this is contingent on separating the Canadian Film and TV industries a bit. Canadian Film is arthouse film. Nobody wants to see arthouse TV. The people who should be creating TV shows here should be people with a commercial, audience-entertaining sensibility. These people, in the past, haven't been the ones getting TV shows here. So, like David Shore (House,) Hart Hanson, (Bones, Judging Amy) and a bunch of Simpsons writers-- they went to the USA.
What do you think the CRTC must do to ‘save’ Canadian TV?Go back to the carrot and the stick. Right now the networks are asking for carriage fees, so they can charge cable operators to carry their signals. Which are mostly simulcasts of U.S. shows, which is a big fat joke on the Canadian public. Try explaining to the Canadian public that they have to pay 10 bucks more a month for cable just so they can watch CSI on CTV and not CBS. See how far you get.
They also want more ad time, they want to count infomercials as CanCon. It's pure greed. Utterly silly.
The CRTC should restore a quota: 7% of private broadcasters revenues have to go into Cancon, period. They should also stipulate a number of hours a week in primetime that has to be devoted to homegrown scripted programming. That's the stick. Then offer the carrot: breaks or credits on Adtime for spending money to actually promote these homegrown shows. There are people smarter than me that probably have better ideas about this, but the bottom line is that Canadian networks have treated their homegrown shows as a nuisance. Something has to be done to force them to really try to invest in these programs' success. Broadcasting licenses in this country are not a right, they are a privlege, and they have to step up as corporate citizens here. They're crying poor, but broadcasting in this country has been and continues to be ABSURDLY profitable. All we're asking for here is our fair share -- and 7% is not a lot, in context. Networks who spend 300 million a year on U.S. shows and then balk at spending more than 90 million on homegrown shows just aren't credible.
What do you think about the CRTC hearing going on this week?It would be nice if the commission showed some teeth. The broadcasters have gotten their way for so long that I think they just expect to get whatever they ask for. It's outrageous that they're standing up there, asking for even more breaks and protection, and then out of the other side of their mouth whining that there's no room to spend money on domestic shows. I hope people finally wake up and realize that these guys want to charge them more every month for stuff that they're already getting, and not give anything back to anyone. We'll see.
16 comments:
You've got more experience about South Africa, but from what I've read on the Internet and from my experience with the one person I know from South Africa who has expatriated to LA, South Africans don't have much respect for their own TV, either, and would much much rather watch US TV. South Africans view toward the nationality of their TV viewing sounds similar to Canadian preferences.
Also, personally, I feel like you're walking an interesting line in talking about writers should write for their audience, but then you also complain about the CBC bureaucracy doing too much market research about what shows would work. Then you also say that writers/CBC/etc. should focus on craft and "teach" the audience but not trying to "say something." Your stance on this issue can get semi-confusing. . .even though I feel like I understand in something of an unarticulitable (sp?) way.
Well, I think you have to be careful judging the national mood from what Expats say. Whether they're American or South African, expats are different...they're....expats.
My experience in South Africa was that their industry was wide but not deep. For the moths I was there, there was always a homegrown movie that was doing well in theatres.
SA also has 11 language groups. I saw mystifying comedy shows in Afrikaans that were totally popular and completely incomprehensible. I saw a popular youth show called Yizo Yizo that was really great and odd and different. But by far the most popular homegrown shows there were the "soapies" -- soap operas. In any case, you could usually find something homegrown on, which is not the case in Canada at all.
It is confusing, I admit that. I can use an analogy that might help or might not. You know what the difference between drama and melodrama is?
Drama asks you to wrestle with ideas, melodrama tells you what to think. If you take Battlestar Galactica as an example, they had a brilliant note where the humans, our "heroes", resorted to suicide bombing...it tested the limits of your identification with them....shook you up, made you ask questions.
As opposed to melodrama which would have told you that "suicide bombing is bad" or "racism is bad." Ie: it tells you what to think and usually belabors the obvious. Canadian TV does that a lot.
I firmly believe that good US showrunners, their first impulse is to entertain. Does that mean you can't say something? No, of course not. But the impulse to entertain comes first. That's often backward in Canada.
As for the Market research thing, well...I've seen some of that research (nothing in CBC stays secret) and it's typically galling. It's not going to work.
Testing has its limits even when they use it right. And asking the audience what they want to see is never the answer. They don't know. That's not their job.
Your job is to have a sense of that. My problem is that a lot of the people picking shows and a lot of the people getting shows here don't have that sense. I think most of the people who do have that sense have, in the past, given up and gone to the USA, where they don't feel like they're banging their heads against the wall.
"Writing for your audience" should actually be a truism -- something so obvious that it never needs to be said. The problem here is that it's so ingrained the other way that if you suggest that they look at you like that means "pandering."
As I posted below about Corner Gas here, you actually have people criticizing that show within the industry BECAUSE the audience likes it.
It's Bizarro world.
Okay - what thread can we begin here that doesn't repeat what's been stated already in prior posts.
"The great bulk of Americans have very little curiosity about other cultures or an international perspective."
Boy that's for sure. I'm sure Alex could speak to this as well but I found it astounding how little people knew or even cared about life not even outside America but even outside California when I lived there. Yet me and my kids knew so much about their life. e.g. asking the name the states and name the provinces question - and my kids got more of both. Most there mentioned Vancouver first, but thought it was a province.
Okay, so what Will.
How do you factor in the 'Whistler's' and 'Falcon Beach's', which are more generic and Americanized and aren't particularily well thought of but are on the air because of their U.S. network partner? I know, do both. And allow both to happen with the 7% investment back into domestic industry (as long as it's gross and not net - they'll kill you with the net revenues).
And as far as the migration south, it's a tricky one. Hart and David both will allude to being driven south, but they are also very talented. And wanted to dip toe in that pool. And I don't know if any of us wouldn't want to try to play the L.A. game, especially if in their cases - they were wooed down as well after showing their stuff with specs, etc. (Cdn. credits didn't mean much down there, as I learned). And when I got an LA agent, I was told in no uncertain terms that while they would keep eye out for Canuck work, it was in my (and their) best interest for me to move there. That's where the action was, and one needs to be in the action.
Sorry - trying not to repeat myself and stalling out. Help? Anybody?
So. . .to bounce back for the sake of making sure I understand (with a couple sidetracks).
There's the difference between exploring ideas vs propagandizing ideas? I get the analogy, but I tend of think of drama and melodrama as pathos and bathos. Then I think of more about how well the melodrama entertains in the sense of parody and satire, but making it "analgous" to propagandizing strikes me as interesting.
Also, your general thrust of all these aspects really came to the fore in my mind when I saw this week's Studio 60, (Spoiler alert!!!) when the temporary lead writer criticizes the newbies for working too hard at saying something (or trying to have significance) in their skit rather than making it funny and entertaining.
The market research comments, sounds like you're touching on originality vs. derivatives. By depending on market research, you're depending too much on "shallow" aspects because what does the audience really know about articulating the craft work? On some intuitive level, they know what they like and can react to it, but can they talk about it? Don't critics generally have to work hard at studying and practicing their art of criticism?
And there's also "craft" people making derivatives because they think an aspect works because they've seen an example with that aspect in it.
And as I've said many times (in probably horribly hokey ways), you're writing on this blog has really gotten me thinking a lot about writing my novel in ways that entertain, for the audience, rather than to "propagandize." In the genre I'm writing, utopianism, it can be easy to do so. . .but many of the narrative aspects you have and your readers have really have gotten me to look at the writing differently.
Even trusting more a focus on the drama aspects or even the Romantic, "write what you write because it's expressing yourself," than a focus on communicating a meaning has led me writing some non-compelling stuff. It's amazing how much the delivery of narrative can also make a big difference.
Obviously, TV and movies use a lot of qualities that a prose dramatist doesn't use. In the long run, though, and I can't start to see it as I revise my writing, entertaining the audience, in the sense of engaging and keeping their attention, generally comes before striking a message of significance or meaning. After all, people won't stay engaged in something if it doesn't keep their attention.
Then we can get into a pretty deep conversation about what keeps peoples' attention, especially when it comes to drama. And, somewhat, your blog addresses the importance of keeping people's attention (rather than trying to mold people with propaganda) and the importance of having a sense of what it is that keep's people attention. . .which isn't necessarily something quantifiable. After all, we have at least 2,000 years of drama, which supposedly skirts the same issues, trying to keep peoples' attentions.
But still leaves me with the question, how does that sense work? And I'm not even expecting an answer to that one. That would probably take a momentous journey, like defining "quality" in "Zen and that Art of Motorcycle Maintenance." Still, it's an interesting journey.
I should also say upfront that when I write about writing, I'm writing about the form I practice: which is narrative screenwriting.
If there are elements that inspire you with narrative prose or novel writing, that's great. But the forms are fundamentally different.
One of my favorite novels is The Unbearable Lightness of Being , where Kundera regularly stops the narrative to sound off on elements of philosophy. I think that kind of thing is far more acceptable in a novel than in more temporal forms.
This is appropriate, since in a novel you are only dealing with words to convey everything: emotion, tone, mood...whereas in TV and film you have elements such as visual composition, music, cutting and intercutting, all with their own language and all with the ability to carry meaning. So long disquisiions on a theme are far less acceptable in these forms, simply because the point of the medium is to communicate through many different methods at once.
While it is something of a gross generalization I would say that one of the differences between Canadian TV and American TV is that we are such an "observer culture" that when we write drama we refuse to take it seriously.
That is not to say we don't do a ton of earnest shit -- unfortunately we do, but when we do the characters are little more the ciphers for various POV's that need to be expressed when doing a (cringe) issue based drama.
You get a sense when you watch the best popular American drama that the writers etc believe in the characters and the dilemma's they are facing. On a lot of Canadian shows, it is often hard to identify or sympathize with the main characters because you get the sense that this is all just some kind of story -- it isn't really happening and the characters, down deep, know it.
Often on a Canadian show -- even if it is a straight ahead drama -- the characters editorialize about the plight they are in, like they are outside the story they are taking part in, instead of living and breathing it. The number of times I have to edit myself so that this omnipotent third person does not appear in a show is frightening. It is a weakness (the too clever by half disease) that is actually encouraged in Canadian dramatic television.
To take your story seriously, to feel that the death or injury or heartbreak of a character is more important than making some easy pop culture observation or illusion is something we are loathe to do.
And it is a hard thing to do as a writer, especially in a medium where, because of the number of notes one is given and the number of players who have to get involved to make your story happen, it is dangerous to make real emotional investment in your story because if they hate it, it will hurt.
So often we are glib and when that happens our characters are glib. They don't believe their dilemma's are real and we as writers revert to being the smart kids at the back of the class who laugh at the kids who actually try and accomplish things.
We are so content in our own superiority -- stupid Americans -- that we never take the risks to accomplish anything because to fail would mean we would have to question our sense of superiority.
Blah blah blah, I know....
anyhow, the main point of this is the few times I've ever written anything that is worth anything is when I am so into the characters and what they are feeling that I feel like I am chanelling them. They are taking me places I didn't think I was going to go. They are scaring me, they are making me proud, they are making me ashamed....
I know it sounds stupid and flakey but I think we Canadian writers could do with a little less of the clever, clever and a little more emotional honesty when we write our stuff.
In some sense, comparing US and Canadian TV is comparing apples and oranges. Canadian TV is made for a local market. US TV is made for the international market -- of which the 50 states are a big chunk, but only a chunk. Similar to how there really is no US movie market. What they make in LA are international films. What we make in Canada are Canadian films, for the most part. Hollywood DOES NOT CARE if its films speak to Americans. It cares about gross revenue worldwide.
Blueglow:
I think we're largely saying the same thing. But lordyloo Me likey how you say it. Thanks for that.
Alex:
Weird. I actually think 180 degrees from you on this; Not that you're wrong, exactly, but that you've got it exactly lbackwards.
I don't think Americans or Hollywood gives a good fig about making anything for an international audience. On the contrary, they make product for Americans and assume that the international market will lap it up -- because that's the way it's always been. It's the entitlement of cultural hegemony. Just like Jack Valenti always thought of Canada as a god-given, not to be questioned part of the US domestic box office.
You see this everywhere with US cultural policy: disdain for French protectionist cultural policies; not even an acknowledgement that the aim, or the ill they're trying to combat is even valid.
"We deserve to be able to export as much as we possibly can, because people want to see and watch our stuff. Nothing else matters. You don't have the right to restrict us."
On the other hand, what hamstrings Canadian stuff often is the back and forth between trying to say something domestically while always thinking of a foreign (ie: US) market, that never quite seems to materialize.
If American production thinking really thought as much about the international picture as you think they do, they would have embraced ENDEMOL-like singing contests and gameshows years ago. The Europeans have been trying export ideas like Deal or No Deal and that ilk to the USA for fifteen years, but only recently has it caught on, because there was simply no way that a made-not-in-the-USA idea could land with Americans.
Americans would always go to MIP as sellers, not buyers, not looking to learn anything. If that's shifted at all, it's only mighty recently.
DMc At the risk of dislocating our shoulders patting each other on the back I'd have to say I agree with you re: Alex's post.
In all the shows I've been involved in in Canada there were only two where the demands of the internatinal audience were, if not first and foremost, not crucially important in all areas of the series.
As for the rest, how the thing was going to be recieved internationly influenced everything from wardrobe, to location to the actual words and phrases the characers said -- it was never grade eight, it was 8th grade. You weren't a "first year university student" you were a "freshman".
You had to be real careful writing scenes with cops and lawyers because no one wanted to see those gay little robes our lawyers wear, so you'd write walk and talks or scenes in the lawyer's office etc...
The finanacing shortfall that could be met with foriegn participation was crucial to these shows getting made. And becuase that twenty percent was so crucial the demands of the foriegn audience often trumped those of the Canadians.
It was the foreign market that kept many of our shows on the air. It was the collapse of this foreign market that occurred when nations (damn you France, damn you Germany) began to pursue more protectionist polices viz thier broadcasters that has hurt elements of Canadian TV prodution as much, or more, than the loosening of CRTC requirements.
(this need to be able to play moncton as easily as it could in marsaille did also create some of the worst generic programs ever created but right now were talking about lining our pockets with shekels, so that's for another day)
I'd say that MOST Canadian TV, the ones that pay an actual production fee as oppossed to a "what, you're kidding me.... right?...right" kinda cheque has been dependant on the international audience.
As for Cheers, Hill Street, West Wing, Soprano's etc I very much doubt they could care less and I doubt as to how these shows would play to Herr Munster was much discussed in the writer's room.
Now don't drop the latte on my fucking laptop!
DMC, after much thought, have to agree when it comes to the skills and expression to create the effect on readers, yes, prose and stage requires different things. They both have the same goal to create an effect (or at least to garner any compelling effect in the audience. . .very fun when audience has a compelling effect/meaning you never intended). I got caught up in expressing both my agreement and disagreemnt.
Nonetheless, I have to express the effect of surprise I felt when I first started seeing characters on Buffy and Angel philosophizing about things (good, evil, the soul, revenge, justice) in the fashion they did.
But there's also just the effect of experience and knowledge. Just comapre the endings in the novel and movie of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Same thing happened, essentially, but you get total different experiences and knowledge base by witnessing the two endings, both mutually satisfying.
Blueglow: I really like what you said about channeling characters. Other than issues of stubbornity, that's the major reason I keep pushing with my novel, to see where the characters go and how things affect them. I've got the plot arc mapped out, but I love the surprises and feelings I feel through them.
As I mentioned above about effect and such (or maybe I didn't), I think it's also important not to become self-indulgent with it to lose the spontaneity or the attention of the audience. Like DCM and many article writers have expressed, not everything in our notes will go into the writing/final product. As you address the investment of the writer, I have the feeling that the amount of the investment has a lot to do with (barring individual dispositions) how much the writer knows about the characters.
Damn me for being an exception to the American rule!
I just realized one of the big reasons I stuck with and got excited about Charlie Jade for the first half of the show was the foreignness and newness. Sure, I couldn't understand a bunch of the heavy SA accents at first, but the landscapes and the potential for a different culture, history, etc. etc. just kept me interested to see what these three different worlds were like. . .and yeah, so did the character development, but even a lot of the characters seemed so different, new and interesting to me.
But like I said. . .I'm possibly a major exception. =D
(Just had to throw that in there).
If American production thinking really thought as much about the international picture as you think they do, they would have embraced ENDEMOL-like singing contests and gameshows years ago. The Europeans have been trying export ideas like Deal or No Deal and that ilk to the USA for fifteen years, but only recently has it caught on, because there was simply no way that a made-not-in-the-USA idea could land with Americans.
Americans would always go to MIP as sellers, not buyers, not looking to learn anything. If that's shifted at all, it's only mighty recently.
And yet the facts speak otherwise, Denis. American television has been very Japanese since its inception - it is an "adopter and adaptor." For many years we have taken shows from other countries and adapted them for our audience.
THREE'S COMPANY
SANFORD AND SON
ALL IN THE FAMILY
MAUDE
ETC...
Not to forget the wide berth we've given original foreign television productions in our syndicated markets -
THE AVENGERS
DANGER MAN (aka SECRET AGENT MAN)
MONTY PYTHON'S FLYING CIRCUS
MYSTERY
MASTERPIECE THEATER
THUNDERBIRDS
UFO
THE SAINT
BEASTMASTER
ETC...
You also have to acknowledge the INTERNATIONAL divisions of the big studios which for the past ten years have been partnering with other territories to create original series for their markets. Thus we have CARLOS ANGELS, DIE WILD ENGELS, etc...as well as soaps...
Which brings us to the original english language telenovelas that are seen around the country - DESIRE and FASHION HOUSE and the new ones coming in a month. Adopted and adapted from the original spanish language formats (which run on our local stations across the country as well as on Univision, Galavision, etc...)
We've also adopted and adapted UGLY BETTY.
We do care about the international market (especialy the spanish language market) because that is part of who we - the american entertainment industry - are...
and yes, we Americans (in general not just industryites) are changing. A shrinking world and more diverse culture have created more and more cable channels for more and more subgroups. There is crossover - so we not only see THE OFFICE as the NBC version, but as the BBCA version as well. In fact it's sold to us that way, "See the original." FOOTBALLERS WIVES is sold as "see the real DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES." It will be remade for American audiences.
America has ALWAYS purchased the rights to the formats to the best that the world has had to offer and made a go of it here. We recognize talent and marketability.
We recognize international stars as well and try to put them in our movies, but yes, they have to be hits elsewhere first. Some of the most notables include Jackie Chan and Jean Reno, both of whom make movies in their native languages and lands and make movies here. Jet Li. John Woo. Vincent Cassel. Chow Yun Fat. Monica Belluci. Penelope Cruz. And to go back in time - Cantinflas, Maurice Chevalier, Carmen Miranda...
We as an industry are also cognizant of the fact that financing for large studio blockbusters come from a variety of sources - many of them overseas and with strings attached. Look at how the financing for the TOMB RAIDER movies came about and you'll see how the money affected the casting, the locations and the tax write-offs. By looking at the movie you can literally see where the money came from...
And let's not forget the fact that American showrunners are invited to other countries to share production and development strategies with our foreign brethren. (Check in on Lee Goldberg and Bryce Zabel's blogs for more info on that). Fact-finding for both sides.
The fact is that we are aware of the international market because we've been in the thick of it from the beginning.
Even with the little movies that I've done, I've often had to revise artwork because Sales has told me, "the international market won't go for it, and I won't be able to sell this picture." I've had to be cognizant of the international market ever since I came to Hollywood 9 yrs. ago.
Sorry for the rant...
Bill, I think there's a couple of things going on here. The first is that you work in a side of the business, that from the beginning, has always had to be more resposive since it's part of the calculus. In fact, some of the D2DVD or "B" producers I've run across have always been upfront about how they pre-sold a couple of territories to raise their budget. That kind of thing happens all the time in Canada even for big, mainstream productions.
There's probably no way I can ever make you understand what it's like being part of the colonized culture looking in. Suffice to say that though every one of your examples is totally valid, 99 percent of Canadian (or indeed, foreign) producers are going to look at the list and say, "yeah, but you have no idea what it's like trying to go the other way." You kind of just have to accept that.
Well, I mean, you don't, of course, but whether you do or not does nothing to change the fact that that's the way it is.
I agree with the general drift of your point that it's slowly changing, but that's after years of a full on assault and a revolution in delivery systems, competition, and the rise of the net.
But for my part, I know the producers who were pitching telenovelas fifteen years ago and getting NOWHERE. Ugly Betty, yes, very nice. Sexy times. But that doesn't change the equation. One is the elephant, one is the peanut. That hasn't changed. Especially when it comes to Canada.
And if you don't believe me, ask yourself how Cold Case (CBS) got on the air without paying a royalty to Cold Squad (Canadian, and currently in syndication in the US)
Re: Cold Cas/Cold Squad - it IS an anomaly, no doubt from this corner.
I'm involved in the marketing for THE TUDORS as you know which is a Canada / Ireland co-production. It has been pre-sold to Showtime here in the states and will premiere in 2007 in Canada on CBC. I believe simultaneous with the Showtime run but don't hold me to that.
It's an anomaly as well as the subject matter isn't distinctly Canadian yet you have Henry Czerny and others in the cast as well as stars Jonathan rhys Meyers and Sam Neill, et al.
I think its because it's a a damn good story told with a good looking bunch of actors who are known for good acting. It's the fact the series is a fresh take on an old story - Henry VIII and his wives (It's actually more the story of young Henry VIII - the first "rockstar King/celebrity"). It's the fact that the series looks lush and inviting in its pagaentry and action.
Is this type of co-pro the future? It has certainly cracked the US border...which it appears by all of the comments to be some sort of benchmark (whether it actually is or not). It speaks to Will's comments earlier.
In my (independent) background I've always found that movies and tv can be sold anywhere if there are sufficient hooks for the buyer - production value, relatability, star power (or at least an interesting looking cast)and just plain old damn good stories that make people forget about their lives for an hour or two (aka entertainment).
If there's a formula - that's it.
If you're not selling - then there's something wrong.
And yes, Denis I can't have your perspective - that's yours. I can try and understand it and learn from it and contribute my own perspective so that hopefully we all benefit from a 360 look at a situation.
Let me leave you with this question: How does Lionsgate Television fit into all of this? What are they doing that's different and getting their shows on television (on both sides of the border and around the world)?
Oh that's easy.
They're just very, very good at what they do. They have deep and broad contacts, and a level of trust in the US business. And they've figured the way of managing the international elements without losing the plot.
That doesn't change the fact that if a Canadian writer tries to pitch or go into the US market, even if they ran and created a show for ten years here, they better have a US spec script. Because "mystery credits" don't count.
You're in with the right guys! :)
Not much to add after everyone else has weighed in, except on the Cold Case/Cold Squad issue. My understanding is that the Canadian producers threatened to sue Bruckheimer and that they went into mediation and settled privately and amicably, but there is a confidientially clause and no one is supposed to talk about it.
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