That would be insanity in any other business. Here? That's par for the course. I know two writers right now trying to get U.S. work because they know if they do -- even if they're only down there for a year or two -- they'll be able to march back to Canada and get a show easy.
I would have loved to have used Sasha in a few other things before he left. He probably would have gone to the USA anyway. I understand ambition, and think everyone should follow their dreams. But it should be a choice. We shouldn't make our performers Okies trying to follow the dustbowl (snow covered?) trail to greater glory.
Among the many plagues of Canadian series television -- of which the worst is, I still believe, poor management of talent above & below the line, & a lack of will & talent to see a story through to its best iteration -- there is this persistent regard for the consistently disproved idea that somehow, what we need is to import Americans.
There are entire production companies in Canada that believe this to be true. They're working the WGC to try to get American Showrunners in under the wire...and they're like Michel Roy at Telefilm, musing about attracting American talent to make movies more saleable. Like the idiots who preach the utterly discredited mantra of supply side economics -- they've been proven wrong time and time again. (Ask anyone from the Wild West Dentist Tax Credit Days how well that worked. Even The Shat doesn't remember the movies he did here, I'm guessing.)
But WHY are they wrong? And what other alternative exists?
Well, they're wrong because the assumption is that somehow that burnished American talent will guarantee hits. This is the same talent pool that fails 90% of the time with every pilot season. Because that's the failure rate. Fullstop.
Time and time again what we've proven, in fact, was that we could attract 'talent,' yes.... but it's not 'A' talent. Just like CBS and NBC will always treat those shows they paid $400 000 an ep for a s filler, talent will always try to get a gig down south first.
So you don't get A lister actors, or Directors, or Writers coming up. You get hacks. Not all the time (People relocate for love, for lifestyle all the time, for instance...) but most of the time. The pool of people who could actually make a difference to your bottom line or foreign sales is low...and don't kid yourself, Americans know who all those people are, too.
Chances are, if they're here, you bought mutton dressed as lamb. Which is fine. But it's not going to save you, and it shouldn't be funded like a 10/10 Canadian production.
A lot of people - me included - made easy fun at the whole "Own The Podium" thing -- and then a little nation of 33 million people won the most Gold Medals at any winter games, ever. Is there a lesson there? I sure think there is. Does anyone have the balls or the stones or the courage to see it, learn it, and live it?
Moving on to the other mutton in the system. You may ask yourself why you never read an article or heard about Sasha Roiz until he took on the role of Sexy Sam Adama. The answer for that would be easy. The fire of promotion in this nation is fed by bellows that only choke out red white and blue smoke.
Let me be less obscure -- and remind you how it works in other countries. In other countries, they don't buy and show and shovel onto the air any American piece of shit show that only runs three episodes. Nope. There are no bus ads or billboards for the horribly lame comedy that's gone in a fortnight. They wait til CSI becomes, well, CSI, before they sign on. There's a bit of quality control there...gotta make sure those Desperate Housewives aren't all just a bunch of slags before you get into bed with them, so to speak.
Because they import only the best, the actual working, interesting, worthy shows from the USA, there's a whole lot more space on the air for homegrown shows, and ink to maybe write about homegrown Sasha Roiz's before they go to the USA. And because of that, Casting Directors actually work hard to find those people, rather than just offer up the same 20 "approved" faces. And as a result, the actors -- who may choose to stay, or choose to leave, can do so, confident in the fact that the structure of their industry has given them options.
The UK has only twice the number of households as Canada. But they spend eight times as much on locally produced dramas and comedies. Think about that.
There's much that can't be changed in our system -- at least not easily -- and a lot of it really is wrapped up in this notion that there is no premium for success since the model really is based on re-broadcasting American creativity. Even standard TV rules of marketing, like, oh, I don't know, if you lose more than 50 percent of your lead in show, you get the chop -- don't seem to apply.
But it strikes me that there could be one tiny little fix that might help you hear more about the Sasha Roiz's before the Bill Brioux's and Andrew Ryan's and Alison Cunninghams et al write their annual "Canadian faces on American TV" article...
...and that's a bit of culling. The Marriage Ref debuted Sunday to so-so ratings and terrible reviews. Doesn't look like much of a winner, even with Seinfeld there. What kind of recognition factor would we have if shows like that got the Canadian TV treatment? You get your cursory preview article, and then if you stink up the joint, you don't get promo'd anymore. At all. Pull the ads, pull the promo. Maybe then you've got a few inches to give to the ingenue or the young writer coming up.
A couple of years ago, on a panel at the Banff TV Festival, I got journos to reluctantly admit that the Entertainment Weekly practice of returning to shows they'd reviewed earlier in the season to see if they'd gotten better -- to offer, in other words, a second kick at the can, was a good idea. Bill Brioux even did this recently with the CBC show 18 to Life. There should be more of it.
Washed up, past it, American talent will never save us. It just won't. But the lesson of Vancouver is that gold is all around.
But to find the Gold you have to work for it. Journos, Writers, Casting, Prodcos...we all have to work for it.
I know it sounds hard -- but really, how's what you've been doing going for you? Lot of new Newspaper Jobs out there, huh? What have you got to lose, then?
What do any of us have to lose? Or more importantly, if our strategy up til now is trying to win by desperately trying not to lose...then can we admit that's been a total failure?
Get prospecting. Look for the Gold. Don't wait for the Americans to find it and then run slavishly to someone to get the interview about how excited they are that they just got U.S. citizenship.
No matter what happens, Rachel McAdams will always be the the young ingenue in the first season of Slings & Arrows. People will be seeing her in that role for years. They did it. They found her.
Gold is all around you.
And Sasha, I'll grab that coffee with you anytime.
I just hope it doesn't have to be in L.A.
11 rumbles:
The BBC cut 100 million pounds out of its budget today which translates into the closing of a few radio stations and reducing the buying of foreign shows by 25%. That figure represents the ENTIRE budget of the CBC.
The problem here is, as it has always been, a problem of finance. Nobody will put up the money to do what should be done. If the government money translates into five Canadian dramas in total, then that's what you get. Because nobody puts up their own money to finance the industry. And the government funds are finite and in decline. Large gaps in financing have appeared over the past five years that have driven producers to seek money from other sources, i.e., Britain or the US.
I do not expect any improvement in the current situation when the next budget comes down. In fact, journos have been reporting that the federal government will relax ownership rules and there has been speculation that the 10/10 point system will be relaxed as well.
I do not begrudge anyone from going where they will make a decent living.
As a friend of mine once said - "I am not a Canadian charity."
But see that's exactly why I framed the article the way I did.
there is no more money coming from Government.
and at the risk of burning my centre-left credentials and appearing to side with Kaiser Jim Henshaw, I don't think there SHOULD be.
Now, yes, Own the Podium was govt funded. But now we're starting to have the convos about other corps stepping up.
There is a voice in this system for others to invest now in talent because frankly if they're going to keep going the way they're going, then every one of us IS like an actor -- go south, get citizenship...what does it care. If I ever get a great opportunity to go down to work on a US show, I will grab it for sure. But if I HAVE to go there because things become untenable here -- god forbid the first Canadian pub that comes looking for the "Toronto Angle" on the story.
Funny thing is now the rage is new media funding. It's tail wagging the dog but whatever. You would like to see that these guys become the true entrepeneurs and maybe lose all the bad habits of the last 30 years.
But i hear an AWFUL lot of them talking about getting their piece of govt money -- and that's what makes me nervous.
We've just seen two weeks worth of Canadians who take risks.
Do NOT TELL ME THERE ARE NO MORE. I just don't believe it.
And sorry to go back to the well on this one, Deborah. But this is the point -- what to do? And don't tell me it's impossible and why nothing will change and don't blame the WGC or the Producers or the Networks or anybody else.
What should each of us do?
How can WE change this?
What, if anything, did YOU learn from the spirit of the Canadian athletes who also did what nobody said they could do?
If the answer's nothing, then it's just idle complaining, and that too is part of the problem with no solution in sight.
So c'mon. What can you do?
know two writers right now trying to get U.S. work because they know if they do -- even if they're only down there for a year or two -- they'll be able to march back to Canada and get a show easy.
Make that three. I'd prefer to work in Canada, but it's looking much more promising for a sale due South.
I know there are more risk-takers hereabouts than those we see. Although I still (perhaps irrationally) want to see CanConTV get its "Own the Podium" - or maybe "Leave No Doubt" would be better? - campaign.
you're a saint and a prophet. I'll spare you the trip and meet you in Toronto for a coffee. Thanks for the kind mention.
DMc - here are some things that can be done - maybe:
Get international financing. Of course, this is difficult if your project is too Canadian. After all, why would Germany or Britain be interested in a Canadian cop drama. They aren't. And, the first question they ask is who is the Canadian broadcaster?
Spend your time working on possible 6/10 projects so there is a chance of a wider market.
Take a page out of Brad Wright's playbook. I was appalled to read that science fiction does not qualify for CTF money because of some ridiculously parochial rules about setting.
Work with producers, broadcasters, cable cos to change the outdated, outmoded rules.
Open up the playing field to foreign ownership but task them with making Cdn programming WITHOUT government funds which would only be available to wholly owned Canadian companies.
And write what you love, no matter what.
Oh, and please stop calling me Deborah. I feel like I'm being scolded by my mom. It's deb.
Sorry Deb. :)
Good list. And at least one -- the Sci Fi setting thing -- the WGC agitated hard to get that changed for CMF rule changes precisely because of things like Stargate. We won that one, and going forward, Sci-Fi & genre projects like that will be eligible, regardless of "setting."
The UK is, with the exception of Ireland, surrounded by countries that don't speak English. Before cable & sat. TV came along, the only channels you got in the UK were the local TV channels. The audience couldn't rotate their rabbit ears and easily pick up the stations across the border. And even if they could, most of the audience wouldn't have understood the French, German, Spanish or Italian shows. Something like 90 percent of Canada's population lives within 100 miles of the US border and have no problems getting access to USA programming. In the early years the BBC had no competition, a mandate to produce 'local' content, and a lot of money. In many ways UK TV producers are still only competing with each other because even though people in the UK can get USA programming on their sats. the fact of the matter is that the gulf between USA culture/humour and UK culture(s) and humour is simply too large for most USA produced shows to garner a large audience. Sure ITV and others are buying the rights to USA shows (ex: Law and Order), but they are making their own UK centric versions. While Canada does have a culture separate from the USA, we can still get their jokes and understand their dramas and cop shows. So not only do Canadian producers and networks have to compete with each other but the have to compete all the US producers/networks as well. And as the "Own the Podium" program proved, if you really want to compete with the big boys, you need just as much money (or more) than they have.
Major US Networks are producing for a potential audience of 20 million per episode. US Cable networks are producing for audiences of 2-3 million per episode. I have no idea what kind of audience numbers a hit Cdn. shows pulls down on a Canadian network, but I'd be surprised if it was in excess of 2 million. So it's not surprising that USA networks have a whole lot more money to spend, and with more money to spend they can produce more pilots and take more chances.
Metaphorically speaking, we're surrounded and outgunned. I think that if were ever going to have a strong Canadian film and TV industry, the gov't (either thru general taxes, or specific CRTC levies) is going to have to start providing the industry with the same kind of funding that the BBC gets (and the same kind of independence that the BBC gets). Any hope that business is going to provide the kind of financing we really need is a pipe dream. As you point out "Own the Podium" was gov't funded (to the tune of over $100 million), but I think you're dreaming if you think corporations are going to be willing to cough up that kind of funding. With a few exceptions, Canadian businesses simply don't have that kind of cash. The big problem isn't finding the funding for the shows that are hits, it's finding the money to develop and produce all the pilots that fail, and all the shows that never make it pass their original 9 episode order. As you point out, for every hit in the USA, there are a lot of failures. Canadian businesses and certainly Canadian networks don't have the money to fund all those failures that are a necessary part of having a healthy film and TV industry.
There is such a gulf between what you're talking about and what I'm talking about that it's almost insurmountable.
I'm not saying anything needs to, or lord knows -- should -- be funded at anywhere NEAR that level.
What I'm talking about is organizations that traditionally try to do everything within their power to get out of doing the absolute mandated minimum.
Viewers are not served by being able to get the failed retreads across every channel and having the US nets, which they have anyway, schedules duplicated en masse on "Canadian" stations.
A nation of 30 million cannot and should not support a TV biz of a country that's ten times its size.
What I'm talking about is getting up off the mat and admitting that it's in the best interests of all to at least compete. To at least fucking try.
They haven't been. And every objective measure shows it.
That doesn't serve workers in the industry, creatives, the cause of domestic culture, or the TV viewer.
You're arguing against a straw man; I did not make the argument that you're attempting to refute.
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