In the words of the immortal LOLCATS, I can has induztree?
If you think about any film industry in any other nation, it tends to center in two or three places, for all kinds of logical business reasons.
Not here.
The concept of Regionalizing production may satisfy politicians who want to see their constituents tax dollars spent locally. But you can't build a viable film industry that way. In fact, it's a sure-fire recipe for making sure it never happens.
Imagine asking most of the production companies in Hollywood to relocate to Pismo Beach if they want their project green-lit. Consider what Woody Allen or Spike Lee's films would look like if they had to be shot in Newark. Take your life in your hands and tell Robert Rodriguez he's giving up Austin for Padre Island.
And maybe give some thought to the "suppliers" of the industry. The people who have no say in what gets conceived or made. They rent cameras, build props and costumes, or sustain state of the art post houses. Now imagine how their profit margins (which have always been thin) are impacted by having to serve customers who have no choice but to work in areas where such operations are not resident because they couldn't survive and everything has to be shipped in.
This week a Producer friend said, "They're spreading things so thin, nobody can survive anymore." She's right. And as far as I'm concerned that's the plan. The juicy side effect is that the Bureaucats also get to murder some of us in the process.
As Sting and Andy Summers taught me on Sunday and Monday, "It's Murder By Numbers, One Two Three, It's as Easy to Learn as your Eh, B, C's..."
13 comments:
If people don't like the conditions attached to the public money they are receiving they are under no obligation to keep asking for it.
The ultimate extention of the spurious argument is to wonder why one would bother to have a Canadian industry at all, since the prudent thing to do would be to recognize the concentration of trade in Los Angeles. Toronto and Vancouver, sorry to say this, but we are regions too.
The argument is only spurious if one assumes - as I think Geoffrey has done - that the argument against decentralizing the industry is based on a yay-globalization, invisible-hand-knows-all belief that the market will decide where industry locates, and any region that's left out can just lump it.
But this is a misreading. The point is, the regional and national hubs of production in the Canadian film and TV industry are Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal and to a lesser extent Halifax. (Calgary will probably evolve into one as an indirect spin-off of all the oil money.)
This is the current reality and can not be changed in an instant by a top-down fiat from politicians or bureaucrats. Creating new, regional hubs takes time, a concerted effort by everyone involved, and lots of investment.
Can Flin-Flon be a regional production centre some day? Absolutely, with the infrastructure that supports and is supported by a thriving industry. That won't happen just by forcing the occasional production to be shot in Flin-Flon.
This isn't so much deliberate murder of the industry as a short-sighted attempt to force an unworkable regional development component into arts funding.
It's stupid, and concerned Canadians most certainly have the right and obligation to say so, whether or not they are publicly funded.
Stephen, great response. For the future, though, just remember that Commodore Firmin here is all about the spurious.
Fantasists, it is "regional development". Telefilm and the CTF have a national mandate. The more substantive tax credits and the other mixed pots of equity financing needed to pull together a Canadian project are, alas, Provincial. The bureaucrats running them in Saskatchewan and New Brunswick (the biggest tax credit, I think) have no sympathy for the argument that they should tend to hubs anywhere outside their jurisdiction. Good thing too because without the regional mandate we wouldn't have 22 Minutes, Trailer Park Boys, Corner Gas or Guy Maddin, we'd only have that much watched, hugely profitable television show out of Toronto ... what was that called again?
All that said I still assume that a greatly disproportionate amount of Federal dough (think of T4As and resource royalties from all over) is spent in downtown Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal.
Free market capital will go wherever it thinks it can grow.
Free market capital will go wherever it thinks it can grow.
Yes, but not where it is "forced" to go by forces outside the market.
Instead of concentrating on what makes a particular region profitable and building on that, politicians see another region be successful in a certain industry and want a piece of "that" pie.
They need to build their own pies.
Bill,
Yeah, they want their own pies. That's what they are trying to do with those juicy tax credits.
Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal represent about 30 percent of the population yet surely account for a far greater proportion, probably the great majority, of the subsidies received. If you argue that the rest of the country isn't entitled to the small proportion they take, mostly by virtue of their own equity and tax programs, you're going to lose all support for the industry.
Yeah, they want their own pies. That's what they are trying to do with those juicy tax credits.
G -
You missed the point entirely.
Regional politicos should leave the entertainment industry to where the market has dictated it should develop - namely Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal and possibly Halifax - and develop other industries in their area suitable to the regions resources, labor pool, skill set and accesibility.
Tax credits are good for all businesses to develop if it makes sense, but the consensus here amongst most of the audience is --
It makes no sense.
Not financially, logistically, or otherwise, except to take money away from one industry center and put it in another region. Robbing Peter to pay Paul or shuffling deck chairs on the Titannic. The Soviets did the same thing for years and we all know how that little economic experiment turned out.
It's one thing to go out on location because your story is set in a particular area, or the resources are ALREADY there to provide incentive.
(That's why much of DIE HARD WITH A VENGEANCE was shot in SC - we had huge boat yards in which to build the NY subway set, the vault, the tunnel, etc...)
It's ANOTHER THING ENTIRELY to have to shoot in an area where everything needs to be trucked or airlifted in and people's lives are disrupted solely for a political reason (pork barelling).
And lets talk about the work forces in these outlying areas. They CANNOT, by reason of being away from the action, be as experienced as people who do the job every day. Even if crew from Toronto or wherever comes in and shoots as "local", productions have to hire real locals who are not as experienced or networked.
I come from a state where they provide incentives and resources and qualified crew to shoot, but no one is "forced" to shoot there. SC competes for the job along with the 49 other states.
The market decides where it is going to shoot.
I would love to shoot a series or a movie back in the Carolinas, but only if it makes sense, not because I'm forced to spend more money than I have to just to satisfy someone else. It's not good economics, and yes this boils down to economics.
Bill,
No one is forcing you to shoot anywhere, they are attaching a condition to THEIR money. You don't have to take the Government support. You can then shoot where you like. Further, http://www.playbackmag.com/resources/ipl.html
You will see that effectively ALL the production in the country is taking place in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal. God knows those are the only places I worked last year. The development outside those centers is token. I'd keep it down lest the rest of the country catches on. It boils down to politics because the economics of making film and television in Canada don't make sense. Where did you get the idea that it wasn't pork-barrelling?
Bill, you're arguing with an unarmed man. Let it go.
i've been doing this gig for a while now and without a doubt this whole regional issue is about the most fucking retarded regulation we in canada have to deal with (and given the number of retarded regulations we have to deal with -- hey let's create a situation with funding applications and dealines so that when a deal is finally struck everyone has to go to camera AT THE SAME TIME is another).
this needs to be treated as a National Industry and if we as a nation have thirty million people vs the 300 mill in the states producers need to have access to the most talented writers, directors and actors in the country when they are making a show instead of only being able to pick from the pop of the province one is shooting in.
also WHERE one shoots is important (for many of the reasons mr henshaw identified). to be forced out of a production centre to some shithole where there are no facilities, no resources and no talent is just plain stupid.
when i got into the business I figured I'd go to where the work is. expecting the work to come to me is ridiculous. you wanna fish, move to the ocean.
some of the hoops the current cbc shows are jumping thru right now are going to do nothing but hurt the projects becuase you have immediately narrowed not only your access to talent but you have narrowed your frame -- london ontario ain't toronto and now even fucking hamilton is deemed to be too close to toronto -- so what do you do to give a show a big city feel when you can't even shoot in one?
"when i got into the business I figured I'd go to where the work is."
Isn't that Los Angeles?
Well LA was one of three realistic options (the other two being London and Toronto) but I was intimidated by the idea of being a writer in London and the opportunities offered to a beginning/mid level writerin LA were not to my taste (walker texas ranger, poltergiest etc) so TO was where I ended up as I felt there was a very viable TV industry there and it was the best place in Canada to get in on projects on the ground floor.
but I am not sure what your comment has to do with the regulations that are further "balkanizing" the Canadian production industry. I am all for strong regional representation in news, current affairs and even variety programming but I can not for the life of me see how it aids in the production of "big budget" drama.
blueglow,
Geoffrey likes to pretend to great knowledge but really his agenda is to be contrarian and get people to respond. It's called "trolling." It's a mug's game, this internet is. It's best just to let it be. His comment wasn't to further the argument -- merely to provoke and extend it. And with that, I'm closing this thread.
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