Oh, One More Thing.

IN CASE ANYONE'S keeping track?

This is an astoundingly bad idea.

Banging the Pot One More Time

WGC MEMBERS: If you haven't voted on the question of the contract extension, the deadline is tomorrow. Details of how to vote online are available in this post.

In the meantime, does Canadian TV need more freelance writers? I think it's an interesting question with a somewhat complicated answer. Which I'll get into more when I can.

But for now, lunch is almost done and it's time to go back to set.

Hang on. More's a comin.

Um...

WHAT ARE YOU doing here? The first part of Joss Whedon's Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog is up.

Seriously. You Go Now.

Just Wait Til I Brawl With Rip Torn!

I GOT A few phone messages today that I found a bit mystifying until I came across this, in John Doyle's column in the Globe & Mail today.

In the matter of TV and the other bits of the popular culture, we Canadians have a terrifically complicated, tortured relationship with the beast. It's all passive aggressive.

Personally, I don't feel validated by merely being in L.A. and in close proximity to network TV stars. At the same time, I was delighted to see that the hilarious and wacky CBC soap opera MVP: The Secret Lives of Hockey Wives has been getting good reviews in the United States and is doing well on ABC's all-soap SoapNet channel. Some American critics got it, totally - the sexy, broad farce at the core of the show.

In The New Yorker, TV columnist Nancy Franklin wrote: "The opening credits combine funny and sexy better than any show I've ever seen: Synched to the propulsive beat of Sloan's 2006 hit Who Taught You to Live Like That is a quick succession of really close-up shots of gorgeous men getting dressed to play hockey and of gorgeous women getting dressed to go out and get those men who play hockey. The 35-second sequence is as gloriously over the top as can be, and no show could live up to it, but MVP is a good beach read, so to speak, if you need a break from all that Goethe and Plato."

It's a very good notice from a serious magazine that has an excellent eye for the delicious pleasures of pop culture.

Mind you, not everyone in the Canadian TV racket is pleased. In his much-read, daily online piece about TV, Denis McGrath (who writes episodes of The Border and tries to make it sound like he's doing Norman Mailer-esque toil on a really, really important drama) sneered with a cattiness that he couldn't contain. "I love The New Yorker, but come on, that review is like the puckish story they'll run once in a while where somebody writes, 'in defence of championship wrestling....'

Heh heh. The interesting thing is, of course, Doyle and I essentially agree, if not always on the examples, then certainly on the underlying problem. I've nosed around the points Doyle makes today quite a bit lately. And as I've stated before, my only problem with MVP was execution. I just think it didn't go far enough with the Soapy stuff. I stand by that opinion. And anybody who says different can go fight a goddamn bear.

Still, it's nice that apparently ABC SoapNet is pleased. Though I'll be damned if I could find that billboard in Times Square when I was down in NYC two weeks ago. Oh well.

Tomorrow, I start shooting my 2nd Border ep of the season, so blogging might be light til the weekend.

I've been a little nervous the last couple weeks about this script, since it's really an attempt to try and make a "change of pace" episode. It's much funnier and lighter than we've done on the show. Which is, you know...a risk.

But it read great this afternoon -- and the BLUE draft's on its way out and hopefully tomorrow things will go well.

And as an added bonus, the ep is almost a mini-reunion of people from my Across The River to Motor City project: Director Michael DeCarlo and me, plus actors Matthew Deslippe, David Fox and Bruce Hunter.

Should be fun.

Or... I mean to say, I better get a move on. Apparently I have four wives to find, and then I goddamn well better find a way to make that scene work on the day, cause let's face it -- If I can't make it work, then the whole goddamn system collapses and the bastards win...

Mailer-esque sounds like too much work.

Linkslutting Mad Men: Ooh La La.

AS THE TELEVISION Critics Association winds its way through the usual dog and pony show down in L.A., I haven't been keeping track with my usual aplomb. But as I wear out my Season One MAD MEN set (on Blu Ray, beeyotches!) I, like most of the critics, need a focus for my fawning. So just in case you missed the messiah-like attention Matthew Weiner and the Madmenites got last week, here's a roundup of some of my favorite articles.

Matthew Gilbert, in the Boston Globe, selfishly hopes the cult of Mad Men stays small:

Like many of us, I'm of two minds about the culture I love. It's a curious place to be, when your emotions are split in half, when you feel generous and selfish at the same time, giving yet greedy. You want more people to come to the party and enjoy what you like - especially offbeat creations such as "Mad Men," HBO's "Flight of the Conchords," the twisted humor of Sarah Silverman, the vintage-soul sound of Amy Winehouse - but not too many people. In that cheerful room where we exhort friends to watch a cool TV series, or listen to a perfect CD, or read a novel that will change their lives, there is a back door through which we sometimes want to abscond with the goods, alone.

Part of this possessive streak is a protective instinct. These days, in particular, it's hard to wish more popularity on anything that wasn't as solidly built for mass consumption as a Batman movie or "American Idol." At the slightest hint of a hit, the networks lean too hard, the celebrity mags pounce, spoilers leak, sequels are devised, audience expectations rise, disappointment sets in. And most importantly, the creators can lose their way. Popularity spoiled ABC's "Grey's Anatomy," just as it ruined NBC's "Heroes," which got too many eyes too quickly. Much as I encourage viewers to watch CBS's ensemble sitcom "How I Met Your Mother," I know it would probably lose some snappy in-joking, get too stuffed with guest appearances like those of Britney Spears this spring, and gain too much sweeps-event melodrama if it became a "Friends"-size hit. Now, the show is small enough to stay good, big enough to stay on the air.

A smarter and more succinct summation of the problems with the machine-like precision of our culture (a culture, ironically, that Mad Men shows the first zygote flickering beginnings of) I have not read.

But the New York Times Fashion & Style section points out that it might already be too late.

Tv Guide's the Scoop says Matthew Weiner either has a five-year plan for the show, or, um, he doesn't.

"In the life of the series, if it continues, I would like to cover this period of people's lives - and that's a five year plan and not a ten-year plan," he said. An AMC person was also quoted as saying: "What he meant was that he wants to leap forward between seasons, not just pick up where the last season leaves off. So he wants to cover a period of ten years in these character's lives, in five seasons." So we'll get five years of the show, which will end in 2011. But wait. No sooner had these quotes circulated, they changed tack. AMC then came out yesterday and said that Weiner never meant to reveal a specific timeline for the show. He was just, y'know, saying that he was planning to have timeline jumps between the series. OK. So not covering your tracks at all there AMC.

The Huffington Post said the critics at the Mad Men presser were all, like, shy and stuff, and totally had damp chairs and couldn't stop fidgeting, like, omigod, these guys are so MUCH dreamier than The Sopranos EVER WERE!!!!!!!!

Psychologically and emotionally the pull on the press was even stronger. Critics are heavily invested in this show; with most of them in agreement that it is currently the best series on television. But there is a huge difference in the relationship between TCA members and the cast of Mad Men and the dynamic they had with Sopranos creator David Chase and his actors. Whereas Chase gave brief, generally empty answers to questions from reporters, the very well liked Weiner is endlessly quotable and totally open to journalists. It is almost as if they are his surrogate therapists. Weiner knows how to give reporters several paragraphs of good copy without compromising his show or revealing any spoilers. The same is true of the Mad Men cast. They actually respond when asked questions and their answers are often quite informative, and sometimes disarming.

When asked to talk about a tragic event that one character suffers in the second episode of Season 2, Weiner politely replied, "I don't really like to talk about story lines." Then he added something far more tantalizing than a direct answer. "The second episode to me is, for all the characters, about how you should react to anything [versus] what you were told you should do," he said. "To me, we're always torn between the way we are supposed to be feeling and what we actually feel."

Then he really opened up. "I can say, being a father four times, that when you take that first baby home from the hospital – at least for me, maybe I'm a monster, I don't know – the experience of looking at a newborn for a dad can often be very strange. It's not like you're breast-feeding. You should feel something and yet you don't always [do so]. It takes time. At least it did for me. That is sort of what the tension is for me in [the second episode]."

Asked what he would say to viewers who will watch the premiere and not learn what happened to Peggy and the baby after last season's shocking finale, Weiner teased, "I'd say trust me. I will give you information as you need it in the most entertaining fashion."

Oh my stars. Yes Matthew, I will follow you anywhere. Here, take my car.

And of course, who better to interview Weiner than one of my favorite TV Partisans, Maureen "The Watcher" Ryan from the Chicago Tribune?

MR: I know you don’t want to talk specifically about what happens this season, but the fact that it’s set in 1962 – what does that mean to the show? A year and a half has passed, right?

MW: We’re further along in people’s lives. I’m telling the story of this period, and the question is, has the ’60s started to happen yet? And I actually thought it did last season, even though it was [the end] of the ’50s. I wanted to see these people a couple of years older, I wanted to move their lives along a little bit, so it wouldn’t have this kind of soap opera mood, this [feeling of] “and then and then and then.”

There’s a chunk of time missing and you’re going to have to catch up and see what’s going on. When you see what’s different, you’ll know what’s happened, which I think is kind of entertaining. And talk about a mystery -- I think from the first frame, you’re going to be trying to figure out what happened.

I think that you will get a sense that we are back with these people, that things have changed, that life is moving on and it is a whole new story. And the thing I’m kind of pleased about, and I kind of never wanted to say this in a weird way, but when you watch this season and you look back at the season before, you will see that there is already the sense that there is an innocence disappearing.

There are many reasons to [move the story ahead by 18 months], but the most important thing to me was, I didn’t want to go to the episode after the finale. I was not interested in that. I liked leaving it the way it was. I knew what happened the episode after [the finale], and I thought, then I have to do the episode after that. And all the sudden you’re watching something change in a very slow [way]. And at that point, why didn’t I do 22 [episodes]?

This way, you go to Valentine’s Day, 1962, and you get to see where everybody is – Don, Betty, Pete, Joan, Roger, Peggy, some new people. That will be its own story. There are things in there, even with the last season in your mind, you’ll be looking at. But I think you can not have seen this show ever and start with this season and see a fairly interesting situation and wonder how it’s going to work out.

I totally love and get what he's doing here, and it's exactly what I would do between seasons of any show I created. Oh, and it's all thanks to How 24 Changed Everything.

But back to Mad Men... what about the way-cool Ad Age tribute to the show, celebrating the release of the Season One DVD set?

And if you still haven't had enough, the fansite Basket of Kisses should be your next stop.

And finally, just to prove that the locus of way cool has shifted to AMC -- not only are they starting up S.2 of Breaking Bad, they're developing another period piece -- based on one of my favorite books.

All I know is that I finish shooting my second episode by July 24 -- just three short days away from the Season 2 Mad Men premiere. Suddenly that doesn't seem all that far away...

Generation Kill: The Boys in the Bright Green Humvees

HBO TONIGHT (TMN in Canada) takes a short step down the road to redemption, after the missteps of John From Cincinatti and the inexpicably renewed Tell Me You Love Me.

Generation Kill isn't perfect. And it takes a while to get into. But if you stick with it, by Episode Three this is one drama that packs a hell of a wallop to your sense of community, empathy and history.

Based on the memoir by Rolling Stone reporter Evan Wright, Generation Kill follows the Marines of the First Reconaissance Batallion, Bravo Company, as they roll into Iraq in the early days of the current Iraq war.

The show comes from Ed Burns and David Simon, the team behind The Wire. Like that show, there is a precise, journalistic style to the exchanges of the characters. It's profane and there's jargon for miles. In the first episode, I defy you to tell any of these Marines apart in their identical helmets and gear.

But if you'll forgive the pun, when they finally get into the Humvee and start into Iraq, things really get rolling. And by Episode 3, you're locked and loaded (okay I'm stopping now) into the characters and you can really focus on the story.

And it's quite a story. From the beginning, there's much swirling around in the stew of Generation Kill. You have the young Marines, who talk like Al Swearengen but less articulately. You're shocked by the sexist, crazy, racist and homicidal things that come out of their mouths. Some of the Marines are literally chomping at the bit at the thought of finally getting to kill somebody.

But underneath that, they're boys. And you realize, oh man, right...much of the conduct on the ground in this war is by young men who you probably wouldn't let stay in your cottage for a weekend (not without a huge damage deposit, anyway.)


Once the characters start to define and align -- the decent Lieutenant who's more capable than his lazy captain, (Lt. Fick, played ably and with sympathy by Stark Sands) the weary platoon sergeant "Gunny" Wynn (Marc Menchaca) and the ever seeing eye of the Reporter, (here played by Oz's Lee Tergesen) the true target of Generation Kill emerges. Scripts hew close to real events and reported conversations, and the picture of America's on the ground adventure in Iraq, of course, is not pretty.

This is the story of a unit trained to do one thing and sent to do another, with the wrong equipment, and plans based on ego, not military soundness. There are heartbreaking depictions of events that you may have read about : a village that the Marines declare all-clear is shelled and burned by an army unit whom they can't talk to because their coms won't link up.

The grunts try to do the right thing. The incompetence or agendas of those above them won't allow it. And people die. Yup, it's the same ethos as The Wire -- no matter what you try to do, the system will get you in the end. Great and light stuff for a summer's night, huh?

You'll find yourself praying for another crazy rant from Humvee Driver Corporal Person (James Ransone) just to tamp down the madness.

This is gutsy and great TV -- if you stick with it.

For info and stuff on the people and units, organizational charts, and all sorts of bushwa like that, go to Maureen Ryan for the hookup.

Flash the Pan

10pm - CBS - FLASHPOINT (PREMIERE)
Viewers: 8.03 million (#1), A18-49: 1.9/ 6 (#1)

The fast national numbers are in, and Flashpoint scored for CBS. Big. It handed them the night in terms of viewership, and 18-49 viewers, and it even built on its audience gaining in the second half hour.

We'll have to wait to hear how it did on Canadian screens -- and you can bet with Canadian nets tight fist with the numbers that we might not hear much at all if it didn't do well.

Is it a reflection that people are indeed looking for something to watch in the summer? Who knows. I'm sure that the fact that it's a crime show on CBS helped. Canadian nets that have to cadge together programs from U.S. nets don't go as far in the whole, building a brand thing, but though we found out last week that CBS is the "oldest" of the U.S. nets in terms of median viewers, it's also a place where a lot of procedural and crime shows have a home.

I still wonder what the future holds for Flashpoint in terms of being able to generate ongoing stories without becoming repetitive -- I've wondered that since the beginning with this show -- but still, it's a very strong premiere for the summer -- and a good start.

So I guess now we see.

Flashpoint: Relax and Take a Breath

I'VE BEEN INSULATED from it somewhat, seeing as I've been in prep or shooting two episodes of The Border over the last little while, but of course, who can miss the fact that Flashpoint, one of the Canadian shows bought by a U.S. net, debuts tonight at 10pm on CTV and CTV.

According to CTV, it's "reverse simulcasting." Heh. Positively Canwesticular.

Whether you buy that or not though it's undeniable that this is a tense moment for Canadian Creatives.

People are wringing their hands, and wondering "if." Everyone finds that "Due South" for whatever reason, is not far from their lips.

Whatever.

What you need to remember...the only thing that's relevant, really, is this:

The project originated as a TV movie at CTV. I know, because two friends of mine originated the project. You might not know that, because unless you've listened to Diane's podcast, they've kind of been cut out of just about every interview or publicity mention in the pre-press.

Mark and Stephanie, the creators of Flashpoint, started as actors. They're still actors, I mean. But. Steph was in The Sweet Hearafter. Mark (full disclosure: not only did I go to high school with Mark, but he's actually thrown up on me. Fucker) was featured in the Youth Series Dark Oracle on YTV.

A lot of times when Actors turn to writing, you can spot the results a mile away. Solipsistic monologues, overwrought sturm and drang -- results that are not pretty.

Mark and Steph, on the other hand, have always proceeded in their projects from a place of precision and research. A few years ago, a short they did called Remembrance -- about a man with a remarkable condition recruited for spying in WWII, won many awards and cash prizes based on the reality of the characters and the simple human reality on display. And all of that came out of meticulous research.

So, too, did Flashpoint. Several years back there was a hostage taking at Union Station in Toronto. In the middle of rush hour, a bystander was seized by someone who was later taken out by an ETF sniper from the Toronto Police Force.

The event mesmerized Mark and Stephanie. They developed a TV movie based on the incident with CTV. And at some point, the idea that maybe the characters were interesting enough to sustain a series was born.

I don't wish to take anything away from the team of writers who have crafted the series iteration of Flashpoint. From Tassie Cameron, to Esta Spaulding, to Tracey Forbes, the staff reflects some of the most accomplished writers working in series TV in Canada today. Playwright Jason Sherman (currently developing the Giller Award winning book Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures for TMN) is also on board, as are two other up and coming talents: writer Adam Barken and John Callaghan, the story coordinator who once upon a time, helped me out on my own series.

But for those who carp or doubt, note the impulse: Mark and Steph's interest in the Toronto ETF (renamed the SRU for Flashpoint) is based in truth: a squad, that, unlike most SWAT teams, actually takes tactical command of a sit, and emphasizes peaceful resolution.

That is a pure writer impulse. They found the thing that was different and interesting to them, and from there inspiration sprang.

Canadian press will seize on low numbers if Flashpoint doesn't open big, but that might not be the whole story. You don't know what the real story is until you start hearing from CBS. You can't compare numbers to CBS fall numbers, though people will. I don't know what CBS' summer number expectations are, and neither do you.

What I think is more interesting (even as an American-born guy living in Canada) is the incredible chauvinism in some of the early reviews. Some of that's expected, from Variety and The Hollywood Reporter -- this is a show perceived, like it or not, as a CBS hedge against the WGA strike. But about the fifth time I hit phrases like, "not much to get excited aboot," I thought, "oh man."

Which brings us back to what we were talking about here yesterday. The entire idea (born partially out of that Flashpoint sale) that the pinnacle of producing Canadian TV programs should be to get validation from Americans...well.. it's focacta. Only when we ignore that bullshit do we come up with things that are truly, definitely, wickedly different. Americans will always prefer their own stuff. There's just no way around it. Engage with the world.

Flashpoint airs tonight at 10pm on CBS/CTV. Do check it out.

Un. Be. Liev. A. Ble.

HE DOESN'T KNOW it, and it may not even happen. But by rights, an ABC Studios Exec named Howard Davine quite possibly changed the Canadian Television Industry today.

Of course, Nikki Finke, who broke the story, helped.

Finke obtained and posted excerpts from an internal ABC memo which... well, by rights, she got the scoop -- let's let the lady tell you herself:

the memo blesses anyone who brings foreign formats to ABC first so that the studio can steal the idea without paying the fat licensing fees that would accompany an up-and-up deal. Obviously, ABC doesn't want to repeat what happened with a show like Ugly Betty, which is the American version of the Latin telenovela. This now proves they would rather just rip it off.

Let's sit back and think about the implications for a moment here.

You have Canadian networks and Producers who now are laying their whole idea of how they're going to get stuff made off selling to the USA, or maybe exporting that great format idea.

It goes without saying that when you enter business arrangements with the American nets, it's not going to be an equal relationship -- but the implications of something like this? Well, if I was the person staking my business model on chasing that U.S. dream, I'd be, you know, doing a big, "Ulp" right about now.

And check out this very telling paragraph:

e) Deals regularly get bogged down or sometimes break down entirely on issues relating to our ability to sell the US series without restriction internationally and issues relating to the desire of the foreign rightsholder to sell episodes of their underlying series in the US market. Here, it is not a symetrical two-way street. Whereas the economics of producing a foreign series are not dependent on a vibrant US marketplace for the product, the economics of US network production do indeed depend on our ability to sell our series internationally without restriction.

(emphasis is mine)

I would encourage any Canadian creatives or producers who read this blog to write in and tell me of the number of conversations you've had lately that support this view - that in fact, acknowledge that "the economics of producing a foreign series are not dependent on a vibrant US marketplace for the product."

Clearly Howard hasn't been in many meetings with Canadian producers or development executives or networks. Because there's a whole lot of people who seem to be saying exactly the opposite every time I blink.

And therein lies the rub: we are foolhardy, we who chase and chase and chase this "American sale" chimera like it is the thing that will get our series made, or get it noticed above the pack. We matter so very little, and are of such little consequence to these guys -- that someone seems to be suggesting that ripping off anything we do bring to them might be better, or more profitable.

THAT is your creative future if you go down this road. Not a partnership -- an at-best unequal and dependent union -- maybe even funded by Canadian taxpayer money. Ugh.

Canadian creatives need to engage with our own audience, and an international market that might look for offbeat product that isn't American. We need to come up with our own bold concepts. Clearly the future of doing slightly retooled, generic, American seeming series is dubious at best. There is no magic sale at the end of the rainbow.

A POV or a Brand that isn't a pale photocopy of XFiles or CSI or one of a hundred other Yankee shows isn't just the future -- it's the future of how not to get ripped off.

So ...who's got the guts to greenlight something that the Americans wouldn't touch? And then reap the benefits? Warning: it requires thinking outside the box and taking a creative risk.

Anyone?

Yoo hooooo?

EDIT: It's also interesting a day later to drop back in on the comment thread on Nikki's post -- to see that America-first viewpoint. The last comment there talks about foreign producers having to give up their "huge back end" etc, etc...which also belies the reality that whether it's a format sale or a sale of the original show - the great thing that most people in Canada don't talk about is how these "big U.S. sales," -- most of 'em are for, like, milk money.

Your Brand New Shiny Word

WELL THE POLL is now closed. As outlined in the post here, the new jargon word, chosen as the favorite by 29% of voters is "Canwesticular."

That definition again:

Canwesticular- pertaining to or describing a great bit of shameless spin.

Please go forth and begin using this term immediately. And while you're at it, you may wish to try on for size a couple of other terms suggested by loyal Sticksers:

Actra Fraturinal: A disease affecting screenwriters whereby they only discuss issues affecting their common welfare when drunk in the bathroom at WGC events. The condition is now largely contained by drugs, blogs and Maureen Parker.

"I tried talking C-10 to that ink-wretch, but they still suffer Actra Fraturinal"

Shawshank: bad advice that, when followed, can destroy an industry.

"Man, that two fund thing the CRTC came up with is a total shawshank."

Um, Yeah.

I GOT BORED. Carry on.

When You're A Jet, You're a Shark...

STRANGELY, THOUGH We come from different worlds and opposite sides of the line, I feel, because we're both currently in prep, like Ken Girotti and I share a bond that is realer than real, and closer than close. For a writer, this kind of how the other half lives should be de rigeur.

By the way, I feel an equal sense of connection with Kate Beckinsale. No, I can't explain it. Must I?

True story: a few weeks ago, I was on set, shooting my first episode of The Border, in a downtown Toronto alley, and down the alley comes Ken. Disoriented, slightly puzzled, definitely bemused. Turns out someone was scouting while I was praying to get a Tiger to deliver the goods for Director Michael DeCarlo.

It was like a little Love Boat cameo. I feel sorry that we couldnt' deliver Charo for you, Ken. But know that in the solidarity of the prep-smashed, I feel your pain...

I've been surprised at times how well badly prepped shows have turned out. Go figure.

I find the more difficult scenario to be the one where you have a script, you've committed to it, you've found all or most of the locations, it's been cast, most of the requisite meetings have taken place...and now you're told on the eve of shooting that a major rewrite is to come. Of course there's always the proviso that production won't be affected because all of the aforementioned elements are already in place, and that the rewrite will stay the course in those areas. But what about my needs? What about the actors' needs? What about all the elements we've put in place...like...I kind of liked that script the way it was (sometimes because I simply had to commit to the material) or, I wanted to shoot that scene with the car on its side and the ambulance guys climbing in the elevated passenger door because it's going to look great in the location we picked? Now what? You mean we're doing the climactic scene in an elevator lobby. Hey, on Law & Order I wouldn't blink...but this ain't...that.

Largely prep on a TV show is about answering everybody's questions...except those of the director. Prep is a series of Q & A sessions with various department heads across the table demanding answers to questions I haven't yet had time to consider or apply in any kind of overarching storytelling way. I'm still trying to figure out what the centre of the story is and I'm already answering detailed questions that will give that centre its shape and feel. It's an odd, counter-intuitive way of doing things. But it's what television is. Perhaps it's that challenge I relish. Or perhaps it's the simple fact that many of the questions I'm asked only require a yes or a no. In that case, whether I know what the hell I'm talking about or not, I have a 50/50 chance of being right. With the wrong answers I can always fall back on the director's prerogative and say I've changed my mind.

E1, Sky Not Falling?

THE TORONTO STAR'S Martin Knelman has the possible positive spin on the "well, guess we better wait and see," merger news I wrote about yesterday.

To anyone not involved in the film business, all this may seem like a bewildering game of chess, or possibly musical chairs. Why should we as mere moviegoers or taxpayers care?

Here's why. The government of Canada invested millions of dollars in Alliance Entertainment, a company founded in the mid-1980s with Loewy and his old friend Robert Lantos among its principals. Prior to its 1998 sale to its chief rival, Atlantis, Alliance was a huge operator that produced major movies and TV shows seen around the world, with huge subsidies from Ottawa.

But after 1998, Alliance Atlantis (as the company was renamed) gradually retreated from the risky business of producing films. Instead the new owners, led by Michael MacMillan, focused on the less dangerous business of acquiring channels.

Then in a controversial deal last year, MacMillan and cohorts sold the company to the New York financial giant Goldman Sachs and its partner CanWest Global (which took over the broadcast empire).

What may be most significant ultimately is that for the first time since 1998, Canada appears to have a strong film company capable of producing movies and TV shows here and selling them to the rest of the world. We can hope.

We certainly can. You know hope, right? It's the thing with feathers.

Little ee cummings shout out for you there.

Vote "Yes" to the WGC Contract Extension: Here's Why

AS HAS BEEN written about here and elsewhere, The Writers Guild of Canada and the Producers' Associations of Quebec (Francais) and the rest of Canada have come to a mutual agreement to extend the IPA -- the basic agreement that covers professional screenwriters in Canada. Approximately 1900 WGC members now have until July 17 to vote Yes or No to ratify the agreement. (All members should have received packages in the mail or in their email; voting can be accessed online on the member only section of the WGC site.)

The terms are very simple: extend the IPA by one year, until December 31, 2009. In exchange, WGC members get a healthy (better than recent) bump in almost all script fees, and a bump in the Production Fee (which is much more significant, because when you actually get something made, that's the bulk of how you get compensated.)

Now why go for a year extension? And why do I say that the script fee increase and terms -- simple though they are -- are better than we probably would have gotten in a negotiation?

Well, it comes down to the very idea of bargaining itself. It is a give and take. In order to gain something, you have to have something the other side wants. For them to give something up, there has to be a compromise.

In this case the compromise is this: neither the WGC nor the Producer's Association can afford to be in bargaining right now. There are several high-profile CRTC hearings and licence renewals that are coming up -- a year and a half cycle that will result in a changed industry. For good, or for ill. The WGC and Producers want to go forward in that process speaking with one voice -- and the idea of fighting over a contract at the same time would be counterproductive in the extreme.

Since the original deal extension was announced, I've heard a bit of grumbling from feature writers, and especially from animation writers. The feature writers are (understandably) upset that the one script fee that doesn't get a bump is theirs. (Though the 3% bump in the Prod Fee is arguably way more significant if your movie gets made.) And animation writers, who were only recently covered under the WGC, were hoping for minimums -- to counteract a market where fees for scripts seem to be shrinking.

It's instructive, I think, to look south for the example of how bargaining actually works. The WGA went on strike for months over internet royalties.

They were also talking about extending coverage to reality and animation, and that never got past the post. It went nowhere, even in the face of their ultimate threat: the witholding of their labour.

I know animation writers deserve minimums; there's not a writer anywhere who will dispute that. When Animation was brought under the WGC agreement, minimums actually might have hurt some writers, because there was a spectrum of fees and once you set a minimum, the people who were earning more than that are going to feel downward pressure because they're "priced out of the going rate."

But understand that minimums for animation is going to be a huge fight: and it's a fight that the WGC isn't going to be able to do alone. In the current climate of fear and with these hearings looming, I think, personally, that any attempt to go in with a bold expansive agenda like that would have gotten smacked back like Venus returning Serena's serve.

For the WGC to take on that fight in the next negotiation, animation writers need to be active, and ready -- and up to now, I haven't seen a lot of that. I've asked a couple of times for animated writers to write in and talk about their work experiences here; there's been silence. I hosted one of Jill Golick's Toronto "Writers Talking TV" events last month on animation. Usually these talks draw anywhere between thirty and forty writers. For the animation discussion and screening, we had about six.

Six.

Animation writers, you need to vote 'Yes' for this deal not just so we've got a shot at a better bargaining position next time; but so you guys can have the time to organize, get on the same page, and find your voice so that the WGC can help you channel it.

I know it's hard, and there's intimidation out there. But really, the quiet Canadian way is going to get us all steamrolled. A fight is tough. You have to be resolved. We have to be serious about it.

Vote yes, and then let's talk about getting serious when the next round comes up near the end of 2009.

As for the feature writers, well, guys, I know it's a drag. But a lot of the same applies. We need to go into negotiation when we're strong, and when we've accomplished something, and when people aren't saying the sky is falling. And I know there's always an element of that in Canadian film and TV -- but with uncertainty piled upon uncertainty right now and a hostile government environment, never mind increases -- I'm pretty sure a full out negotiation at this point would probably involve exactly what the WGA faced -- a significant call for clawbacks.

The entire next two years is a gamble on the viability of this industry. The gamble is going to happen whether you vote yes or not. But if you do vote yes, and the contract is ratified with a great percentage of members in favor, then we will at least demonstrate that we have the resolve to go forward as one. And believe me, that's something.

You have til July 17th. Think it over. And Vote.

Mergeriffic!

THE BIG STORY in Canadian entertainment circles yesterday was this, a big production merger.

Entertainment One swallowed Barna-Alper, Blueprint, Oasis and Lantos' shingle, Maximum Films.

What's the result?

On Monday, the company, once dedicated to wholesale CD sales, said it bought Blueprint Entertainment of Los Angeles and Barna-Alper Productions of Toronto.

It's also taking over TV distributor Oasis International, which has offices in Toronto and L.A., and Maximum Films, a film distributor co-founded a year ago by producer Robert Lantos, who previously created Alliance Communications.

The price was not disclosed, but Entertainment One, or E1 as it likes to call itself, said it will be paid mostly in shares, along with some cash.

"We thought that the television production businesses in the Canadian marketplace... was a great place to go," said Darren Throop, CEO of Entertainment One, in an interview.

"It gives us huge access to an already established catalogue and access to new content."

To be perfectly honest, I've fielded the same phone call four or five times. "What's your take on it?" And from the perspective of the "we who make things" the quick reaction seems to be a bit of a head scratch.

On the one hand, as we've all learned by now, being bigger supposedly makes it easier to compete.

On the other hand, going the bigger and bigger company route in the USA hasn't exactly resutlted in a huge boon and more jobs and better product.

And whispers point to some of the elements in this deal and say, "well, based on that track record, is it going to actually be about making stuff here in Canada?" or is it more like, "how can we access Canadian money and make shows where we want to make them?"

Is this bound to be one of those long-storied Canadian Production stories where the deal was better than the result?

And the whole thing seems to be a precursor to going public. Does stockholder price concern and shareholder responsibility mix well with developing good projects?

And doesn't anyone remember Alliance Atlantis' "permanent downturn" greatest hit from a few years back. You know, how production in Canada was never going to go anywhere. Is that true? False? What? Bueller?

My stars, Beatrice, I just want to write good.

Whatever does it mean? Whatever does it mean?

"I Like Reality TV Because It's So Much Less Predictable Than Those Boring Scripted Shows."

FURTHER TO THAT little Q Reality talk last week...



Uh huh. Fonzie, Meet Shark.

H/T to DJ Eli G

Dancing Matt and the Gatsby Problem

THIS MORNING'S FOOD for thought comes via a piece I first saw on Diane's page yesterday.

Now, upfront I should say that I have a pretty hit-and-miss track record with Internet trends. I'm an early adopter for some, and trailing edge for a growing number of them. It seems like maybe more fit into the latter category with every passing year. That's inevitable, I guess, seeing how busy I've been. I may procrastinate, but I don't have hours to surf YouTube. And then there's that other part, the part of me that rhymes with the phrase, "Sweating Colder."

So I understand if this is old hat to you. But I spent about an hour tossing and turning last night, and another little while over coffee this morning, trying to explain away my reaction to Matt:


Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

I mean, isn't that just great? I watched that last night about three times all the way through. In a way, I'm glad I didn't discover the earlier videos (he's done two previous versions, in 2005 and 2006) or Harding's internet semi-fame, because to me it's the 2008 edition that packs all the power.

I started with 'why' and my emotional reaction to the piece. The music is extremely effective, of course, but for me the key to the reaction starts with the fast series of shots where all the people join him dancing. I find that section of the video unbelievably moving. I mean, I physically felt like I was going to cry when I hit that point. (I didn't, I mean, Jesus, I'm still a man, and don't you say different, varmint.)

This speaks to me with all that is important and key about video content on the internet: it must punch, and be immediate, and evocative, and most of all -- convey its message in a short, sharp burst.

What is the message? I don't know, exactly. I mean, that's what's great about this, too. At root, it's just a guy dancing. But what does it say about you, how you react to this? What does it say about me? Is it about how small really our world is? Is it about the necessity to connect with other people as best you can? Is it about beauty being where you find it? Is it a different message when passed from country to country? Is it about Carpe Diem? Is it a plea for tolerance? A challenge to find adventure in your life? Or a simple, pure, joyous celebration of what it can and should be like to be alive?

Yes.

It's all of these things.

It occurs to me that TV used to embody a lot of this, too. And not so long ago. When I would watch Sports Night or The West Wing, even though people talked fast about subjects people might have been cynical about (TV, sports, presidential politics) contained in that rapid fire were multiple meanings and emotional states left for you to uncover. You can still find that level of complexity, but largely, it's on cable, in great American dramas like The Sopranos or Six Feet Under or Deadwood, or Mad Men.

The popularity of a few current dramas, among them House, and maybe the most sophisticated of the Law & Orders, Criminal Intent, can rely on that complexity too, at times. But they speak to an older age. A rapidly growing fogey contingent of which I'm increasingly a member.

The other big news (industry news, I mean) that broke while I was snowed under last week, was the greying of the Television Audience.

I don't know who was really caught by surprise by the fact that the dominant TV audience is over 55 and mostly female. But I sure wasn't. And, unfortunately, much like the reaction to Hillary Clinton's flameout candidacy, we who toil in the trenches of TV have a couple of perilous steps ahead of us. Advertisers will be cruel and tell us that that audience -- the audience that does watch TV -- is not relevant. They don't want them. And we are being charged to go ever younger in our appeal. But woe betide us if we anger that audience that actually is there, and watching. They might not vote for us. And then the exodus from TV will become a mass desertion. And then we're cooked. The Hillary supporters, as we've seen, tend to take being marginalized a little personally. (Gee, I wonder why?)

Yet here's a funny thing: the decision makers -- the gatekeepers at networks and elsewhere, are increasingly part of that cohort. Not necessarily female (though they are, to a point) but older. So we have older people obsessed with reaching youth.

I know, I know, I know... it was ever thus. But I don't think that's true, necessarily. I think something's changed and we haven't even begun to face it yet.

In my own writing and career, I'm finding myself stymied in my instincts to pull this younger crowd. Instinctively, I know we're doing things wrong. I look at shows like the CBC's "Maria" Sound of Music contest and the shows that me and my friends work on and I think, "we are not going to hit that younger mark." We are being asked to reach an audience and then actively prevented from structuring stories, and telling them in a way that could have a hope in hell of reaching them.

I joked on Jaime Martin's Macleans blog that it would be five years before the Canadian networks get the message that the audience is over 50. That kind of "news travels slow" feeling is part gallows humor and part defence against a growing, mounting problem: the disconnect in attitude between younger viewers (and I'm not just talking 18-24 here, I'm talking about my cohort, too, 25-39) and the people who are trying to reach them. The decision makers flail and push for safe, and for what's tried and true -- yet keep repeating like some sort of zombie mantra -- "reach a younger audience."

Well we all know the old saw about what it means when you keep doing the same thing over and over and expect a different result. That seems to apply everywhere but in Television.

I don't necessarily know what the answer is -- how you do reach and engage that younger audience?

But I can't help but think that maybe it has something to do with Matt.

And so we all dance on...to quote a story of an earlier time that was, in its own way, equally obsessed with youth:

"tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther....And one fine morning----- So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

Reality Used To Be A Friend of Mine

HERE IS ME and Kate Taylor on Q, about halfway through --after the Jonas Brothers piece.

Ch ch ch ch changes

www.strike.tv Teaser from StrikeTV on Vimeo.

Logrolling for the Weekend

WELL I FORGOT. Apparently I was on Q again today with Globe & Mail entertainment writer Kate Taylor, talking "reality teevee that makes you feel dirty."

Repeats tonight at 10 on CBC Radio.

And there was this nice mention of a show I wrote in NOW Magazine's roundup of 20 years of Toronto Fringe Moments.

16. TOP GUN! THE MUSICAL (2002)
Writer Denis McGrath and composer Scott White cruised into a hit with this laugh-out-loud musical send-up of the hit film, with the gay subtext writ large and the battle between actors’ egos as gigantic as the planes the performers were supposed to pilot. The show later flew south of the border to play at the New York Musical Theatre Festival.

Have a good weekend -- oh, and keep voting on our new CanTV terms - and feel free to submit your own in the comments below.