Planes Never Take Off On Time

SIGH. WHILST I WAIT in a dingy bar in the Toronto airport, the Heritage Ministry just passed a press release where they swear they never meant to suggest that they were gonna do ANYTHING with the tax credits...

Bill C-10 has nothing to do with censorship and everything to do with the integrity of the tax system. The goal is to ensure public trust in how tax dollars are spent. The modifications in question will affect a very small number of the over 1000 productions that receive tax credits annually. We will act with great care to ensure there is no adverse effect on film financing practices in the industry.

The movies we go to see at theatres and film festivals will continue to be eligible for tax credits. The measure contained in Bill C-10 addresses only the most extreme and gratuitous material, not mainstream films such as Eastern Promises, Borderline, and Ma fille, mon ange.

It is the role of government to support the efforts of our artists, creators, and key players in our cultural industries. Canadians can be assured that we will continue to do so with passioon, respect and transparency.

Well, it's nice to know that they'll be approaching it with passioon.

I still have yet to hear a logical, clear argument about what the change is meant to block -- what was getting tax credits before that won't now? It wouldn't affect Eastern Promises, fine. Then what?

Frankly, the whole thing sounds to me like the Tories have decided that they're shocked - shocked! that anyone would think they'd try to mess with culture... Not when they have such a good record with same...

Yup. It's Captain Renault's World. I just blog in it.

One More As I Head For The Door...

REGARDING BILL C-10...

Nothing's been won yet. We still have to keep the pressure on. And we should do it by making the very real, very logical economic arguments, and by making only the most high-minded of the censorship arguments.

The government here is out of touch with the entire country, and the values of that country besides a small conservative rump. This is not a left wing versus right wing issue. There is no need to be smug. We have fact, society, truth, and sense on our side.

We also have an election coming up. Look south, to the stirrings of hope, and ask yourself if now is really the time to go backwards.

Fifteen-thousand members in the Facebook group. In four days.

The Tories are going to wish they never picked up the culture war stick.

Well, That Explains a Few Things, Then

OKAY. I KNOW. It's for an article deliberately targeted for the gay demographic.

But quotes like this -- or the long-ago CBC launch event where the creator of the new show said, "we wanted to make a show for people who don't watch TV..."

These things, they just...

...they just don't help.

"The thing about me," says Kent Staines, writer and cocreator of CBC's new series MVP: The Secret Lives of Hockey Wives, "is I know nothing about hockey. Nothing. Zero."

Sigh.

MVP is a show that, had it been executed well and consistently, could have triangulated three demos that could have made it a hit: gay men who respond the way that Staines is speaking of in this article, women who watch even though they don't really like hockey because they love hockey players, and 3 -- the men and the women who ACTUALLY LIKE THE GAME, TOO.

The L Word is not a hit because it's just lesbians watching. And talk to them writers on Queer as Folk all those years, and try to tell them that they didn't pull from the straight audience too.

I swear, does every one of us in this industry -- every single stinkin one of us, need serious media training? Gagggguuuggh!

I need a break. I'm going to Florida. Might check in. Might not. We'll see.

Gaaah!

C-10 End of Friday -- Where It Stands

THIS IS NEAR as I can tell, as of about 5 p.m. ET.

According to Gary Harvey (Robson Arms,) who's had direct contact with the Senate, C-10 is now going back to the banking committee. (The relevant thread is here, in the comments.) Others are saying this means that the bill has been suspended from its third reading. That's not confirmed, but that's my understanding of what happens under our parliamentary system when something is referred back to committee. Remember, the Liberals have a Majority in the Senate, not the Conservatives. So this may be one of those few cases where the Senate actually is able to do something.

This afternoon, the Writers Guild of Canada sent out this release:

Writers Guild of Canada Calls for Public Consultation

on Film and Television Tax Credit Guidelines

For Immediate Release

February 29, 2008 – Toronto – Among the amendments to the country’s Income Tax Act currently before Senate is legislation charging the Department of Heritage with the creation of new guidelines that could bring further instability and bureaucracy to the film and television industry in Canada. The proposed new guidelines will define what is “contrary to public policy,” and provide the power to retroactively revoke tax credits for those productions deemed to fall within that definition.

The WGC learned in a conversation today that the Department of Heritage has already created these guidelines, expanding the criteria used for denying tax credits. These guidelines will come into effect as soon as Bill C-10 receives royal assent.

“Given that the guidelines could have far-reaching implications for the industry, we want input into the process,” says Rebecca Schechter, President, Writers Guild of Canada. “The reality is that, in Canada, securing tax credits is an essential step to a project being financed. It is not for the Department of Heritage to decide in isolation what films and TV productions will get made.”

Maureen Parker, Executive Director, Writers Guild of Canada, says that “without the ability to have confidence in the tax credit piece of the financing puzzle, there will be fewer productions in Canada. The new guidelines could cost the Canadian economy thousands of jobs and hundreds of millions of production dollars each year.”

The WGC calls on the Government of Canada, the Heritage Committee and the Department of Heritage to go back to the creative community before issuing the new guidelines to discuss their necessity, and to get input on the direction they should take.

A couple of anecdotal things:

• Apparently the Governor General's office has been going crazy all day from people writing in about this. They were seriously caught off guard.
• A Facebook group that was formed soon after this broke on Thursday, Keep Your Censoring Hands off of Canadian Film and TV! No To Bill C-10! which I joined as the eighth member, has grown to over 3, 249 members. In 24 hours. There's full info there on who to write, and example letters of what you should write.
  

That, in itself is incredible, when you consider the power of the social networking site to mobilize that many people, that quickly. Here's another thing. That group of 3, 249 members (and growing) are young, educated, and urban. They are plugged in and connected. I doubt there's more than a handful of Senators in Canada who've even heard of Facebook.

The demographics of Canada are shifting -- to more urban, more sophisticated. This cohort is only going to grow in the next few years. And in Quebec, where the Conservatives made inroads last election, they care about culture pretty deeply. This thing has the potential to turn into a millstone issue for the Tories. They thought they were throwing a little culture war red meat to their base. There could be some reaping and sowing in their future.

Also, through the WGC again, I learned today that part of the changes in the Income Tax Act actually grew out of industry consultations, including some changes to rules that the WGC was in favor of. But typically, in the execution, the government went for top-down and hamfisted:

The Income Tax Act has contained a provision that permits CAVCO to deny certification to any film or video production that is “…contrary to public policy” since 1997. In 2003, CAVCO and other Departments, including Heritage and Finance proposed amendments to the legislation which included a few things the WGC lobbied for.

#1 Section 125.4 (1) of the Act outlines an expansion of the base of the tax credit to now include development of script material within two years before the first day of principal photography, whereas previously, it was only the final draft included in the tax credit. This will encourage more to be spent on Canadian writers in development because the producers will get an enhanced credit for it.

The other thing we lobbied for is that the identity of all film and video productions that receive tax credits be made public . Bill C-10 now contains this much needed transparency. This is another personal win for us because the WGC specifically asked for confirmation from CAVCO of films or TV productions certified as a Canadian. We have been very concerned about productions written by non Canadians (and less than 6 points) qualifying as Canadian content. We want to ensure that our tax dollars are supporting productions written by a Canadian citizens or “true” landed immigrant - those who actually reside in Canada.

It's typical that something that started with a call for greater transparency somewhere along the way led to the Heritage Committee drawing up guidelines, by themselves, behind closed doors. Welcome to Canada.

The WGC, through back channels and official contacts made the following request:

We would like a formal assurance that the artistic community will have input in the guidelines and that the guidelines will not by influenced a particular ideology or social agenda.

They also spoke to various MP's and political party staff. Letters are coming in from all over. The advice the WGC received was to request an appearance in front of the banking committee. That's what they're doing.

Brian Anthony of the Directors Guild of Canada sent out this release this afternoon:

When we became aware of this legislation yesterday, we immediately sprang into action and wrote to the Minister of Canadian Heritage expressing our concern and urging her in the strongest possible terms to reconsider and revoke this amendment. We also issued a press release, which has been posted on the DGC web site for your reference. I then contacted a number of Senators, including a couple of members of the Senate Banking Committee and its Clerk. The good news is that Bill C-10 has been referred back to the Banking Committee and its members will decide next week whether or not they wish to hear witnesses. I have asked to appear before the committee if it does indeed decide to hold hearings, and other interested parties from our sector will want to be involved as well.

The concern that we raised in the letter to the Minister and in the press release is that this broad provision could not only have a chilling effect on artistic expression but could also discourage investment in film and television production. You will be interested to know that the proposed measure applies only to Canadian film and television productions and not to service productions.

So that's the answer to that question. In other words, this bonehead government is actually trying to make the burden on Canadian producers harder, while giving U.S. producers a pass.

The optics just get worse and worse on this thing.

In any case, now's the time keep the pressure on. Write the P.M. and your MP and the Culture Critics for all the major parties, if you haven't done so already. Call into talk radio. Write letters to the editor. Call your constituent office and ask what they're doing about this. For Godsake...speak up!

This thing almost, almost went through without a peep. And if we've learned one thing about this government is that they have no problem acting like they have a huge majority, when they don't.

Now I hear rumors that there may be YouTube videos about to be made of those most offensive, gratuitously violent tales -- you know, from the Bible and stuff. Exxxxxcelllent.

Poor Tories. They really have no idea about this whole 21st century thing, do they?

Keep the pressure up. Remember -- these guys have to fight an election in a few months. Let them do that wearing the censorship scarlet letter.

While Senators Snooze, There's Some Heap Good Movie Makin Goin On.

ALL THE FOOFERAL over this Bill C-10 thing has prevented me from writing a proper review of The Englishman's Boy.

The adaptation of the Guy Vanderhaeghe novel, which he adapted himself, is Directed by John Smith (The Boys of St. Vincent.)

I've seen part one. And Holy God it is good. It's REALLY good. How good? Well, let me 'homage' a bit from John Doyle's review today in the Globe and Mail:

The Englishman's Boy (Sunday, CBC, 8 p.m.) is lavish, convincing and superbly done.

This is no small achievement. The novel is dense and layered, with three levels of story operating in different time periods: the present, Hollywood of the 1920s and Saskatchewan in the 1870s. The TV miniseries (continuing a week from Sunday on CBC) is adapted by Vanderhaeghe himself and distills the epic story into two interwoven tales.

The central event, occurring in 1873 and based on fact, is the massacre of 36 Assiniboine Indians in Cypress Hills, Sask., by a band of Canadian and American wolf hunters. In Vanderhaeghe's version, one of those involved is Shorty McAdoo (Michael Eisner), whom we meet first when he is the servant to an Englishman in Montana. When the Englishman dies, the boy falls into the company of one Tom Hardwick, a ruthless, psychopathic wolf hunter and leader of a local hunting crew.

Skip forward to the 1920s and a Hollywood film set, in the age of silent movies, where a western is being made. A stunt goes wrong, because of the ineptitude and uncaring attitude of the director (Don McKellar). An elderly man (Nicholas Campbell), whom we learn is the older Shorty, takes swift and concise revenge on the director. From there we see a writer, Harry Vincent (Michael Therriault, who starred in Prairie Giant: The Tommy Douglas Story), make contact with Shorty and gradually extract from Shorty the story of his long and strange life. Vincent wants the story so that Hollywood mogul Damon Chance (Bob Hoskins) can make a "true" American epic from the tale.

The first two hours move swiftly and elegantly through the twin stories. The pace is perfect as the full force of Shorty's life emerges. This is a gripping, tense and sharply made western drama.

Here's why it's important that people watch this movie: as much as I'm generally in favor with the CBC's new direction in trying to go for younger, accessible shows, that shouldn't come totally at the expense of this kind of rich, layered, epic production. This was commissioned under a previous CBC regime and it's been on the shelf a long, long time. There's a danger like with October 1970, or the Levesque movie, this is going to get dumped and "prove" that there's no audience for bigger, more serious movies on the CBC. Watch it, and prove'em wrong.

And if you want a little more meat to chew on while you decide, read Brian Johnson's ASTONISHING, honest, searing profile of Nicholas Campbell (DaVinci's Inquest) in Maclean's this week.

The actor starred in Da Vinci's Inquest for seven seasons, followed by one season with Da Vinci's City Hall, which the CBC cancelled in 2006. He figures his salary ranged from $16,000 to $30,000 an episode. "I thought it was a paycheque that was never going to end," he says. "I was on a successful show. But I was totally irresponsible in my financial dealings. I was living a fool's paradise."

Campbell swears he never gambled large amounts at the track. But between jobs he would spend the whole day there, handicapping 70 or 80 races around the world, and the dollars added up. He also bought horses, owning more than 60 in partnerships over the years. "When I started to get negative energy from the tax people," he says, "I was on the hook with the horses and had to pay my end until they could replace my investment. I thought I'd eventually be able to catch up. It didn't work out that way."

It goes on. Unbelievable article. Wow.

You know, between Mayerthorpe, and Tassie Cameron's Would Be Kings, this has been a HELL of a month for Canadian TV movies.

Not bad for a format everyone says is dead.

I'll try to get my thoughts up about Englishman's Boy before Part 2 airs. Meantime, Sunday night, Please, please, please tune in. To not watch something this good would really be offensive. And you know how Daddy with the helmet hair feels about that word...

Oh Yeah. It's a Brave New World Post Strike.

OR, UM, ER....not.

NBC has pulled the plug on its Internet-to-TV experiment "Quarterlife" -- a decision that apparently won't bother its creator too much.

After a premiere that pulled in historically low ratings on Tuesday, the series from "My So-Called Life" creators Marshall Herskovitz and Ed Zwick has been pulled from the 9 p.m. Sunday timeslot where it was scheduled to air for the next several weeks. "Deal or No Deal" and a "Law & Order" rerun will fill the hour for the next two weeks.

"Quarterlife" drew a CW-esque 3.1 million viewers in its debut at 10 p.m. Tuesday -- the worst in-season performance in the 10 p.m. hour by an NBC show in at least 17 years.

...but, you know, we're gonna cancel the upfronts and we're not gonna pay a lot for hits or anything anymore. No suh. Not us. Sez Jeff Zucker.

And we're sure enough not gonna get into any bidding wars for....heyyyyy:

ABC is reportedly interested in picking up "Scrubs" for next season -- which is news to NBC, the network that currently airs the hospital comedy.

The showbiz trade papers say that ABC Studios, which produces the series, is in talks with its sister network to produce an 18-episode season of "Scrubs" for 2008-09. Here's the rub, though: NBC says it's still in a period of exclusive negotiations with the studio about the show's fate.

Oh yeah.

Jeff Zucker needs his milkshake drunk.

Does Mary Darling Owe You an Apology?

Mary Darling is the Executive Producer of Little Mosque on the Prairie. She has a specific talent for saying really unfortunate things in print.

But we'll get to that.

When last we left the Bill C-10 story, the industry was caught flat-footed by a sneaky Tory plan to open up a Canadian front in the U.S.-style culture wars through an amendment to the Income Tax Act. This amendment, now in a bill at 3rd reading in the Senate, (ie: it's almost law) would allow them to retroactively deny funding to films and television shows the Heritage Ministry deemed "offensive." Have the words "Heritage Ministry" ever sounded so ominous?

Last night, I was at an industry grad for outgoing writers for the Canadian Film Centre. Of course, everyone was talking about this latest travesty, and the conservative war on culture in general. Notably, several Producers I talked to related nervous conversations they'd had yesterday with American producers, asking if this "crazy new rule change"was going to apply to them. The short answer, as I wrote yesterday, is that it might, which is bad. And it might not, which is worse - at least for us. Make no mistake, though. Yesterday Hollywood definitely took notice.

Also, last night, The Canadian Press moved an article where Tory spinners at the Heritage Department tried to suggest that this this was really no big deal:

"The amendment replaces a similar provision that was in the income tax regulations between 1996 and 2005. Therefore it is not a new concept," Heritage spokeswoman Annette Gibbons said Thursday.

"Cultural funding program criteria have always included certain kinds of material such as hate propaganda, excessively violent material or pornography."

However, the department has occasionally received material that raised questions and it decided to update the criteria.

The added criteria will include child pornography, gratuitous violence and the denigration of an identifiable group.

This is a fairly transparent dodge. First, if pornography already isn't eligible for tax credits (and it's not) then surely child pornography isn't, either. Anyone with any experience with the culture wars will tell you that it's the "gratuitous" in violence that gives you the fun fights. It sounds like something nobody could object to, right?

Unfortuntely, that gentle little spin couldn't even hold up for one night. So we come today, and this story:

Evangelist takes credit for film crackdown

Christian crusader says he pressured cabinet ministers and PMO officials to deny tax credits to productions deemed too offensive

BILL CURRY AND GAYLE MACDONALD

From Friday's Globe and Mail

February 29, 2008 at 4:00 AM EST

OTTAWA, TORONTO — A well-known evangelical crusader is claiming credit for the federal government's move to deny tax credits to TV and film productions that contain graphic sex and violence or other offensive content.

Charles McVety, president of the Canada Family Action Coalition, said his lobbying efforts included discussions with Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day and Justice Minister Rob Nicholson, and "numerous" meetings with officials in the Prime Minister's Office.

"We're thankful that someone's finally listening," he said yesterday. "It's fitting with conservative values, and I think that's why Canadians voted for a Conservative government."

Aha!

So, why do I think Mary Darling might owe you an apology?

Well, in that same CP article where the Tories tried to put out the innocuous spin, Darling, beneficiary of your tax dollars and a half hour a week on the public broadcaster, had this to say:

"There are a lot of things on TV today that, I think, have gone too far," said Mary Darling, executive producer of "Little Mosque on the Prairie," which airs in over 80 markets globally, including French-speaking Africa, the Middle East and several European countries.

"If something comes along that helps us to at least discern what is acceptable . . . then I think, as a producer, I'd be willing to look at that and explore it."

Now, I would love to think that maybe Darling was misquoted here. And I'll be more than happy to correct myself if that turns out to be the case. But she does have a history of this kind of thing.

It was Darling who, in the first days of the WGA strike, led the charge of giving interviews saying how great the strike was going to be for Canadian producers. One of the most egregious to the Canadian creative community was this one, which a lot of creatives refer to as "the sparkle dust incident," where she managed to, in one fell swoop, insult the talent that she works with every day, and suggest that it would be great if Canadian born WGA writers, you know, broke their own strike rules and came home to work.

Mary Darling, head of Westwind Pictures, the production company behind the CBC hit "Little Mosque on the Prairie," says such a reverse brain drain to the north can only be good for the Canadian industry.

"We've heard some whispers from some talent down in Los Angeles, people trying to cover their butts who shall remain nameless," she said.

"This strike could end up spilling a little bit of sparkle dust on the Canadian community. There's so much Canadian talent down there ... there may be some really interesting, wonderful opportunities for Canadian producers as they draw on the experiences of people who have done volumes and volumes and volumes of writing in L.A. who are coming back home and want to stay home."

Translation: Oooh, we get to work with American writers?

Now, of course, that didn't happen. There was no mass exodus up north.

Darling was also quoted in just about every article about how many Canadian shows were going to be sold to the USA. In the end, three sold. (and I'll admit, I got quoted in some articles too, saying I didn't think any would sell. I was wrong, too.) But, of the three shows that sold, only one had been made already: Sophie -- and that show sold to a cable channel, not an over the air network. The other two shows were in an early stage of production, and therefore more attractive (since the U.S. nets will actually be able to help shape the content.)

Little Mosque, Darling's show, did not sell to the U.S.A. It still hasn't.

Okay, so she managed to piss off Canadian talent and give a bunch of hyperbolic interviews. She wouldn't be the first person to do that. But this latest quote is chilling, because if you go back to this morning's coverage, here's the kind of "limits" that people are talking about:

Mr. McVety said films promoting homosexuality, graphic sex or violence should not receive tax dollars, and backbench Conservative MPs and cabinet ministers support his campaign.

"There are a number of Conservative backbench members that do a lot of this work behind the scenes," he said.

Conservative MP Dave Batters recently urged the new president of Telefilm Canada, Michel Roy, to block federal funding for objectionable films, listing Young People Fucking as a recent example.

"In my mind, sir, and in the minds of many of my colleagues and many, many Canadians," said Mr. Batters during a Jan. 31 meeting of the Canadian Heritage committee, "the purpose of Telefilm is to help facilitate the making of films for mainstream Canadian society - films that Canadians can sit down and watch with their families in living rooms across this great country."

Ahh, so there we go. And there it is.

The most shocking thing about Young People Fucking, of course, is the title. The movie is actually quite sweet, and winds up coming down firmly on the side of monogamy, and the need for people to form lasting relationships. But in order to come to that conclusion, you have to watch it. And absorb it. If you get bent out of shape by words, and titles, and the surface of things -- you never get that far.

The people want to set the limits which Darling feels she could consider are the people who never get that far.

Question: how long before those backbenchers start asking why we're spending tax credits to "make fun of Christians" and "promote Muslim propaganda?" Don't tell me it can't happen and that those people aren't out there. Not when I have to turn on comments moderation every damn time I write about Little Mosque. Darling should have known better. She should have known where this kind of thing leads.

It's not like there aren't producers who don't understand the implications. Marvin Kaye is a young writer-producer, and a guy I play Poker with. His half hour comedy, Less Than Kind, starring Maury Chaykin, with Mark McKinney writing and showrunning behind the scenes, just finished shooting in Winnipeg. It will air on Citytv stations later this year. The show is a family comedy, based on his experiences growing up in Winnipeg. But when I say "family comedy" I don't mean the kind of "family comedy" Conservative back benchers mean. I mean the kind of raucous, brutally funny, and occasionally uncomfortable experience a lot of us had when we were growing up.

The show's shot. It's in the can. And to get it made, Kaye watched as the production company squeezed every dollar till it screamed -- including the tax credits. So how does he feel about the possibility that those credits could be retroactively pulled?

"Terrified."

And what about Mary Darling's idea that she's willing to "look at" their ideas of "what's acceptable?"

"It's frightening to me that she would say that," says Kaye. "This should strike fear into the hearts of anybody who wants to create quality tv. If she's happy to be put in a box that's great for her, I don't want to work within a box that's defined by a bureaucratic committee. Judge the quality of the work. Not the content."

In an email exchange with one of my Showrunners on The Border, the ever patient David Barlow, he pointed out that tax credits are an extremely poor way to try and influence content. There are plenty of other mechanisms, from Telefilm to the CTF, to try and have an impact on the content of shows.

Tax credits are intended as an industrial subsidy for an industry that employs hundreds, thousands of people. And it's not really a subsidy, it's more of a stimulus - the governments get back far more tax dollars because of these credits than they give up.

So get this -- this even goes against what should be stated Conservative principles -- to stimulate the economy. Politicizing them in this way is not just destabilizing to an industry that can ill afford it...it's bad policy.

I sometimes give Producers a hard time on this blog. (A couple even kidded me about it last night.) But I respect and admire what they do, and that's the truth. Because I couldn't do what they do. And I wouldn't want to. That's not where my talents lie.

Lord, putting together a show in Canada is not an easy proposition. Finding that last bit of money can be torturous. Everything's wait and wait and then hurry up and get it done. You have to jump through hoops and regs that are ever-changing. You wind up deferring your fees half the time to get the thing made. And if you go over -- you pay for it. It's nervewracking. It's heartbreaking, difficult, sometimes tedious work, and the tenacity and good humour I've seen from some of the people who manage to keep doing it year after year, is truly incredible.

If I was Sandra Cunningham, the head of the CFTPA, I would be placing a call to Mary Darling today to ask her, "why would you go on record and say what you said?" If I was another Canadian producer who meticulously structured my cobbled together budget like jenga sticks, I'd want to know if she knew the implications of what she was saying. And If I was an Executive at the CBC, who just received a vote of confidence from Parliament where, predictably, the Conservatives dissented, I would be calling the Executive Producer of my highest rated comedy, to ask her how she thought she was helping.

And if I were you, I'd write Mary Darling at Westwind Pictures and I'd ask her the same thing.

marydarling@westwindpictures.com

Please write your MP, and tell them that tax credits are no way to influence the culture. That's the important issue here.

Canadian Viewers: How You Can Oppose The Tories' Sneaky TV Censorship

READ this first.

Then, find your MP (Member of Parliament) by searching by Postal Code here. It's especially important to do this if you live in a riding represented by a Conservative MP.

Next, write a letter. It should be faxed or emailed -- this bill is in its 3rd reading, which means that it could become law very soon. There's no time to mail. I would also call your constituent office to express your displeasure directly.

I would also suggest writing a letter to your local newspaper. Tell them how you feel about censorship. Try not to do so in a way that will get you censored.

If you have a call-in talk show on the radio in your community, call in. Tell them how you feel. Make sure to emphasize how sneakily this is being done. Along with a whole bunch of other changes to the Income Tax act.

While you're at it, you may want to write the Minister of Canadian Heritage. Tell her you don't appreciate her trying to pull a fast one like this. Remind her that she serves as part of a minority government -- a minority government by a party who's not getting a ton of great press right now.

You can also write the Leader of the Official Opposition.

Good luck, and if you do write a letter, thank you.

The Death of Hope

I HAD ONE MORE post I was going to put up today, to cap off the week. But that'll sit unfinished in my draft folder for now. Cause I happened to open my newspaper and read this article by Gayle MacDonald in the Globe and Mail this morning:

Tories plan to withhold funding for 'offensive' productions

Committee to decide whether material meets new criteria

GAYLE MACDONALD

From Thursday's Globe and Mail

February 28, 2008 at 2:07 AM EST

The Conservative government has drafted guidelines that would allow it to pull financial aid for any film or television show that it deems offensive or not in the public's best interest – even if government agencies have invested in them.

The proposed changes to the Income Tax Act would allow the Heritage Minister to deny tax credits to projects deemed offensive, effectively killing the productions. Representatives from Heritage and the Department of Justice will determine which shows or films pass the test.

(article continues)

That's it, friends.

It's over.

This is the other shoe dropping. Remember friend to the Tories Jim Shaw's railing against Trailer Park Boys? Here's the proof that his opinion is worth more than any of yours.

Now, before you get into the "censorship" implications, let me stop you. Because the argument shouldn't even get there. That's exactly where the Tories want the argument to go -- because to their base, this is red meat. It's a chance to stick it to all those faggots and pot smoking cussers and dirty sex birds. It's a chance to reframe things, and make the culture nice. You know, just like how they protect people down south from Janet Jackson's nipple. Welcome to the Culture Wars, Canadian Edition.

And as for nuanced discourse, people who may share differing views you could still talk to. That's 20th century, baby. That shit is dead, dead, dead.

Also, remember that there is no first amendment in Canada. The right to free speech under the Charter of Rights is not absolute.

No, because this is Canada, and making cultural or intellectual arguments gets you nowhere, let's just go with the economic argument.

Canadian production rests upon a system of scraping together money that's precarious, that productions will make crews drive 60 miles outside of major cities just to pick up an extra 5% tax credit.

Now what they're saying is, in a land where it's impossible to get anything done, you may thread all those needles, and make something, and then find after the fact that one person doesn't like what you did, and can bankrupt your whole production.

That's in the fantasy that anything will get made at all. Besides, you know, Avonlea: The Endless Edition.

As Christopher Bolton (Producer, Star, Rent-A-Goalie) put it:

From a business perspective this will destroy our industry. Period. The proposed process of assessing content for moral appropriateness after the fact will never have to be implemented because we simply won't get the financing to make projects in the first place. What bank/financial institution will want to gamble that their version of morality is the same as our Heritage Minister's or his/her appointed panel? Banks don't bank, pardon the pun, on wiggle room.

Next, let's look at what this means for Runaway Production. Is 'American Pie 17' or 'The Incredible Hulk' held to the same rules and regulations as indigenous production? American producers are looking to appease their workforce ergo they're looking for reasons to shoot at home. Here's one more and it's a big one – I doubt Paramount wants to be dictated to where content is concerned and can we afford to lose those dollars, numbering in the billions, spent here yearly?

The point about service or Runaway Production is a good one. Is the Government going to impose its quaint new "Blue Laws" on Foreign Production in the country? If so, those shoots are gone. GONE. POOF.

Vancouver, did you enjoy the shutdown during the WGA strike? Congratulations. Let's make it permanent.

If not, then what they're doing is suggesting they do something MORE to put DOMESTIC films and programs at an economic disadvantage. A double standard that allows foreign productions to do what our domestic industry can't.

By the way, CTV ran the Sopranos unbleeped in prime time for three years. The country didn't fall. Is that okay now? Are you going to be calling Ivan Fecan later today to warn him of the new blue?

Two-thousand-eight has already been a terrible, fraught year for Canadian Television.

It's just too hard to do this. Enough. Enough already.

Without the censorship argument -- which is considerable, this is a simply insane, unworkable, industry-killing suggestion. And they're slipping it in at 3rd reading to a bill.

EDIT:
I've edited this part since first publishing, in the heat of being un-fucking-believably incensed by this article.

There have been journalists who've hinted this stuff, and been on this beat. And as was pointed out to me by not one, but two journalists, where did I find out about this?

From a newspaper article.

Yup. Okay. My bad, as the kids say. Journalists are doing their jobs. But they generally tend to be the Arts journalists. And I'm starting to believe that arts journalists are listened to in this country only slightly more than bloggers and citizens, and, you know, stray dogs and kittens and pieces of fluff and stuff.

I'm tired of being Cassandra. This is the part where I wearily say, "write your MP. Write letters to the editors, tell the Business people you deal with about how crazy this is, etc, etc, etc, etc."

And now I have to spend an afternoon NOT doing my job, to try to save my job.

Is it gonna do any good? I don't know. I just don't know anymore.

Free Diablo!

KAY REINDL of Seriocity has what I think should be the official screenwriter response to the clearly sexist, tiresome, and completely retarded Diablo Cody "backlash."

Just a taste:

Diablo Cody wrote a SCREENPLAY, it got MADE, she won an OSCAR, and now she's sold out. What exactly was she supposed to do with a screenplay? She's not that DIY band playing in their parents' front room. SHE'S A FUCKING SCREENWRITER. She writes screenplays. She's reached the goal of all screenwriters -- to see their fucking words onscreen. So WTF? Is she not supposed to succeed? Even a hipster (in a good way) like Cory Doctorow makes a living as a writer.

I love the notion that Diablo Cody's a rebel, too. Exactly what is she rebelling against? What the dude really means, frankly, is that she doesn't look like the rest of the schlubby writers. Girlfriend's got a persona, she worked it, and it got her noticed. But what seems to be lost in the shuffle is the fact that she can also write. She's got a gimmick, but she's NOT a gimmick.

So congratulations, Diablo Cody, for winning an Oscar and having the ride of your life. Thanks for raising the torch for all female screenwriters, for making writers hot, and Goddam you to hell for giving sleazy producers the idea that they can find hot female screenwriters by searching the web for porn.

Now we all have to start hitting the gym, trade in our jeans for animal print sarongs, and figure out our stripper names.

The Full Post, which is well worth reading, is available here.

"It Came From The Comments!"

READER & NEW O.B.F. (Official Bestest Friend) of the blog Julia posted a comment this morning that is so delicious and true and succinct that I reproduce it in its entirety here for your dining and dancing pleasure:

I was talking to a showrunner-level writer the other day who came up the old school way. This writer started out in the mid-nineties, back when writers were trained old skool: Get a job on a show staffed and run by professional writers and learn the craft of writing and the art of showrunning. Get a lot of experience, become a showrunner.

Now, any yob with a "great idea" gets a development deal, even if they have no writing experience. When the broadcast executives/non-writing producers realize the mistake they've made (and the fact their show has no engine), an experienced writer is hired to "help" the noob. Trouble is, the writer is not given the authority to follow through on the creative fixes they're proposing.

Said noob ignores suggestions and notes from the experienced writer, clings to old ideas, and yet another sucky show is produced, runs for two years and dies a merciful death.

Without knowing it, Julia has just completely described not just the current state of where the U.S. TV industry is going, but also the state of where the Canadian industry has been. (There's also the complicating factor of non-writing producers with POD deals but that's a topic for another post.)

That's why I titled the post she commented on, "And Maybe We'll Meet in the Middle."

I've tried to build my career by working for other people, and learning as much as I can from them. I did co-create a show -- at a point where I wouldn't have wanted to be the person calling the final shots anyway. I've tried to pick up what I can, and build a full skillset both in writing and producing -- the latter stretching back even before I was writing, to years of in-network producing experience with documentary and smaller projects.

It's actually really hard to build your career that way in Canada. But I've not regretted it. Some of my experiences have taught me the good way, some the bad (ie: "whoa, gotta remember NOT to do THAT!") but the net result is I'm comfortable now in a lot of arenas that were an utter mystery to me six or seven years ago. When I get a solo show on the air, not only am I going to be able to build a great writing staff, but I'm gonna be able to draw and the past and future advice of my peers.

That's called doing it old school, friends.

And in a business where nothing's a sure thing, it's the only way to increase the odds. I can't believe that Hollywood is actually moving away from it. I look at the future, and I see lots more Bionic Womans. Brrrr.

Thanks Julia. I owe you a vodka something.

Listen To The Guy Who's Presently Hiring

THE REDOUBTABLE JOHN ROGERS, who's currently figuring out who he's gonna hire on LEVERAGE, has some very trenchant advice.

Some edited excerpts from Kung Fu Monkey's "I Drink Your Script Shake":

I have, in front of me, 113 scripts to read. A good chunk of these folk are for mid-level and up, meaning they're starting with better credits than you. Assuming, of course, you got an agent to submit you into the pile. All this for 12 episodes on a cable network. Times have changed.

So how do you claw your way to, if not the top, the upper middle of this slab? I'm beginning to evolve a new bit of advice now that I'm actually on the receiving end. Write a spec show that's on the air for agenting, and a pilot for staffing.

Spec shows, if they're written properly, are painfully particular to the show in question. Your entire job when writing a spec episode is to show that you can learn and adapt to a show's specific rhythms, making you a valuable addition to any staff. (You never spec the show you're trying to get hired on. But you know that.)

The problem is, it's not ten years ago, and there's not a damn bit of guarantee that you're speccing a show the show-runner watches. Now -- once you drop out of the top ten shows, the next fifty or so all smear out to roughly a ten share. One in ten people watch the show you're speccing, odds are, and showrunners are often even more eclectic in their television tastes.

But as soon as you have an agent and can reasonably write a pilot without making a total ass of yourself -- do so.

The full article is more than a good read -- it's a primer, yo.

Slate and The West Wing's Crystal Ball

SLATE TODAY HAS up a video piece that finally deconstructs something I've been pondering for a while: how the sixth and seventh seasons of The West Wing eerily predicted the 2008 Presidential Race.

By this time, the show was far past its once-vaunted viewer peak, but if you go back and watch those two, final Sorkin-less seasons now, you'll find them arguably far more trenchant than when they first aired.

TV writers are always playing a game with currency. As the most responsive of mediums, TV is great at being able to deal with things that people are talking about right now.

A movie, by contrast, has a long shooting schedule, then a big marketing run up that can mean that they have to try and guess what's going to be in the zeitgeist. When they hit, they hit. When they don't, you get a whole bunch of Iraq-themed movies that fail because everybody's sick to death of talking about Iraq, and are about to get blitzed on the economy and the sub-prime mortgage scandal.

A book, too, requires a year or more to get on the publishing schedule, unless it's a quickie cash in book that finds itself fast-tracked -- and those are usually the kind of lite-lit that follow trends, instead of leading them.

But a TV series that's in production is a bit of an assembly line -- and I mean that in the best way. Whatever the merits of the episode, The West Wing had a 9/11 response episode on the air within about a month of 9/11. You can do that when you're crewed up and going from script to finished ep in 6 weeks.

We've gotten lucky on the Canadian series, The Border, in anticipating a couple of things. I had a story about child soliders and Darfur that seemed pretty current when it aired. The week before we had a story about illegal kidney harvesting, just days after news of an Indian ring doing just that broke -- it even had a Canadian connection.

But for sheer, "oooh, how did they guess that?" the sixth and seventh seasons of The West Wing take the cake.

Briefly, a young and not so experienced minority congressman, Matt Santos, runs for the democratic nomination.

He has to overcome an insider candidacy by the sitting Vice President, who's much better financed, and seems to have it locked up.

The primary season leads to no clear winner, and leads to a brokered convention.

The opponent in the general is a Republican Senator, Arthur Vinick, who has a lot of experience, but who faces doubts from the conservative wing of the party -- who don't trust him because he doesn't share their views.

Now, to a certain extent, goosing the limits of what was possible under the U.S. political system was always one of the wonky joys of West Wing. The 25th Amendment, Posse Comitatus, and the line of succession all provided memorable fodder for shows.

But as the Slate video story reveals, Eli Attie has all but admitted that Matt Santos did share some unexpected DNA with a certain Senator from Illinois.

Another Notch in the Kwa-La-Tee Post

HOPEFULLY LATER TODAY when the numbers leak for Robson Arms' "sneak preview" premiere after American Idol, the story will be about how much of their audience was retained from the karaoke behemoth. (one minute of which I accidentally caught last night. Man, brr. I get it on an intellectual level. But...brr.)

CTV is smart in following recent broadcasting trends -- if you were tuned into IDOL, you got the goodnights,short, short title card, a "CTV Original Programming" slate and BOOM, right into Robson Arms.

American networks learned a couple years back that they had to eliminate the between-shows break or face mass flight of the audience. If 30% of your audience fled in that last break, that still got counted in your average and pulled your numbers down. A real no-no. As much as that's made it difficult for writers to adjust to the extra act break in their shows (those ads have to go somewhere) when you see minute-by-minute data you have to admit it's the right decision. (CBC, are you listening?)

Anyway, onto Robson. Robson's never been a show that I've seen every episode of. I saw roughly half-t0-three quarters of the show last year, owing to not having a VCR when it was on -- and I saw fewer shows in first season.

In the beginning, I sometimes found myself caught off guard by the drama to comedy mix in the show. I'd tune in one show and it seemed really dramatic, and another and it seemed really funny. Last year, I saw a bunch of shows where both co-existed in the same show a lot better.

Well, I don't know what's changed. Maybe it's me. Or maybe it's the fact that thanks to providence or largesse or whatever, CTV has given them a third magic season, which means there's been three years to live with these characters and watch them change -- but I thought last night's show was simply teriffic. It was really enjoyable -- a mad mix of pathos and funny. Not a lot of guffaw-guffaw funny, but the kind of solid good natured, good humour you used to find on Northern Exposure. There was a brio and confidence in the shooting and the directing that served the material extremely well.

Three years with characters allow them to grow a bit, change a bit and wear those changes. John Cassini is still fabulous as Yuri, but now he's sympathetic -- which is ... odd. (He also looks a lot like he does in Intelligence. Methinks, um, maybe there was an overlap in shooting scheds this time?) Gabrielle Miller as Bobbi is all the more lovely for her change in circumstance (and her character in the show was one that I didn't warm to initially.)

Dave Foley's on board as the new American owner, and he's got some of that great dissipated dangerousness he brings to all those Poker shows.

As the Globe and Mail's John Doyle put it in his review:

It's a delight to see the residents of Robson Arms again. The series is a smartly made social comedy, aimed at grownups and the better for it. What's really interesting about tonight's new episode is the presentation of the new American owners. They're kooky, and at first you think all that "howdy" stuff means that the show is being a tad heavy on the cutes. But you soon get the idea that there's something vaguely menacing about all that forced geniality. These are selfish, self-absorbed people.

Actually, the thing that I like most about the character Foley plays is that he's not the stereotypical Canadian "bad guy" American. He and his wife are kind of hippie kooks -- they sleep in rejuvenation tanks and wife swap and follow vision quests. A bit of loony-leftie Californian lampooning is just enough of a fresh take on the "Our American Cousin" interloper that it keeps it fresh.

Robson Arms' 3rd season continues again tonight, at 9;30 pm, after American Idol. It's fun, it's engaging, and in a kinder, less colonized broadcast landscape, it'd be a huge, smacking hit.

I think I might go try to find earlier seasons on DVD.

Now if only clicking the "Season 3 Trailer" on the CTV Broadband site actually worked.

Suppose you can't have everything...

And Maybe We'll Meet in the Middle

I FOUND THIS courtesy of Jaime Weinman.

From Zap2It:

CBS' cult-favorite vampire drama "Moonlight" is expected to shoot its last four episodes of the season without a showrunner.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Chip Johannessen has exited the first-year bloodsucking soap for unspecified reasons. Rather than finding a new showrunner/exec producer to take his place, the trade paper says that Joel Silver and the show's writing staff will collectively work to bring in the last four episodes.

Remember that one of the biggest surprises in the recent WGA strike (for the studios, anyway) was that the Showrunners walked out on their own shows -- standing firm with their writers.

If recent Hollywood history is anything to go by, this is all part of the post fin-syn trend, where networks now own their shows. This led to a devaluation in the power of the production companies, and a rise in the power (and the notes) coming from networks.

Did it also result in a greater hit-to-miss ratio? Erm. No.

The reminder that Showrunners at their core, first and foremost, are writers had to have sent a bit of a ripple through the network firmament. Writers are weird and in a perfect world, networks would much rather not have to deal with them. If they could, they'd deal with non-writing producers all the time.

What does this mean for Moonlight? Well, sorry fans, but I have to make a completely bold prediction here, go out on a limb and say, the show's gonna suck.

You take away the vision of a showrunner and a show implodes. You start with two strikes against you.

Interestingly, of course, in Canada it's much more common for the non-writing producers to run things. In fact, of the three shows that recently sold to U.S. nets, only one has a traditional Showrunner as the person at the top, answerable for the vision and creative content. The other two employ a 'head writer' structure.

Interesting to see what happens. While we struggle here with trying to make our shows better, forces push the U.S. toward a creeping Canadian model.

Stay tuned.

(But not to Moonlight. Dude, that show's gonna suck.)

Don't Kid Yourself Who The Sharks Are In This Scenario

THE WGA STRIKE IS fast becoming an ugly memory. But endorsements of the writers' cause continue to stream in. I'm sure you'll all be relieved to know that the dolphins are with us.

TeeVee Tonight

FOR CANADIANS, it's the season premiere of ROBSON ARMS at 9:30 am on CTV after that show where all the people caterwaul.

Then at 10, navelgazing never felt so good as in Quarterlife, the thirtysomething guys net-import. I'll probably watch just because I want to see what an actress named "Bitsie" actually looks like.

Everybody's A Critic

PRETTY SELF-EXPLANATORY, really. Language is NSFW.

From Dan Deacon and Liam Lynch, "Drinking Out of Cups." Sublime.

Reminds me of a few people, really.



H/T to Mattypants.

On The Bed. On The Floor.

I REALIZE THAT there is something truly juvenile about me that I find this as funny as I do. But right til the last frame, this had me in stitches.

Who knew Kimmel had that kind of juice?

Good News/Bad News for Robson Arms

THE GOOD NEWS, courtesy Dave Moses, is that the third season of CTVs Robson Arms goes to air this week in what CTV is calling a "sneak preview," after the Tuesday and Wednesday editions of American Idol. If past indications are anything to go by, they won't hold onto all that enormous, giant killing CTV audience -- but they'll do well. Which is nice.

The bad news is that the programming of these episodes really does very little to build the brand of the show. A hasty press release went out last week. I haven't seen any promos on the air. There's very little press.

Even if you were a fan of Robson Arms, you're not really building a way for people to come back. This is another simple case of a Canadian show being used to plug a hole that results from the Canadian networks need to chase Simulcasts. Fox is going 90 minutes two nights this week, CTV has to respond. What's on the shelf? Easy peasy.

The saving grace would be if during these "previews" CTV ran lots and lots of promos saying, "Be sure to catch Robson Arms in its regular slot, on X day at X time." But my guess is they won't do that. (Boy I would love to be wrong about that.) Too bad. It's a pretty good show.

If you can ever find it.

Also, this is sort of on the same topic, during the Oscars last night, which, you know, people watch, how many promos for its homegrown shows did CTV run. Come on. Three and a half hours of airtime, guess how many Corner Gas, Robson Arms, Degrassi Promos ran. Guess.

Did you guess zero?

Righto.