Hollywood North?

Hollywood North. Sounds pretty glamorous and certainly Vancouver has many movie stars gracing our town. We also have a tremendous talent pool and wonderful production resources but I think we need to keep in mind the key reason people come to our fair town – money, or more importantly, saving money.

Between tax incentives, labour rebates and a lower Canadian dollar, we have been substantially cheaper to produce in than Los Angeles or New York. However with the rising Canadian dollar and other production centres becoming more competitive, work is no longer quite so easy to get . Moreover with many American productions, key creative, producing and acting jobs stay American so most of the activity in the film industry here is what is called “service work” – we serve to fulfill the vision of our primarily American clients.

This is a vital part of the industry but as this is so price sensitive, there is a need to develop sources of work that are not quite so cost dependent for survival.
One of these sources is to have a strong indigenous Canadian film and television industry where Canadians control the content, the finances and decision making.
The problem is that this is just darn hard to do. Many organizations and individuals have tried but in the end, there are few successful Vancouver-based companies and individuals that have sustained themselves on the long run at the international level. (There are more in Toronto because their water makes them a lot smarter there.)

Why is this? Well there are many reasons for this. I’ll tackle one reason now and others later.

Filmmaking is expensive, no ifs ands or buts. Paying everyone minimum wage and getting great deals on facilities and supplies, it would be hard to make a feature film for less than $200,000. And that’s lots of money for most people so by necessity, a filmmaker has to partner with somebody or many bodies in order to finance their films.

There are very few funders that one can pitch an idea to and have them say, “That’s great. I’ll finance it just as you described.” Usually, the answer is, “No” or “maybe.” The process of funding and subsequent making of a film can take years to put together. Without generous rich connections or being lucky enough to get government funding, filmmakers have maxed out credit cards, mortgaged their home… even sold their own blood to raise money for their films.

And then if one is successful in making their film, it then has to go out and compete with the mega dollar extravaganzas with huge promotional and marketing campaigns. Talk about David vs many Goliaths.

However, there is a little glimmer of light here. Academy-award winning writer William Goldman once wrote, “Nobody knows anything.” Even after years of sweating bullets to make a film, even with pre-sales, even with big stars, even with huge marketing campaigns – nobody really knows if the film will make money or not so our small indigenous film does have a chance and on occasion, one hits it big.
The problem is that it so seldom happens that it is akin to winning a lottery or as one of my business friends so aptly puts it, “Hope is not a business strategy.”

Oh and let’s not forget that if you have an interest in cultural diversity, things are even harder . More next week.