Canada's film and TV industry must develop more international projects if it is going to remain competitive in the wake of issues facing Hollywood, say Canadian producers.

"With the high dollar, any projects that are being budgeted for the longer term, it makes Canada much less attractive - regardless of what province you're in," says John Barrack, national vice-president of the Ottawa-based Canadian Film and TV Production Association (CFTPA).

In addition to the strong loonie, the U.S. industry is dealing with a writers' strike that has prompted some U.S companies to cease production of some TV shows shot in B.C. and other regions of Canada. Negotiations to resolve the writers' strike were resuming at press time, but a Screen Actors Guild (SAG) strike also loomed.

Producers predict so-called service firms, which provide on-location shooting, casting, set-designing and other work for primarily U.S.-based productions, will be the hardest hit. But producers of distinctly Canadian shows will also suffer because they rely on U.S. markets for both sales and funding.

Photo courtesy of Nomadic Picture Corp.
Actor Jason Priestly, left, and Chad Oakes of Nomadic Picture Corp. on the set in Calgary.

"Part of the way you get something financed to make a Canadian production is that you also make a sale or a pre-sale in the United States, and the value of that pre-sale has dropped dramatically because of the dollar's increase," says Barrack.

"Because it's paid in U.S. dollars, the U.S. broadcaster is not inclined to pay any more money just because their dollar is of relatively less value, so it makes actually producing Canadian product much more difficult."

Alexandra Raffé, an independent producer, says it will be a major struggle to keep Canada's relevance as a major shooting destination because our appeal to Americans has always been bottom line-oriented.

Raffé, a former head of the Ontario Film Development Corp. who moved to Vancouver recently, says Canadian production companies must shoot more big-budget, internationally produced feature films and sell more domestic TV shows around the globe in order to maintain the high volume of production that keeps thousands of crews, casts and supply houses employed.

"If both our offshore production and our domestic television production wobble at the same time, we're going to be in quite a mess," says Raffé.

"I think there'll be a contraction. A lot of the mom-and- pop companies will find it very hard to survive. Canadian money is very scarce. We have to work with our funding bodies and work to make films that are more driven by the international market," he adds. "Telefilm (Canada) has done a very good job of trying to drive the national market - the qualification for films to be firmly footprinted in the national market - but the reality is, the Canadian theatrical market is minuscule."

Raffé says Canadian producers face a "complex journey" over the next two years as American producers deal with their issues.

Domestic broadcasters are also renewing their Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission licences and determining what Canadian content they will air, and the federal Conservative government is renewing its interest in allowing more foreign media ownership.

Susan Papp, a Toronto-based TV documentary producer who works primarily for Canadian broadcasters, says the lesson about international appeal applies to all productions.

"The Canadian audience is quite small compared to British audiences or German audiences or whatever worldwide, so we have to make our stories appeal to more than one country," says Papp, whose documentaries have included programs on a Canadian missionary in Taiwan and Hungarian immigrants to Canada.

"If you don't find the right story, the right fit, the right mix - something that will appeal to other audiences overseas - or if you can't find a second and third broadcaster somewhere else in the world who will guide your documentary, then it's very difficult."

Papp obtained complete funding for her documentaries on OMNI Television, but she says such support is rare among broadcasters. She says producers must push broadcasters to do more than just pay lip service to funding Canadian shows.

Jason Priestley, the Canadian-born actor and director who became a teen heart-throb on the Beverley Hills 90210 show, says the U.S. writers' strike hurts him more than the high dollar.

"Now that it's at $1.05, that's just a bonus for me," says Priestley, who recently finished directing the TV show The Other Woman in Calgary. "I have always worked on both sides of the border, and I always will. It has no influence on my decisions at all.

"My Canadian actor friends, their shows are all going to shut down in America because of the writers' strike. I know they're all calling their Canadian agents and saying: 'Hey, what's going on up there?' " Priestley notes the rising dollar has caused a slowdown across Canada for the past couple of years, along with better tax credits from U.S. jurisdictions.

"The downside in America is that they don't get the film crews that we have up here," says Priestley. "In Vancouver and Toronto, the depth of the film crews is astronomical.

"There are a lot of good crews here in Calgary ... But now that the Canadian dollar is actually stronger than the U.S. dollar, when it comes to service production, I think we're going to see quite a precipitous downfall, quite a big slowdown."

Chad Oakes, whose Emmy Award-winning Calgary company, Nomadic Picture Corp., produced Priestley's show, says he relocated shooting of the $8.5-million movie Disciple, starring Darryl Hannah, to Prague because of the high loonie.

"It's killing us," says Oakes. "We've shot in Prague at half the cost. When the Americans are complaining that all of the production is running away to Canada, they need to take a really close look to see that some of the Canadians are running to Europe."

Oakes says companies can't survive by shooting Canadian-content movies and TV shows for the domestic market alone.

Peter Leitch, president of the Motion Picture Production Industry Association of B.C. (MPPIA), says his group is developing a strategy that will see Canadian companies accept the U.S. dollar at par.

The B.C. industry is the largest production service centre outside Hollywood and depends heavily on U.S. network TV shows that are shot on the West Coast.

"We've always worked at (developing co-productions), but obviously these situations provide more incentives to look at what other opportunities are available," he says. We have been, historically, very dependent on the U.S. market, and I suspect that we'll continue to do so for quite some time."

Zoltan Barabas, a Canadian independent producer, writer and director, says depending on its length, the U.S. writers' strike spells an opportunity for Canadian companies that are shooting on short-term schedules. But it likely won't make a difference to producers of TV series and feature films that take longer to start up, he adds.

"There'll be a larger demand for reality programming, because of (the writers' strike)," says Barabas, who managed the recent FTX West conference that drew 200 Canadian industry insiders to Vancouver. "Plus, reality programs are very quick to turn around."

Barabas says American producers are still committed to shooting in Canada because of world-class crews, virtual one-stop shopping with unions in B.C. and attractive settings that range from cityscapes to ocean scenery.

Producers were more upset when the dollar rose to 85-90 cents American, he notes, but the rise even higher has not resulted in a proportionate decline in business, he adds. American producers can still save money because of efficient and enthusiastic crews that can shoot shows more quickly than counterparts elsewhere.

Producer Blake Corbet, who produced the critically-acclaimed movie Fido for $10.7 million from worldwide sources and obtained distribution in Canada, the U.S., U.K., Europe and Japan, says international exposure is vital to a Canadian feature film's success.

"We need to make films that are marketable all over the world in order for them to be viable," he says. "Canada only represents three or four per cent of the world market. You don't want to be making a product that ... is only interesting to that small a part of the population."

(Monte Stewart can be reached at monte@businessedge.ca)