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Richards Rant

April 13, 2010

RICHARD’S RANT APRIL 2010

Peter Mitchell at Vancouver Film Studios assesses the current climate of British Columbia very bluntly… he states “The Canadian film industry has all but disappeared and the Canadian domestic business is our No. 1 priority as a film industry community”.

I had a great debate with myself of whether it was a good idea, or not, to write another post that was discouraging. At the end of the day, I decided that it was better for our many clients who are not working to know that they are not alone, and that this current malaise goes all through the BC industry. The “state of the nation” is that things are stagnant, for example there are no up and coming agencies, casting directors, production houses and it is as challenging for talented young actor’s trying to break in to the business as it is for established actors to try and hang on to past levels of success.

The reasons are not new…Our provincial government has not matched the much more favourable tax credits in Ontario and Quebec, a Canadian dollar near par is anything but helpful, and the industry in general is still not in a healthy place. The biggest issue we have in BC is that our local industry was down more than 40% last year. It is lovely for us to have 100 million Hollywood feature productions coming here but they are only good for the few clients that will be cast and offer no employment opportunities to our Literary clients. Big-ticket projects mostly just tie up the studios and crew for months on something that most clients did not get a “hit” on. Reality is the 100 million plus projects are much more able to weather the strong dollar/less favourable tax credits than a 10 million dollar one. Reality is also that the domestic side of our community is what creates the most employment opportunities for us! Some clients have been asking how things are in Toronto and the answer is “better”, but certainly “no picnic”. While Ontario does have significantly more Canadian/domestic production happening, they also face their own challenges.

Domestic companies like Brightlight, No Sugar (Larry Sugar), Reunion and Omni all need a healthy climate to grow and to grow their own product. All the “BC Players” are working hard to identify new business models and new investment and co-production partners to find long-term solutions for our industry. On the bright side, more than a few US series have been renewed to shoot here, and it does look like studios will be booked up for the summer with big-budget product.

At the agency our battle cry remains…We’re here…we’re sober…Give us a call if you have any questions or just want to have a good YAK.

January 19, 2010

RICHARDS RANT: A LITTLE GOOD NEWS FOR 2010

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OKOKOK…I need to accept that I may have to park my fat ass in front of the TV and watch the Olympics because we may be dead until March…there I have said it…now…no RANT this month and HOW ABOUT A LITTLE GOOD NEWS FOR 2010

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USA Director’s Guild honours three Canadians-The DGA have nominated James Cameron (AVATAR) and Jason Reitman (UP IN THE AIR) for 2009 Outstanding Directional Achievement in a Feature Film. Fellow Canuck Norman Jewison will be awarded their highest honour, a Lifetime Acheivement Award.

Leno Moving Back to Late Night-Leno’s move to 10PM had sucked up five hours of primetime network television that was scripted drama. This cost cutting NBC experiment did not work, Jay was still in 4th place (of the networks) and his 10PM ratings were weaker even that their shows in the same slots last season…now NBC is not going to turn out and make five “LAW AND ORDERS” but it does leave a five hour prime time crater, ripe to be filled with scripted dramas. (Even their bad ones last year rated 30% higher than Leno; albeit his show had a much lesser budget)

Series Renewals – STARGATE UNIVERSE has been renewed with a full order for Season 2…SANCTUARY has been picked up for another season. We hear through the grapevine that the pilot PREPPED has been picked up to go to series here. Don’t be surprised if the Vancouver shot CW shows get picked up – they make a lotta dough for that network!

Meg Liberman who does LA casting for CBS/CW Network told me that she expects ALL their series work will be coming to Canada this year…GREAT news, but let’s hope we get a little tax credit help from the BC Liberals so Ontario does not get it ALL.

Vancouver shot ALICE had the second highest ratings ever for SyFy (next to Nick Willing’s other Vancouver shot mini series TIN MAN). Watch for more projects coming from Reunion and Willing this spring!

Homegirl/Homeboy success – Our Madga Apanowicz, represented by Debbie Mahood, is one of the stars of CAPRICA (the new BATTLESTAR GALACTICA prequel) that has its Canadian premiere on SPACE January 22nd. Although the shows boasts veteran stars like Esai Morales and Eric Stoltz, creator David Eick says that the series “hinges on the performers playing the teenagers, Magda and Alessandra Toresani”…and how great to see Vancouver actors, Cory Monteith and Patrick Gallagher chewing it up on the hit series GLEE!

Stuart Aikins is feeling pretty warm and fuzzy about 2010 and says that he expects March to be a very busy month…He has been approached about many projects that look like they are coming our way plus he will be casting a new series TOWER, and EUREKA has been renewed for another season.

Coreen Mayrs reports that she also feels it will be very quiet until the end of the first week of March. That said, in recent conversations with various LA studio execs she believes it will heat up considerably afte

June 17, 2009

SUMMER ’09 VANCOUVER TELEVISION REPORT

Greetings oh dear clients…
How about a little good news for a change?

Thought you would be interested in seeing updates about what this summer is going to look like in Vancouver.

Feature films are lovely, and they bring a very high visibility to the Vancouver market…but as Crawford Hawkins the DGC president says, “The features are the glamour, and the television is the lifeblood of our BC business”….and Ken Anderson the president of IATSE Local 891 states “Series work is the bread and butter for Vancouver.”

So here is the latest on ‘whazzup’ in Vancouver TV-Land

SERIES ALREADY SHOOTING

SANCTUARY - Sci-Fi network in season 2.  Dr Helen Magnus (Amanda Tapping) and her
team continue to track and find the monsters that move secretly among us. Casting: Stuart Aikins
STARGATE UNIVERSE - new series with a full season order on the Sci-Fi Channel.  The third show in the live action Stargate franchise and will start airing summer 2009. Casting: Clark & Page
PSYCH – Season 4, a novice sleuth tricks the police into thinking he has psychic powers, and now they’ve hired him to solve complicated crime cases. Casting: Clark & Page
THE TROOP – Nickelodeon series about a covert society group of kids who protect the world from supernatural creatures will begin filming season 1.  Casting: Maureen Webb
EUREKA – Sci-fi Network has green-lit Season 4 but it may start shooting as late as January!  A small town kept secret and guarded from the world is inhabited by only brilliant scientists who work on scientific government advances that usually go awry. Casting: Aikins & Cossey
DEFYING GRAVITY –just finishing first season and the series is looking for a US network home once filming has been completed.  It is to be aired in Canada and on BBC 2 in the UK. Series had VERY little guest cast requirements and may or may not get renewed for a second season… Eight astronauts living aboard an international spacecraft on a mission through the Solar System, as the world watches from thirteen billion kilometres away.  Staring Ron Livingston. Casting Mayrs & Brandstatter

COMING BACK SOON

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April 23, 2009

RICHARD’S RANT - WHY AM I NOT WORKING?

“Why am I not working…what’s going on? I read in the paper that all the BC studios are busy and that it is going to be a terrific year.”

We are hearing this from a lot of clients lately. I know that everyone wants to “get out” more and that many of you are feeling the financial pinch, so I wanted to give you a comprehensive report on the current climate in our business.

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SAG STALEMATE: Since the SAG contract expired on June 30, 2008; there have been few to no STUDIO feature films (this does not include companies such as Lionsgate and the Weinstein Company who are not in AMPTP and as such have completion agreements).  Some analysts say there are up to 200 feature films on hold.   Around September, we started to see a mass movement of film actors to TV projects.  Due to the lack of studio feature film production, BOTH film and TV actors are now competing for a limited number of jobs in the episodic and pilot environments. The good news is that a tentative deal in this nine-month dispute has been announced (which still needs to be put to the membership for ratification).

PILOT SEASON: During the Writer’s Strike of 2007-2008, Studios adapted and used the void to eliminate pilot season as we know it.  Gone are the days of hundreds of pilots.  In fact, this year, there were only 67 pilots to have registered for production – of which only about 35 have been green lit for production. (click ‘more’ tab to continue reading) more

November 19, 2008

RICHARD’S RANT

After many of you have worked hard for years to establish your rates and quotes we are now playing the game of “how low can you go”. Budgets and time are getting so compressed these days that a few of the recent 2 hour MOW products are being shot in as little as 9 or 10 days. Projects that qualify with less than 2 million dollar budgets are getting discounts on union rates and don’t think just the actors are getting this treatment. An experienced and talented director may be working on the same project and getting discounted up to 75% of their union minimum! Like you, many directors, producers, writers and editors are working on projects that are…how can I put this politely…are perhaps not projects that would have held the same interest a few years back. And if you have an off-the-record conversation with a casting director you might find that top houses have rolled back their rates to what they made 15 years ago in order to be competitive and land a job. In addition, many of them are also now expected to provide the cost of the audition space as part of that lower fee. (click ‘more’ tab to continue reading Richards Rant) more

October 1, 2008

Coming Next Month - Richard’s Rant

Eric tells me I am not allowed to “rant” in my opening blog so you will have to wait until next month for me to go postal on the plethora of scale-minus projects we have “enjoyed” in the past few years. So for now I shall be all sunshine and kitties, and welcome you to our new web site, to celebrate our new location. It was time for a new do and we hope that our clients and those who hire them will enjoy the new “bloggy” features we have. We look forward to hearing from you, what you like, what you don’t, and from whom and about what you want covered in the future!