by Jason Unrau -- With his novel, The Lesser Blessed, poised to hit the silver screen, Richard Van Camp desperately wants it filmed in the NWT. But the lack of government incentives available to filmmakers in the territory may close the curtain on his dream.
Ask Richard Van Camp about shooting the film adaptation of his novel The Lesser Blessed in his hometown of Fort Smith and the Dogrib writer brims with enthusiasm. Then ask him about the NWT Film Commission and the lack of incentives for filmmaking in the NWT and Van Camp takes on the persona of Johnny, the rough-and-tumble rebel of his critically acclaimed book. “You can only fight for so long to make a movie in a place where there’s no financial support,” Van Camp says. “So my wish is that the commission change its mandate to allocate money [for film production].”
Earlier this year, he and First Generation Films – the Toronto production house that optioned his novel – were rebuffed after appealing to the NWT government for an equity infusion to offset the cost of shooting the film, which has a tentative $2-million budget.
The financial burden of filming in Northern locales like Fort Smith, NWT is what could end up throwing a spanner into Van Camp’s plans. Not only is it expensive to get there, but as the town is without any filmmaking infrastructure, equipment and crewmembers would have to be brought in.
While there are some skilled filmmakers living in the NWT and some experienced actors, motion picture making – even relatively modest projects like First Generation’s – demands significant manpower. Behind the actors and director are camera operators, lighting and sound technicians, extras, wardrobe people, make-up and hairstylists and catering services to keep everyone fed.
Such ventures require huge sums of money up front, with no chance of a return on investment until the film hits theatres or is picked up by a television broadcaster. That’s why tax credits for film and television, which exist in every provincial and territorial jurisdiction except the NWT, are a crucial piece of the financing puzzle. They put investors at ease, augment grants from public arts financiers like the Canada Council and Telefilm Canada, and can give smaller projects a fighting chance against the big Hollywood outfits.
“We’re not asking for a handout, we’re asking for an investment that would bring the NWT to a national and international audience,” Van Camp says. “We mean business here, we’ve signed the contract, got a world-class director, a proven producer, so let’s get to work here. What’s stopping us?”
What is standing in the way of initiating such financial incentives for filmmaking in the NWT is a government that appears more focused on preparing its population to take advantage of jobs in the business of resource exploitation rather than adventures in cinema. The NWT’s Industry, Tourism and Investment minister, Bob McLeod, has so far failed to be impressed with the possibilities of fostering a film industry in the territory.
“I’ve not considered the issue of providing tax incentives or equity for filming, given the many other priority areas our government has been dealing with,” McLeod says. “We simply don’t have the resources to provide ongoing subsidies of the magnitude needed for very short-term projects... subsidies that would result in short-term economic benefits in a single location, but the activity would cease with the subsidy.”
While individual filmmakers may qualify for the NWT government’s Business Development Fund (BDF) support – or its “enhanced” Support for Entrepreneurs and Economic Development (SEED) replacement – budget constraints still limit maximum funding to $15,000. McLeod points to the popular reality television series Ice Road Truckers, and a similar project in production based on operations at Buffalo Airways, neither of which asked for, or required, government support.
“Filming is a very cost-conscious undertaking and we’re at a disadvantage due to our geography and high transportation costs, and we’d be competing against well-funded provincial programs,” McLeod says. “Recent experience indicates that filmmakers have recognized the appeal of the unique aspects here and I believe the film industry can grow on this basis, rather than relying on ongoing subsidies.”
But critics note tax incentives would not be a government expense. They would be a tax break on economic activity that otherwise wouldn’t occur. And McLeod ignores the difference between making dramatic pictures and reality television. The former requires large crews and a cast of actors, but the latter can be produced with a cameraperson and sound technician, and the “actors” are the ready-made focus of the show itself.
As for the $15,000 BDF or SEED money available, it probably wouldn’t cover catering costs for a six-week shoot. Meanwhile, assistance from the NWT Film Commission is limited to location scouting, advice on where to stay and how to get there, and a registry of local talent.
So under the current regime, the NWT remains that unpleasant blackboard students in Johnny’s class faced, day in and day out when compared to say, Nova Scotia, arguably Canada’s most inviting region for filmmaking. But the province did not reach this status overnight.
Ten years ago, Nova Scotia invested $2-million in three sound stages in Halifax. The government also offered a tax credit of as much as 60 per cent of the cost of Nova Scotia labour employed in film production.
The investments and subsidies have paid dividends. In 1996, one year prior to the province’s sound stage financing deal, the film industry generated $48-million in revenues. A decade later, that amount climbed to $136-million. “Nova Scotia right now has the most attractive tax credit and equity incentive program in the country,” says Christina Jennings, CEO of Toronto-based Shaftesbury Films, “which basically means that the government there wants the business.”
Shaftesbury is responsible for a slew of award-winning film and television work, and last year acquired the rights to Elizabeth Hay’s Giller-prize winning novel Late Nights On Air. Hay’s story focuses on the people who work at a local radio station in Yellowknife, after relocating to the mosquito-infested frosty hinterland to run away from their former lives. Jennings believes Yellowknife and the surrounding region is the logical place to film what’s planned as an eight-to-10 hour television series, as the book is set during the heady Thomas Berger/Mackenzie Valley pipeline inquiry years of the late ’70s, when aboriginal people were coming into their own politically.
Like Van Camp and First Generation Films, Jennings is banking on equity investment for the Late Nights On Air project, but thus far has not approached the GNWT. “It makes it a bit tougher to be honest, because when you don’t have infrastructure in a place, you have to bring your own,” she says, adding that once a few big-budget productions enter virgin filmmaking territory, it’s likely to give birth to a cohesive local artistic and technical base. “It’s worth it for a government to invest, say, $200,000 into a television production because they’ll recoup that. Production teams are bringing a lot more than just filmmaking dollars, think of all the restaurant business, the hotels, the transportation, it goes on and on.”
Shaftesbury was one of the first companies to shoot in Regina, Saskatchewan. Though Regina lacked any real filmmaking infrastructure, the provincial tax incentives in the Prairie province were there and the location was ideal. “We shot two films back-to-back. One was a period piece in a small town and the other was more contemporary, about places turning to ghost towns, so we really needed the Prairies. Inevitably there are stories that need locations out of big urban cities,” Jennings says. “When I look back, we were really breaking ground there all those years ago and if you look at the infrastructure Regina has now, Corner Gas has been shooting there and things have really taken off.”
According to Jennings, between $1-million and $1.3-million has been budgeted for each of the hour-long Late Nights On Air episodes. Combined with The Lesser Blessed budget, upwards of $15-million could be spent in the NWT shooting both projects, with crews of between 50 and 100 working on set for each.
Van Camp believes what happened in Regina could happen in the NWT. Both he and First Generation Films producer Christina Piovesan admit local participation in The Lesser Blessed project would probably be limited to people being cast in bit parts, some manual labour jobs and a catering contract. Nevertheless, Van Camp believes making the film in Fort Smith could be the start of something bigger. “I think all it will take is one movie, we need our Atanarjuat and the film commission will see...,” he says, “but we can’t make the movie in Fort Smith without some kind of investment.”
Two time zones to the east, Inuit filmmaker Zach Kunuk can sympathize with Van Camp’s struggles. In 2001, Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner) put Kunuk, and his hometown of Igloolik, Nunavut, on the world cinema map after the film won the prestigious Camera d’Or award at the Cannes Film Festival in France. The award is given annually to the best feature film shown at the festival by a first-time director.
Not only was it the first feature film ever to be made in Inuktitut with an all-Inuit cast, but it was shot entirely in Nunavut. But Kunuk arrived at that point in a markedly different manner than a southern production-house buying his story and then making it into a film might have done. The Nunavut filmmaker founded Igloolik Isuma Productions in 1990 and earned a reputation with documentaries and short dramas before launching into the motion picture business.
“We started a long time ago, built up our people because it’s better to have them working with you, people you know,” Kunuk says. “But sometimes we have to bring people in, camera men when we don’t know the cameras and that sort of thing. One time we brought in a stunt director, special effects, things that we could learn to do, but people will train us and [Isuma] does training in production, too.”
Made with a budget of $1.9-million – derived from a combination of Canada Council, Nunavut government and aboriginal filmmaking grants – Atanarjuat propelled Isuma Productions to the world stage and, for a brief moment in time, made Kunuk the darling of the industry.
The Nunavut government made a financial contribution in the form of salary tax credits, but that amount is capped at $200,000 per production. That is much better than what the NWT offers, yet markedly less than that provided by other provinces.
Kunuk’s most recent film, The Journals of Knud Rasmussen, was a Danish/Canadian co-production with a $6-million budget, 30 per cent of which came from Telefilm Canada.
But no matter how successful Kunuk and his films have become, raising money for projects is a never-ending struggle that – despite Kunuk’s crack team of grant proposal writers – never ceases to confound him. The latest case in point: Kunuk was recently turned down by the International Polar Year committee for a grant to document Inuit elders speaking about climate change and its impact on their lives.
In a perfect Nunavummiut-world, Kunuk would like to see the Nunavut government axe the $200,000 salary credit cap or go to a system similar to Nova Scotia’s. “For every dollar we raise up here, five come from the south. It would be wonderful to know where your next paycheque was coming from,” he says. “I wonder sometimes why I didn’t just give up, because it’s so hard raising money and it shouldn’t be that way. We have to fight for every dollar we get – nasty battles sometimes – but that’s how the system is.”
Whether or not the NWT gets what Van Camp refers to as its “Atanarjuat” remains to be seen, but with the government’s current system, void of any tax breaks or equity, the film’s producer is becoming less optimistic. “There’s no fiscal incentive [in the NWT] but a greater expense because there’s no infrastructure for fiction film, so I’d have to charter all my gear in there,” says First Generation’s Christina Piovesan. “So we’re in a predicament, we can’t afford it but we want to do it.”
Piovesan and Van Camp say in a worst-case scenario they would shoot exterior scenes in Fort Smith but would be forced, for financial reasons, to film the rest in more accommodating southern locales. If Shaftesbury’s Late Nights On Air production opts for the same approach, the NWT could lose out on millions of dollars and untold exposure for tourism, and would fail to inspire other production houses to film in the territory. Perhaps more importantly it could miss out on kick-starting like-minded grassroots initiatives like Igloolik Isuma Productions.
But as Industry Minister McLeod appears unwilling to budge, his view of the North’s uniqueness as a drawing card will have to stand on its own, even if it attracts a fraction of what full-blown incentives might. So will the NWT pony up for a starring role, or will it be happy to be cast as an extra and miss out on all the fun?
