BANFF – Last year the new owners of the Banff World Media Festival arrived only just in time to snag the last few hotel vacancies.
But for 2018, Brunico Communications is placing a discernible stamp on this storied Canadian event. At the outset of the 39th annual edition much is being made of the new Diversity of Voices Initiative, a fresh commitment to nurture diverse creators – specifically francophones, Indigenous peoples, and women.
This year Banff welcomes 1500-plus delegates from more than 25 countries.
And a goodly number of them showed up as invited guests on Sunday morning to celebrate the inaugural session. The morning walked attendees through the intricacies of international partnerships, the art of Intellectual Property (IP) management and brand building, the Tylenol work of financing, and how a YouTube video went on to become a star with Bell Media while spawning a neat beer label.
Katie Bailey, content director at Playback (a Brunico publication), moderated a panel consisting of Solange Atwood, EVP International for Blue Ant Media; Mark Montefiore, president of New Metric Media; and Ron E. Scott, executive producer with Prairie Dog Film + Television.
Atwood made it quite clear that the distribution business was essential to Blue Ant for “having tentacles around the world with great creators and producers”. Her preference, though, is to work with producers early in the development process as “distributors are connected to the market… and things are changing all the time”. (Writer’s note: In over 35 years of being in this business I’ve never met a reputable distributor who didn’t want to be in on a project for the initial stages.)
Importantly, a good distributor can help with lining up co-production partners across multiple platforms… an approach that essentially drives down costs per hour for all involved.
Treaty Co-productions are often complex according to Atwood, “and you need good lawyers, and to prepare yourself for lots of paper”.
Plus the producer should brace her/himself for more time being spent on production notes. However, these may be small prices to pay for risk reduction and getting your project done.
In terms of current financing trends, Atwood sketched three tools:
a) deficit financing with “the distributor acting as a mini-commissioner”. A higher risk approach but one that she sees regularly…
b) distribution advances which usually translate into 5-to-15% of budget… and
c) pre-sales, which she beamed to be “the most valuable.” Securing a sale before green-lighting a project is a pure “cash is king” relief. And again, distributors worth their commission can secure pre-sales based on track record, relationships, and the all important trust. While not as common as distribution advances, this option distinguishes distributors from simple sales agents who both don’t take as high a commission, but don’t attend most markets and thus have limited experience in building global brands.
There was one additional financing rabbit up Atwood’s sleeve: A distributor getting involved in development financing across a slate of products. She sees this as a growing trend for seeding a range of projects to assure ample content in the pipeline.
Ron E. Scott, Metis with a Cree background, started out as an actor: but after a number of rejections, opted to attend Vancouver Film School, and, at least in film school, along came the gratification of seeing his first film project picked up as “a translated VHS offering in Russia”.
Scott returned to Edmonton, and despite the absence of adequate media production infrastructure, hooked up with APTN for the television series Mixed Blessings which won an Alberta Film & Television Award in 2008 along with eight other award nominations up to 2015.
One thing led to another, and one of those wonderful “others” was Gil Cardinal, also a Metis from Edmonton — an icon who may be best known for his 1987 NFB documentary Foster Child which garnered 10 international awards, including a Gemini for best direction on a non-fiction program.
"I learned every swear word by the time I was eight, and in every possible combination that still boggles my mind." Ron E. Scott, filmmaker
As one of Canada’s most iconic filmmakers, Cardinal convinced Scott that many tough but necessary Indigenous stories were not being told, and needed to be. From there the celebrated TV series Blackstone was born and broadcast for five seasons on APTN and Showcase. It also made it to Hulu, did a second run on the CBC, and is available on Netflix.
Delving into the suffering and corrupt circumstances of the Blackstone First Nation, series stories were ripped from newspaper headlines and the personal experiences of the talent, crew, elders, chiefs, and other community leaders. Hundreds of Indigenous reserve and territory interviews were conducted as Blackstone pushed the envelope of brutal truth telling and underscored the importance of Indigenous stories being told from a place of authentic experience.
In one humorous moment in the editing suite, with a non-Indigenous crew member, when a six year old swore the editor wanted to snip it. Scott said “no way, I learned every swear word by the time I was eight, and in every possible combination that still boggles my mind."
Mark Montefiore is the dude behind Letterkenny and shot essentially everything in Sudbury, Ont. -and he came to Letterkenny after life on YouTube with than 100,000 followers and 15 million unique hits.
That series has now expanded beyond television to include hockey jersey merchandizing, live shows (43 across Canada this past year), and even Puppers Premium Lager brewed in… Sudbury!
Fan engagement has been key and the beer part was my favourite.
Two hoppy anecdotes:
a) when Montefiore and his team had a pop up shop where dog owners could bring their pups to have their canine photos taken and placed on customized labels of Puppers beer, almost half had never had of the show;
b) but now phase two of Puppers includes five whoofie winners of best photo who, joining the Letterkenny pup will now be marketed as an LCBO six-pack (or litter!) in time for the new season launch.
In my view, there can be no doubt that harnessing our geography and diversity, and celebrating fair representation in front of and behind the camera, is essential for our cultural industries and frankly for the health and reputation of our country. For too long linguistic minorities, Indigenous creators, remote areas, and women have lacked access to the funds, to the back rooms, to the leaders, audiences, and venues where decisions were made.
And the new leadership at Banff (the event this year is organized and implemented by an all-women team) gives every evidence that they believe it just needed to be done. They understand it’s important to not just showcase the established businesses and suits, but to reflect all aspects of this screen industry.
With that, and partners like Netflix, 100 emerging and diverse creators and producers over each of the next five years will be mentored, tracked, invited, and encouraged on everything from pitching to production. That’s 500 talented Canadian prospects that might otherwise not have had that incredible opportunity.
Of course it’s easy to criticize that this Diversity of Voices Initiative doesn’t capture all of our societal diversity.
But thank goodness they started somewhere; and there’s no exclusion in this program — so the disability community (as one example) is more than welcome.
Sounds a lot like building sustainability and inclusiveness to me. Sounds very Canadian too.
Well done Banff World Media Festival.
