....you're my only hope!
Truer words were never said and they were said by one of the greatest female characters of all time; Princess Leia Organa.
So what's this blog post about today, you ask?
It's another post about Canadian film. And this time, I'm not going to be nice.
Canada is one of the only countries in the world, that is a free democracy that has free enterprise, and it's business world functions on Capitalism, but our film industry is a joke.
Now, the people in the industry have talent and heart and passion and can do great things, but they aren't allowed to UNLESS, they leave their home country and move to HOLLYWOOD.
Why is this, I also hear you ask?
Because waaaay back in the mists of time, when movies were getting their start, someone in the Canadian government had ties to the industry that was budding in California and thought it was a good idea to join them together.
That means, that when you see statistics like Domestic Box Office in regards to a Hollywood movie, it doesn't mean just the U.S.A. It means, that Canadian box office receipts are lumped in with American box office receipts.
That guy, because it was a guy, decided that he would take some sort of payout or kickback or something, to hobble the Canadian industry in favour of the American industry having control over the business here in Canada.
Now, since that time, we have established a watered down version of a film industry. To make a film in Canada, you either have to self finance or get government money. If you want government money, you have to comply with CANADIAN CONTENT rules, whatever that is. Of course, Quebec has it easy in that department because they can claim that French is our second language and that qualifies as Canadian Content. The rest of us have to make "art films", if we want government money. Art films are fine and have a place, but they don't
pay bills or make headlines or SUSTAIN AN INDUSTRY.
Now, don't think that self financing is the answer either, because you then have distribution. And distribution is controlled by American owned companies. . So, if you can get them to distribute your film to theaters, great, but they have no inclination to do so because they don't think Canadian made films will make money, and they aren't wrong. Catch 22, nobody knows our industry so our industry doesn't attract audiences so our actors go south and then nobody watches our films...and so on.
The third thing you need to understand is advertising and the American studios have that little juggernaut all sewn up. They have millions to spend on advertising and we don't.
So, unless Canadian film gets some sort of super hero who will step up and throw out the old formula and build us an industry that is self sustaining and makes money, we will be forever tied to another country's business. That makes us LAME!
It's not going to be an easy task. We need the Canadian government to protect our film industry much like other countries protect theirs, from Hollywood. Doesn't mean Hollywood movies don't get shown, but a set number of screens in theaters are set aside for Canadian made movies. It guarantees we get shown.
We get shown, we build cred, we get more investors and after a few years, we got us our own Hollywood!
So, we need a hero. I can't do this all by myself!
Thanks for listening.