LAZY SUNDAY #20: CLARKE & DAWE

The first Australians I ever met were members of some sports team that was playing University squads in Canada. I'd been invited to a welcoming party at a three-storey house in downtown Regina. And while I don't recall what sport these gentlemen played, I'll never forget ambling up a quiet street on a summer evening as screaming exploded from the house I was headed for.

Then, these two Australian guys burst from the front door stark naked with flaming newspapers tucked into their butt cheeks. They vaulted off the porch and dove ass first into two large tubs of water sitting on the front lawn.

Apparently, it was a race that had started on the third floor as newsprint was inserted and lit, giving the boys mere seconds to descend two flights of stairs without being "disqualified" for losing their newspapers and reach the waiting water before anything got singed.

Since this first heat was too close to call, they ran the race again. The loser of that contest demanded a "best of three" and so it went. I don't know who ended up winning. I only remember being helpless with laughter.

Canadians are rightfully proud of their contributions to the world of comedy from Jim Carrey to Mike Myers to Paul Anka. "You're Having My Baby" was supposed to be funny, right?

But beyond Dame Edna, Rolf Harris and Barry Humphries, most of us have never experienced Australian comedy and that's a shame, because much of it is priceless.

I was in Australia during the 2000 Olympics and the ABC network (their version of the CBC) broadcast every minute of the Games with all the generosity and respect the visiting nations and their athletes deserved -- until 11:00 pm. At that point a show entitled "The Dream" recapped the day's events in a manner that once again left me helpless with laughter.

Host sportscasters "Roy & HG" (comedy duo Grieg Pickhaver and John Doyle) presented such things as Greco-Roman wrestling with a Barry White soundtrack and invented new names for the moves in Men's gymnastics including the "Flat Bag", "Dutch Wink" and "Hello Boys".

They also created a new mascot for the games, "Fatso the Fat-Arsed Wombat" to replace the mundane official mascots they dubbed "Syd, Ollie, and Dickhead". Fatso became so popular that Australian athletes carried him to the medal podium and the Olympic Committee tried to have him banned.

A statue of Fatso has since been erected at Sydney's Olympic Park.

Insulting New Zealanders was also de rigeur. When New Zealand won their first gold in Rowing, Roy remarked that Kiwis were "only good at sitting down and going backwards". As for the former Olympic host city of Atlanta, it was dismissed as "the toilet".

Australians and Canadians are much alike. To them, we're "Australians with better manners". But funny is funny and I'd like you meet two current stars on Oz television, John Clarke and Bryan Dawe. Both are well known screenwriters and actors who now provide regular commentary on the news of the day.

I hope that, like me, they leave you helpless with laughter. Enjoy your Sunday.

CLARKE AND DAWE ON THE SUB-PRIME MELTDOWN



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AND -- THE AUSTRALIAN VERSION OF BILL C-10



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THINGS GO BETTER WITH COKE!

This morning, thousands of young men in the Philippines celebrated Good Friday by flagellating the flesh off their backs and being crucified. Government representatives, who quietly promote the practice through the Ministry of Tourism, didn't quibble over the health implications, advising the crucifees to get Tetanus shots first and to use clean whips and nails.

In San Fernando City, where 23 people, including two women, signed up to be nailed to crosses, the ceremony is officially sponsored by Coca-Cola and a local mobile phone network.

Think of that as savvy product placement.

And get used to it. Because in the ever hungry-for-cash television landscape, there will soon be more integration of entertainment and marketing.

While those of us with a religious bent or sense of taste might find this particular mix of spiritual suffering and lifestyle enhancement unsettling, these Good Friday traditions are a big draw in their part of the world. So thousands will gather to watch the gruesome festivities and maybe buy a Coke or a mobile phone subscription to boot.

And let's be honest! It's not like Coke is the first organization to realize you can make a buck off religion.

But there's always been an uncomfortable relationship between movies or television programming or music and advertising. And for decades, we all managed to keep our distance from one another.

Time was when big screen movie stars would sneak off to Japan to make some extra coin doing commercials while refusing to append their name or likeness to any product over here. As an example of how much times have changed -- this morning, Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony's month old twins began selling PEOPLE magazines in a deal that netted their folks (or their trust fund) Six million dollars.

Major rock stars in the 60's, 70's and 80's refused to cozy up to the corporate shills anxious to turn their hits into product jingles. Nowadays, even the loudest voices in support of social change (like U2) release their work to brand product almost from the moment it begins to drift down the charts.

We can probably all share the blame for this state of affairs. I know I hounded my Mom into buying "Sugar Pops" because Kit Carson and the Cisco Kid ate them. And I'm sure I've bought something somewhere mostly because I connected a fond personal memory with the hit song that now underscored that product's commercial.


So I'm fairly certain the kind of endless product integration that's currently ubiquitous on "American Idol", "The Apprentice" and virtually every design and makeover show will soon be as much a part of your favorite comedies and dramas as guest stars.

And that's really a natural progression. On "Top Cops', we had a stable of Ford Crown Victorias that we painted and repainted to fit each week's police jurisdiction because that's the car most of those police departments drove. By the second season of the series, Ford was one of our sponsors and now and then ferried a vehicle down the road from the Oakville plant to be on camera.

Back then, that was called "Contra" and helped both the advertiser and the series a little. Likewise, whenever we did an episode that involved a traffic fatality or car chase, I'd let the network know and the Ford spots would be shifted somewhere else for that week so we didn't show anybody in a bad light.

The same went for Budweiser whenever we depicted a character who'd been drinking or American Airlines if the episode touched on a hijacking or involved the bomb squad. Not once did any of our sponsors dictate program content and we never argued if they decided their corporate image was better served by being somewhere else during a particular segment.

That's beginning to change as Multinational corporations have gained power and influence and media companies have been merged or gobbled up by the same companies that used to buy their ad time.

Those realities and the advent of the PVR, which allows audiences to skip commercials, means some new formula has to be found to pay for programming and the current wisdom suggests making the product a part of the show is the way to go.

Common practice in Canadian reality shows, for example, is that no brand name is seen or mentioned unless a cash payment has been made that is shared by the producer and the network.

So far, it's a business model that seems to make everybody happy. This season, Pond's Moisturizer appeared in a key dramatic moment of USA Network's "The Starter Wife" and saw the lagging product's sales surge by 400% overnight. Indeed, in 2006, American networks earned $1.5 Billion from product integration.

But that's now creating dilemmas for a lot of the people who make those shows. Because while advertising has always been a cross that many television artists have felt they had to bear. It now appears to be one to which we'll be nailed.


You might be a writer with an environmental conscience, for example, who's now faced with only getting your show off the ground if your hero drives a Hummer.

You may be an actress and a strict vegetarian. Of course, you're only playing a character who says "Hey, let's all go to Burger King". But if you've been vocal about your beliefs, you know that clip is going to turn up on YouTube, exposing you to a certain amount of personal ridicule.

You could well be a producer who has lost a member of your family to lung cancer and is vehemently opposed to encouraging kids to smoke. And even though it's illegal to advertise cigarettes, every tobacco company is eagerly waiting with a government mandated "educational" fund that'll write you a six figure check if the teenage hottie on your show can be seen lighting up while bemoaning her addiction and struggling to quit.

Under the current system, all of those content decisions are in the hands of the network funding the program and are not made by a show's creative contingent.

The WGA wrestled with these issues in their last contract without gaining much ground and SAG will do the same in their upcoming negotiations. So far, both unions' requests for artistic controls on what gets promoted through their creative output have been ignored. And when you see Guild proposals which seek a percentage of the money earned from product integration, you wonder if that approach even addresses the real problem.

What today's sponsored Crucifixions in the Philippines exemplify, however, is an element I don't think either artists or advertisers are considering. And that's how the audience will view the links made between product and entertainment.

For example, I became a fan of open wheel racing in 1986 with the arrival of the first Molson Indy in Toronto. A year later, we worked the race and a couple of the drivers into an episode of "Adderly". Locally, the event was advertised as great family fare and an exciting opportunity for corporations to link their products to a clean and wholesome brand.

Imagine my surprise a few years later, when attending the same circuit's race in Surfer's Paradise in Australia, to see no mention of bringing the kids, but a lot for the promised week long debauch of drinking and nudity.


In Toronto, the fans might be treated to a few taut tank tops. In Surfer's, the course snaked around endless condo towers featuring naked women and drunken public orgies.

It's kind of interesting that the same corporations who branded those race cars didn't mutter a word of complaint when the circuit decided to drop the Toronto race from this year's calendar in favor of keeping the Australian leg of the tour.

But thanks to the internet, we're past the days when a product could be sold one way in one market and a completely different way in another.

And as product integration on internationally marketed shows becomes more ubiquitous, I think the audience's relationship with both the shows and the products themselves is going to be similarly influenced.

I'm already certain that while Coca-Cola may sell a few more bottles to thirsty crucifixion fans in the Philippines today, there are some North American congregations deciding to opt for lemonade at the next Church social.

Audiences have a very personal relationship with their shows and their favorite characters. I know I used to find Chuck Norris harmlessly entertaining until I recently saw him pushing his political views. From here on, I'll reconsider renting one of his DVDs on a slow night when I just want to see something blow up.

Some people might be tickled that Eva Longoria bought an Oldsmobile on "Desperate Housewives" and now does promotions for the company. But somewhere in Ohio or Florida, there's a woman whose child was killed by a drunk behind the wheel of an Oldsmobile who has stopped watching the show altogether.

What happens to Diet Pepsi if this week's allegations that one of their prime spokesmen, Sean Combs, was behind the murder of Tupac Shakur prove to be true?

How will the fans of "House" react if their hero one day recommends Pfizer's new depression drug? And what happens to that series and everyone connected to its creative decisions if a fatal side effect to that drug is later discovered -- and to make matters worse -- a victim's family claims Dr. House's word was what convinced the deceased to change his prescription?

In that moment, all the easy money that came from product integration might not seem like such a gift and we'll be yearning for the days when everything on TV was manufactured by the "Acme Novelty Company".

In the end, you gotta suspect that on this day in particular, Jesus might be looking down on the recreation of his suffering, noticing all those people with a Coke in their hands and wondering how we missed the real message.

THE NEW NEIGHBORS

It's officially Spring in the Northern Hemisphere; a fact lost on those in my part of the world where we're still buried under six feet of snow. But while the temperatures remain in the subzero range and the painfully jolly weather guys claim there's weeks of the same to come, the first sign of impending rebirth wandered past me this afternoon. My new neighbors have arrived.


The Canada Geese are back.

When I was a kid on the prairies, the change of seasons was clearly marked by Canada Geese winging their way either South or North. In the Fall, the trademark "V" formations of Southbound flocks covered the sky and were inevitably followed by a brisk North tailwind. Spring came with a similar Northbound "V" accompanied by a warm wind from the South West.

Here in Ontario, the milder winters and year round supply of food mean many of our wildfowl stick around. Yet our Canada Geese still signal the vernal equinox by moving in next door.

They first appear in groups of 10 or 12 tramping through the snow, waddling from parks and wetlands into urban neighborhoods, searching for places to settle down. And you can come across several of these little parades on any given day. They're like weekend real estate tourists scoping your street for an open house, making mental notes about access to schools and the mall before making a down payment.

Hah! "Down" payment! Get it?

Sorry.

Right now, the small groups just make a slow tour of the area. But as soon as the snow melts, they'll be back, walking the same route, dropping pairs as they go. And the nesting will begin.


I'm sure there are Ornithologists who understand why Canada Geese don't keep to the relative serenity of more pastoral settings let alone how they choose who goes where and what spots are best, but to me there's a fascinating chaos to the outcome.

Apparently Canada Geese mate for life. Hence, according to my Mom, the reason they are called "Canadian". Further proof most of the folks I know are genetically flawed, but fascinating because the longer you live in one area, the more it seems like the same pairs are setting up house using the same personal criteria of "location, location and location".

It's not unusual to find a nesting pair right smack in the middle of a parking lot or on the boulevard of a busy intersection. Sometimes, you'll pull into the drive to discover somebody laying eggs by the front step. Even the most territorial dogs get used to the idea that part of their yard has suddenly become "off-limits".

My own theory is that if you're going to be stuck sitting on a half dozen eggs for a few weeks, you want to be someplace where humanity can at least keep you entertained. And so they sit amid shoppers and rush hour taffic watching the passing scene.

Now, for all their grace and elegance and decades as a national symbol, the truth is that our Geese are pretty much a public nuisance. They chase pets and small children, crap everywhere and deliver this material (which we euphemistically call "grease") in daily amounts that approximate twice their body weight.

They are the scourge of beaches, golf courses, public parks and schoolyards. By rights we should be "greasing" them by the thousands. But we don't. Oh, we do hunt them, but only in remote locations and only for a couple of weeks, when they're fat and grain fed and "good-eatin'". But that's mostly an excuse to dress in camoflage and start drinking before breakfast.


Up to then, we go out of our way to make sure they renew the cycle of life with as much help as possible. It's like these birds become part of our families as soon as they move in.

So you will find a nesting female in her parking lot surrounded by piles of birdseed and baked goods that passersby have dropped off so the expectant mom doesn't have to go very far for a snack. Likewise, nesting sites are typically decorated by paper cups filled with water. Our two national symbols, the Canada Goose and the discarded Tim Horton's Cup living in mutual harmony.

I've seen people literally guarding a nest as the eggs hatch, becoming surrogate mommies and daddies as they help the gander keep interlopers at bay.

Once the goslings are born, the impact of our Geese on our lives and our deference to their needs increases exponentially. Baby Geese need to be taught to forage for food, to swim and to fly and we help out with that as much as we can.

Needless to say, these educational activities can't be accomplished in a parking lot. So the Geese walk to the nearest park or stream and we help them get there and safely back home again.

For about 3 weeks in early summer it is completely normal to find a half dozen lanes of traffic backed up for blocks as a mating pair slowly cross the road with 8 or more less than nimble offspring in disorderly single file behind them.


Horns will Honk and tempers flare at the backs of these lines, but once word passes that it's Geese on safari, the road rage subsides into a kind of good-natured acceptance that the wait is unavoidably worthwhile.

Last summer, I wandered a dog friend into a marshy area where the local dogs like to goof around to find several animals and their owners still leashed together, waiting patiently as a mother goose prodded one nearly mature youngster after another into the air. The last one just couldn't get with the program. But Mom had decided it was time to solo and she wasn't handing over the beach until everybody was airborne.

Owners hunkered and dogs flattened on the ground, tongues lolling, all of us patiently waiting for nature to take its course, and somehow sensing that it was more important for this to happen before anybody got to chase a tennis ball.

A few minutes later, little Orville or Wilbur finally grasped the concept and took off. Mom turned to us, Squawked what I took as a "Thank-you" and then flapped off to join her family in the pond. The dogs rose as one and the humans quickly followed, unsnapping leashes and getting on with the play at hand.

Today's real estate tour circled my house a couple of times, with the lead pair, who seemed somewhat familiar, taking particular interest in the shade tree that sheltered a mating pair last Spring. I better go get some birdseed and stop by Tim Horton's. It looks like I'm gonna be a daddy again.

LAZY SUNDAY #19: WE GOT OURSELVES A READER!

I have a confession to make...

This week I started reading a book.

Yep. A real book. And it isn't work related! It's not something somebody wants me to adapt. It isn't research for an original script. It doesn't purport to improve my writing, my personality -- or my cat.

It's one of those compilations of bound and covered paper you read -- for pleasure.


Now, those who've been reading this space for a while will recall that I can't recall the last time I read a book. Too much script and proposal writing and reading had just taken over.

It wasn't always that way. I used to read two or three books a week. Most Sundays I'd pick up the NY Times, sift out the "Review of Books" and read it cover to cover, making a list of titles that looked interesting. Then it was off to a book store or library to find one of those titles.

When I moved to LA, I noticed most bookstores had a huge pile of the "Review of Books" at the counter and once asked a clerk how much it dictated what they sold.

"Most of our customers don't buy books." he said, "They just buy that so they can pretend they've read the books."

I soon discovered he wasn't kidding, meeting far too many movie people whose opinion of a particular novel exactly paralleled the NY Times reviews -- right down to a favorite scene or passage.

So, what inspired me to finally read a book?

Actually it was an invitation I received to check out a new website that debuted this week called titlepage.tv

Titlepage.tv promises to deliver insight and information on books, writers and the process of writing; including a regular one hour video discussion with several authors on their latest works. And boy does it deliver!

The debut features one of my favorite writers, Richard Price, Academy Award nominee for "The Color of Money", writer of the novels and screenplays of "The Wanderers", "Clockers" and "Freedomland" among others. Price also wrote several episodes of "The Wire" and his new novel LUSH LIFE has just been published.

Listening to Richard Price talk about his work process and why he writes what he writes is nothing short of enthralling.

Joining he and moderator Daniel Menaker (former Editor-in-Chief at Random House) are mystery writer Colin Harrison, deputy editor of Harper's Magazine and the author of BREAK AND ENTER, BODIES ELECTRIC, MANHATTAN NOCTURNE, and AFTERBURN; Susan Choi, winner of the Asian American Literary Award for Fiction for THE FOREIGN STUDENT and 2004 Pulitzer Prize finalist for AMERICAN WOMAN -- and the guy who convinced me to start reading again, newcomer Charles Bock, whose debut novel BEAUTIFUL CHILDREN is a current best seller.

Initially uncomfortable being interviewed, Bock's talents quickly begin to shine through and before the video was done I was checking to see if the "Chapters" up the street had a copy. They did -- and so far my instincts are right. This is a book I can't put down.

Titlepage.tv may just be new the online equivalent of the NY Times "Review of Books". I know it'll be a place I go to find new books and to learn more about their authors and the process that brought the story to life. If you have an hour today, pour yourself a cup of coffee, sit back and click the above link to check it out.

And if you don't have the time or an interest in reading or writing, take two minutes to enjoy Comedian Bill Hicks' take on people who don't read books.

Either way, enjoy your Sunday.

MONEY FOR NOTHING AND THEIR SHOWS FOR FREE

Like any business, creating film and television depends on money. Our money arrives under a number of pseudonyms; network license fees, foreign sales, Telefilm loans, grants, tax credits and private investment. Little gets made without a mix of most, if not all, of these different funding streams.


Cable Honcho Jim Shaw recently suggested he doesn't feel he's gotten his money's worth from the millions his semi-monopoly contributes to production and the furor over C-10 gave those who don't like seeing public money invested in the Arts an opportunity to express their dissatisfaction with what we produce.

And while taste is always subjective and nobody will ever create anything that makes everybody happy; the debate begs the question many who make the shows constantly ask -- "Why hasn't the hundreds of millions of dollars poured into our world created a viable industry -- where is all that money going?"

My last posts in this realm followed my personal journey through financial reporting and creative accounting to find out what happened to money I felt I was owed. Hopefully, illustrating how it is owed to thousands of Canadian creatives, and begging somebody in authority to help us get the real numbers out of the secret vault where they are stored at Telefilm Canada.

There will be some more of that today, along with material I've gotten from other producers which basically proves something I've been saying since my first days in the blog world...

The single greatest element holding back the Canadian television industry are our own Broadcasters. Because this small group, which benefits most from the work of our creative community and the largess of the average taxpayer and cable mogul, financially contributes the least to producing Canadian television and in some cases doesn't pay anything at all.

Yep, the same folks whom "public policy" has anointed the gatekeepers of our culture have enriched themselves while simultaneously impoverishing our artists and short-changing the audience they have been licensed and mandated to serve.

It'll take somebody way smarter and far better connected than I'll ever be to unravel the web of political deals and backroom wrangling that put us where we are today. But there is no denying that we live in an environment where our Broadcasters do not need ratings success to survive or cultural contribution to benefit from government support. And they all enjoy state sanctioned territorial and genre protections which ensure that they will never face any real competition.

Thumb through the hearings of our broadcast regulator, the CRTC, and time after time, you will find evidence of hundreds, sometimes thousands of interventions, counter arguments or appeals for logic turned aside for more or less what the Broadcaster wanted in the first place. They own the Commission and anyone who doesn't choose to believe that is a fool.

Others here and here in the Canadian production community have been discussing ways to overcome our apparent inability to develop and sustain popular programming. But having done too many cop shows, my first question on arriving at the scene of that crime is to ask "Who benefits from this?" and usually that means you start following the money.

So, let's start with tax credits...

Allow Jim Russell, a partner at Heenan Blaikie LLP and expert at entertainment law explain them as he did in last Saturday's National Post...

"When the tax credits were first brought in, in 1995, the rationale was that they wouldn't be included in the financing plan for a show. They were designed to allow producers to build up their equity in their company between projects. And it took all of about two seconds for broadcasters, distributors and other stakeholders to say 'No, producer, that's your skin in the game'."

You can read the full article by Joseph Brean and its well-written primer on Canadian film financing here.

Prior to 1995, Canadian networks paid license fees on a par with the rest of the world, that being 60% of the total cost of a program. This meant for an average $1 million dollar hour of drama, the broadcaster would ante $600,000; receiving in return the right to all domestic broadcast revenue and usually a percentage of equity in foreign sales or future earnings.

With the advent of tax credits, the Broadcaster contribution dropped to around 20%, or $200,000 for that same hour with the same benefits in return. In other words, $400,000 in taxpayer and cable mogul money replaced their own investment without impacting their earnings.

Now this was specifically forbidden when the tax credit system came into effect. Yet it goes on every day and the Canadian Film and Television Producers Association (CFTPA) and others reminded the CRTC of that fact during last month's CTF Hearings. But it didn't change anything.

So your tax dollars and cable fees continue to be used to reduce the costs of Canadian Broadcasters in order to increase their profits.

And, in case you haven't noticed -- there never seem to be any profits to be shared with either the people who made the show or you guys who paid for it.


Even with this enormous windfall, Canadian broadcasters continued to moan about how "expensive" it was to create Canadian programming, although they had reduced their actual spend to less than what they typically pay to acquire a similar hour of imported entertainment.

It could be argued that this "abuse" of the tax credit system actually counters any benefits that could accrue to the Canadian production community because it frees up more Broadcaster money to purchase more expensively produced fare from Hollywood.

And let's not forget that this programming arrives with the massive cross-promotion campaigns of the American media behemoths (saving our broadcasters those expenses) as well as providing them the opportunity to simulcast and thus artificially inflate their own viewer numbers so more money can be charged Canadian Ad buyers for commercial time.

That's a pretty nifty business model! Could you blame anybody who might suspect that the CTF rules aren't enforced because some of those profits are making sure the guys who legislate and regulate the system don't mess it up too much?

Meanwhile, Canadian producers are left struggling to create programming that can compete with these imports on a fraction of their budgets. And when they do manage to create something that might do that, their own broadcaster doesn't usually promote it because that too is money out of their pocket.

So we have the odd scene of CTV executives appearing before the CRTC to declaim their dedication to Canadian content like the recent MOW "Mayerthorpe" while promoting the film only on CTV in unsold ad slots -- and only for one week.

But this system gets much darker when you look at how Broadcasters spend their CTF envelopes in development. Let's take Global, where more than one producer has told me they sailed through the initial script stage (funded by the CTF envelope) and received the standard 20% license fee guarantee -- and were then instructed to make an American sale that would trigger said license fee.

About a year ago, I had a similar conversation with a Global Exec interested in a project we had scripted and packaged internally, indicating a possible commitment once I got an American sale. I remember thinking, "I get an American sale, I won't need Global."

To get CTF funding for production, however, producers must deliver 10 of 10 Canadian Content points. Try to convince a foreign broadcaster to put up a significant chunk of your financing under terms where they have no creative elements in play. Most will decline to avoid the headaches they'll inevitably get from their own production communities.

It's not un-doable, to be sure. You might be able to convince a Canadian actor who's well known in the US to play your series lead, or find Canadian directors with network approvals there to take the reins. But those people don't usually work for the kind of money your broadcaster has stipulated as their max.

Many projects developed with taxpayer and cable mogul money, therefore, languish in limbo because the pieces required to get them on the air just won't come together. Indeed, there's one series which Global announced for its 2006-2007 season which still hasn't gone into production for just these reasons.

You'd think the network might've loosened the cuffs with a promised air-date looming. But serving the audience isn't the point. No more than it is making the most efficient use of the "free money" in that development envelope.

Nope, getting somebody else to pay for the show is what all this is about. Believe it or not, there are producers who've had scripts developed with CTF funding, who've been told their license fee won't kick in unless they come back with a US sale and an American setting for the series and an American star.

If that's how a Canadian network wants to spend their own money, I think most people would offer little more than a shrug of disinterest. But I'm not sure such goals were ever in the spirit of the publicly funded CTF.

Although it might explain why CanWest reps at the CRTC were so gung-ho to be able to use their envelope for 8 of 10 or even 6 of 10 shows. They've undoubtedly got a ton of 'em ready to roll.


What all this really highlights is that Canadian content is seen as an unfortunate cost of doing business for our broadcast partners. An "onerous" cost, as CTV has termed it. And like anybody who has to pay for something they don't feel they should have to, they spend as little as possible.

Back in the 1990's, I wrote and produced a series called "Top Cops" that ran for 4 seasons on CBS. It cost about the same as most high action hours of the time and each episode ran once as an original and once more as a repeat during the network season.

So imagine my surprise about a month into the second year of production when I got a call from an accountant I'd never heard of at CBS. "Where do we send the writer money?", he asked. I told him that the writers were Canadian and paid out of the production budget. "No!", he said, "Not their script fees. Where do we send the residuals -- royalties -- whatever you guys call 'em?".

I gave him the address of the Writers Guild of Canada and the next morning the Guild received a check for "the writers" totaling several hundred thousand dollars.

I think this stunned the people at the Guild as much as it did me. I'm not certain if it was the first time they'd collected writer royalties from a Producer who didn't have to be hounded into compliance, but it was the first time I'd earned any. And on a series that only ran in two countries and mere months after the first round of repeats had been completed.

I'd written on shows produced by Canadian companies that had cost a fraction of the "Top Cops" budget and had sold in dozens of markets that were still forecasting losses for the next couple of millenia. And now there I was, barely into a second season, looking at a healthy five figure royalty check with my name on it.

Wow! Despite what everybody here told the government, you really could make some serious cash in this here show business.

And despite my expectation that this was a "once in a lifetime" event, those checks kept coming through all the remaining seasons and for about ten years following as the series went into syndication.

They ceased in 2005 with a nice letter from the network letting me know they had stopped selling the show. By then, even the final episodes were 10 years out of date and in their opinion, "no longer profitably marketable".

Gosh, a ten year stale date! I hope somebody mentioned that potential problem to those guys at Goldman-Sachs who paid millions for an even older and less hit filled Alliance Atlantis library...

Anyway, imagine my surprise a few months later when the series turned up on "Prime" and "MenTV", two Specialty Channels owned by CanWest. And by "turn up" I mean "Top Cops" was running eight times a week!

Now most of our stories were American, but apart from its two Executive Producers, the series was 100% Canadian, give or take a couple of US Guest stars ACTRA allowed us because we were hiring up to 200 of their members every week.

Therefore, "Prime" and "MenTV", at eight broadcasts a week, were qualifying most, if not all, of their required Canadian content from one series shot 15 years earlier.

Incidentally, there's another little regulatory glitch we might want to address if we ever get a CRTC member or two who isn't beholden to the broadcasters.

So, confident in the reality that CBS had obviously made another sale of a series long into profit, I expected another royalty check would soon arrive.

A year later, when it hadn't and CanWest had scheduled another season of eight-a-weeks, I asked the Writer's Guild to find out what was up. They tried. Nobody returned their calls or letters.

Naive in the reality of Canadian Specialty channels, I called the number listed for "Prime" and got an answering machine that accepted "viewer complaints". Wow, a legit specialty channel and the only phone connects to an answering machine...

What I later discovered is that if you have the right connections at the CRTC, you can get a broadcast license with little more on the production side than a satellite link, VCR, some kid to change the tapes and that answering machine.

This was further brought home on another occasion when I tried to contact the owner of the "Romance Channel" with a proposal, discovering she'd had the license for some time but wasn't close to launching and coudn't be reached because she was living in a Mexican beach house that didn't have a phone or electricity.

It really makes you wonder what load of crap the CRTC "bought" from her, or she "sold" them -- or however that all works. Check the dial -- still no "Romance Channel"...

But I digress.

Uncertain whether nobody was picking up the "Prime" answering machine or somebody just wasn't calling me back, I called CanWest, asked to speak to Legal Affairs and was transferred to a Lawyer at the National Post who didn't even know they owned "MenTV" but was game to take down my concerns and get back to me. He never did.

So, now we were into season two and nobody from CanWest was returning calls to either the WGC or me. I called CBS Legal, spoke to a lawyer who'd worked on "Top Cops" and he got back immediately to say that as far as LA was aware, the show wasn't on the air.

Okay -- so now I'm pissed -- because somebody is lying to me.

None of my previous paperwork from CBS showed sales to CanWest that they might be burning off years later. The Guild keeps trying, but nobody responds and they keep sending me emails verifying they're not getting anywhere.

And these Guild guys are being waaaaay nicer than I could ever be -- offering CanWest all kinds of outs like "we just need to know who you purchased the series from so we can contact them", which tells me that if CanWest had legitimately purchased anything, all they had to do is say "We got it from Bob!" and everybody stops bugging them.

But they don't.

And the eight-a-weeks rolled into season three, with "Prime" and "MenTV" meeting their Cancon requirements on the backs of a series nobody's apparently paid for.

And this stuff isn't just happening at "Prime". There are any number of producers who can't get answers about who provided their films for programming on the "Drive-In Channel" -- coincidentally, also owned by CanWest.

It could be all you need to run a Specialty channel is that link, the VCR, the kid, the answering machine -- and a Blockbuster Video card.

People -- this goes on all the time in Canada. Those of you who were avid viewers of those magazine shows which used to run on the CHUM/CITY networks may have noticed that several disappeared shortly after that entity was sold to new owners.

This was the programming the CRTC allowed Broadcasters to substitute for drama and comedy as Cancon in 1999. The story I'm told is that the new owners discovered that there were no releases for many of the clips that these shows used.

You see, you can use a scene from say "The Godfather" in a puff piece on the life of James Caan. All that's required is approval (a release) from whoever owns the movie. Sometimes, they'll give that "Gratis". More often they charge -- and that fee can be several hundred dollars for 30 seconds of material. But you pay it because if you don't, they'll sue your ass for far more than you originally would have had to pay -- and they'll win.

Yet it appears, even though the CRTC had granted our broadcast community the opportunity of substituting even cheaper production to meet their license requirements, one of them wasn't even willing to pay those costs.

In CHUM/CITY's defense, some say that the people charged with looking after clearing the material might have deceived the company. Although it's something you'd think somebody further up the food chain might've thought was important enough to track.

So there you have it. More tales from the sordid real world of Canadian television. You can't know how much I wish I didn't have so many of them.


But if you're reading this on a laptop in an LA Clearing House or in the Legal department of CBS, I'd consider checking out the content on some of those lesser known Canadian Specialty channels and going back a few years when you do. That economic downturn you've been fretting might just have a solution.

LAZY SUNDAY #18: JEFF HEALEY

In the late 1980's I was head writer on a CBS television series called "Adderly". It was a mystery-adventure hour following the exploits of an espionage agent who'd lost the use of one hand and although relegated to low level duties always found a way to get back into the thick of the action.

Among Adderly's character traits was a constant desire to prove he wasn't washed up; that he could still do things with one hand that most men can't do with two. So every week we had to illustrate a new skill he'd acquired, sometimes working it into action or plot turns later in the episode.

That skill might have been something as simple as tying a shoelace one handed or as complicated as breaking down and reloading an AK-47.

Whatever I came up with, our star, Winston Reckert, a terrific Canadian actor, would spend hours perfecting so it could be performed flawlessly in a single take. Because to make these moments work, the audience could never feel we were achieving what they witnessed through edits or other movie magic.

One night after work, Winston and I went into a Blues bar near the studio and encountered one of the most amazing musicians I've ever had the good fortune to hear.

He was a 19 or 20 year old kid who laid his guitar in his lap to play it. His name was Jeff Healey and he was blind. He was also spectacularly talented. As Win and I marveled at a bottleneck Blues solo he played, we realized that we'd found a way for "Adderly" to play the guitar.

After the set, we introduced ourselves, discovering that Jeff exemplified many of the characteristics of our series hero. He was determined, unwilling to accept being marginalized and approached life with an invincible sense of humor. He volunteered to teach Win to play a bottleneck blues piece for the show and we decided he should appear as a guest star as well.

For reasons I've never fathomed, the producers and network resisted the idea and eventually killed it. Maybe it was because you didn't see a lot of people on television with disabilities 20 years ago. Maybe it was because musical interludes weren't as popular as they are today. In the end, "Adderly" played the piece Jeff taught him in a lengthy introspective dialogue scene with his teacher smiling proudly next to the camera.

A year later, Jeff starred with Patrick Swayze in "Roadhouse" and the rest, as they say, is history.

Jeff Healey passed away last Sunday at the ridiculously young age of 41; a victim of the cancer that stole his sight as an infant and that he courageously battled for the next four decades. He was a musician of awesome creativity and courage -- and a guy whose laugh was the most infectious in the world.

If you don't know Jeff's music, you should give it a listen. And if you do, here's one of those songs that you know made him so special.

Enjoy your Sunday.

"GOD IS A FAT BLACK DYKE"

Got your attention?

Film guys like me love titles that get your attention. "Teenage Caveman", "Hell Comes to Frogtown", "The Four Cheerleaders of the Apocalypse". I've actually been considering a post titled "Teenage Pussy" so I can monitor the monstrous jump in traffic as people stop by to see the photos I want to put up of my 13 year old cat.

I can't lay any claim to thinking up the phrase "God is a Fat Black Dyke". I heard it on CBC Radio's "The Current" this morning. Unfortunately for those anxious to see increased ratings at CBC, it's not the title of a show they're debuting next season either.

Nope, those words come straight from the lips of the Reverend Charles McVety of the Canada Family Action Coalition, the same evangelist who took credit for convincing the Harper government to amend the current rules for film and television tax credit certification.

Apparently, a couple of years ago, the good pastor targeted Anik Press which had received Federal funding to publish a book entitled "The Little Black Book for Girls", described by the publisher as "a book on healthy sexuality written by youth for youth and vetted by medical doctors and health professionals".

You can hear all this in an audio clip of the entire affair here. Click "Part Two". The story begins 14 minutes in.

According to Rev. McVety, the book was "pornographic and disgusting" and he quoted a particularly offensive passage, "If you want an image for God, she is a fat black dyke".


Problem is -- that line isn't in the book.

Such details didn't seem to matter to our moral cursader, whose religious zeal apparently extends to taking the name of his own Lord and Saviour in vain if it manages to rile up the faithful and earn some headlines.

Last week, Rev. McVety was quoted in the Globe & Mail here, taking credit for Bill C-10 through his lobbying efforts on the matter "which included discussions with Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day and Justice Minister Rob Nicholson and 'numerous' meetings with officials in the Prime Minister's Office".

He backtracked on that somewhat after the anti-C-10 firestorm erupted within the film community and both ministers named quickly went public to say such discussions never took place.

As of this morning, a spokesperson for Heritage stated that the amendment to the Tax Credit process was an internal decision "within Heritage (not in response to pressure from an evangelist or other political sources, but as an initiative within the department)..."

So, apparently, the man who would like to dictate our national morality was lying -- once again -- and continued to do so when he reconfirmed the remarks in numerous other media formats.

Now, I'm not going to be too hard on Charles for behavior that some might describe as bordering on pathological. He comes from a world where people regularly claim that God will cure your arthritis if you just force those painful digits to wrap themselves around a pen and scrawl them a check.

No, my problem is that Stockwell Day and Rob Nicholson and officials inside the PMO seem to regularly give people like Charles the time of day. It doesn't appear to matter that Charles and his ilk have a "talent for fiction" or will say anything outlandish to gain traction for their causes -- they get listened to.

And somehow us regular Joes who work in the trenches and know how the pieces really go together don't....

If Heritage is finally telling the truth and not just trying to spin its way out of a completely embarrassing situation -- then matters are even more troubling.

You're telling me some government clerk who figured it might be more efficient if all the creative industries used the same form instead of having to print two different ones got the C-10 amendment through Parliament?

No wonder Health care doesn't work and our submarines catch fire underwater.

Not only do our elected representatives (from all parties) not read a bill before passing it; but their staffers make decisions without taking a moment to wonder if there might be some serious economic ramifications that could kill the very industry that provides them with a government job!

If Stockwell Day, Rob Nicholson or anybody in the PMO takes one more phonecall from Rev. Charles McVety, they must not only resign their offices, but they should be sent to have their heads examined!

Why do politicians have so much time for people who lie to them?

Cast your mind back less than a month to the CRTC Hearings on the CTF. Link up with those tedious videos on CPAC (sorry CPAC, but you've really got to work on developing some style) and you'll see Ottawa in action.

The guys with money or a pulpit are listened to. The writers and other artists who appeared might just as well be talking to themselves.

At those hearings, Quebecor promised a $100 Million fund for new programming -- on the very day their publishing division was seeking creditor protection against being forced into bankruptcy!

I've often wondered if anybody who sits on the CRTC actually watches television, but now you have to wonder if any of the Commissioners read a newspaper!

I mean, come on, if Quebecor had $100 Million lying around, don't you think they'd pay the phone and Hydro bills over at Publishing before becoming a patron of the Arts!?!

Maybe our politicians are so used to lying themselves that what people like Charles and Quebecor and Jim Shaw say to them makes complete sense.

And perhaps the people who work for them are so busy figuring out new methods of cubicle efficiency that they don't have time to dig into what's been said and offer some enlightenment.

Which also says to me that 25 or 30 thousand people joining a Facebook group isn't going to change things.

Back in November, I wrote about a police officer who wasn't getting a posthumous Cross of Valour because of a bureaucratic screw up in Ottawa. The last time I checked, more than 60,000 people had signed a petition seeking to right that wrong -- and nothing has happened.

30,000 people concerned about the Arts? Not even halfway to getting noticed on the Hill, let alone being considered a force to be reckoned with.

Writing MPs and Senators and joining interest groups is all fine and dandy. But it's time we started being far more active in addressing the concerns in our industry.

If the Prime Minister's office has time to conference with Charles McVety, they can damn well make some time for the tens of thousands of people who work in the film business.

In closing -- Rev. McVety, if I've said anything here that personally offends you -- well -- forgive me. If you really are a true Christian, I know you will. Perhaps your passions and your Pride just got the better of you -- and we both know what that "goeth before" -- don't we?

I hope you'll take a look at what damage your words can do in future. It's something those of us who write for a living consider every time we pick up a pen or sit down at the keyboard. Most of us believe that if you can't make an argument honestly than maybe there's a problem with that argument.

And, hopefully, a very long time in the future, when you finally go to your ultimate reward and meet your Maker, you won't be too upset if She turns out to be a fat, Black dyke.

Because, as we both know -- she just might be!

KEEP TELLING YOURSELF: IT'S ONLY A MOVIE

Pretty much everywhere you look around the Canadian Showbiz Web, you'll find people expressing their outrage at Bill C-10 and the spectre of government censorship of the arts. And on most of those sites, you'll also find a comment string riddled with input from those who don't have much use for most of what gets produced in Canadian film and TV, usually posting as "Anonymous".

The ensuing debate has become more strident and ugly as members of the Christian Right and those who don't want to subsidize the Arts in the first place have either taken credit for percipitating this change or championed it as a step toward protecting the nation from the improper influences of its artists.

As an artist who's been a victim of censorship and marginalized for doing work that some consider, if not contrary to Public Policy, certainly contrary to how the people in power would like things to be, I'm fully opposed to C-10.

If you're in favor of it, however, I hope you'll take a moment to read the rest of this post. Because I'm here to tell you that it isn't good for you either. It won't improve one thing in your life and those in Ottawa who are supporting it do not really have your best interests at heart.

They're using you, the same way they're using us.


First of all, I want you to know that I'm a lot like you. I was born into a very Christian household. My mom was a Sunday school teacher. And both my parents spent a great deal of time teaching me right from wrong and to be self-reliant and independent.

The artists I work with might come from a variety of backgrounds, but you probably couldn't single any of us out on the street, at a party, or while watching our kids play your kids at a hockey arena on a Saturday morning.

I've been making Canadian films and television for more than 35 years. Apparently, I'm good enough at what I do that I've had many offers to leave and work somewhere else and accepted quite a few of them. Came back more than once. Maybe it's that Socratic, "Every man is born where he belongs" thing. Maybe the work here matters in ways that it doesn't in other lands. Maybe I just want to live in a place where a love of hockey isn't considered "troubling". All I know is, I'm here.

During my time in the biz, I've broken most of the Commandments, but I think I can honestly say I never intentionally hurt anybody.

I did nude scenes as an actor, tons of sex scenes, lots of movies where blood and guts sprayed all over the place. I played characters who espoused anarchy, brutality, cruelty or genocide and harmed small children and puppies. I also played Saints and martyrs and men of the cloth along with heroes who did "what a man's gotta do".

Some of those characters might have repulsed you, or frightened you or given you inspiration and courage. But they weren't real. They were only movies.

The first film I ever made was called "The Last Detail" and starred Jack Nicholson as a sailor who cursed a blue streak from the opening credits to the final frame. My mom, the Sunday school teacher, went to see it with her bowling team. The theatre manager tried to stop them from buying tickets, worried they'd be scandalized and complain. They weren't. They laughed and hooted and stood up to cheer every time I got a close-up.

None of those women left their husbands or turned to a life of depravity because of the salacious activities they witnessed that afternoon. They had a couple of hours of fun. It was only a movie.

As a writer I wrote more sex and violence. I crafted speeches for men who wanted to commit horrific crimes and overthrow governments, who hated people because of their religion and the color of their skin. I made some people say the most insulting and outrageous things. But they weren't real. They were only movies.

Tabloids used to link episodes of "Friday the 13th" I wrote to copycat murders, often in places where the show had never been seen. The Reverend Donald Wildmon once accused me of replicating a Satanic Mass word for word. But I'd studied Latin because I wanted to go to medical school and those horrible men in black robes about to conduct a human sacrifice in a dark forest were actually chanting a chorus of "The Teddy Bears Picnic" (If you go down in the woods today, you're in for a big surprise...). It wasn't real. It was only a movie.

My producing career has followed the same path. And much as my job is to make you think it's real -- it's not. The blood is food coloring and corn syrup. The gun is rubber. The leading lady's cleavage isn't all her. I'm just making a buck and the stuff I make is still only a movie.

I hope that what I do sometimes does more than entertain; that I might make some in the audience think about things more clearly or more deeply because of what they witness from my hand. But I honestly don't believe I do any more than put people in touch with what they are already capable of seeing or feeling or becoming.

I light a path. They take their road through their own choosing.

The implication in Bill C-10 is that by controlling art we make society better -- and that's a lie.

What the good people who populate your Government don't tell you is that there are already laws against violent pornography and preaching hatred. If my movies include that stuff, I've got bigger things than lost tax credits to worry about.

So -- why are they doing this C-10 thing? Well, it might be that they're edging away from funding the arts. But I'm convinced it's really to make people like you think they're actually doing something.

But they're not -- and unfortunately, this part is not a movie.

And a lot of artists will get hurt and lose their livelihoods because banks won't fund films and television lacking cost certainty; just so our Government can make you think they're getting at the porn and violent hip-hop videos you don't like and maybe wrestling society in general back to traditional family values.

But Bill C-10 will not stop any of the things you see on television or down at the Cineplex that already upset you. Read the text of the legislation. We have to do something that is "contrary to Public policy" before we're muzzled.

Didn't like those two cowpokes getting it on in "Brokeback Mountain"? Sorry, Canadian cowboys can do that. Hell, they can get a marriage license to go along with such shenanigans if they want. Or they can forego the license and the Stetsons and just get it on atop a float on a downtown street during Pride Week.

None of that is contrary to public policy.

Didn't think it was right that "Juno" girl made teen pregnancy look fun? Well, nothing in Public policy says teens can't have sex -- or get pregnant -- or imply that it's fun. That kid stays in her picture.

Hate it when those Muslims on "Little Mosque" make cracks about Christians? Well, chances are that's going to keep happening -- and maybe even get funnier. Nothing in public policy says we can't goof with each other.

And just so we're clear, I don't think things will change much from an artistic perspective either. Robert Lantos can refer to you guys as "Barbarians" but only because he'd really like people to believe he isn't one. And Atom Egoyan can bluster about maintaining his artistic freedom, but that only means he wants to continue to be boring.

No, as usual, this is about politicians using us to make you look one way while they're busy somewhere else.

Let's talk about Pornography first.

That nice man from the cable company, Jim Shaw, makes a shitload of money from selling porn. So does grandfatherly old Ted Rogers. Even those people at the staid and respectable Globe and Mail are in company with Bell Expressvu where a big chunk of the profits come from selling porn.

They call it Pay-per-View or Movies on Demand and most of what they sell through those services is the raunchy stuff. Personnally, I could care less. Canadians seem to like watching people "do it" and I'm completely in favor of giving an audience what they want.

I know it makes you feel "icky" but the point here is that all of those porn peddling companies are licensed by the Government. Not only licensed but paying through the nose so they can have exclusive territories in which to ply their trade.

So, if your elected representatives really wanted to do something about "smut", they'd go after Jim and Ted and somebody at Bell. But they don't.

In fact, if you check the donations made to all those politicians making sure no tax money goes toward producing pornography, you'll find they've all received significant contributions from Jim and Ted and that guy at Bell -- money that comes from the very "art" your MP says he doesn't want to support.

Let's turn to violence and offending a particular group, the other things the secret panel empowered by C-10 will review.

It's been my experience that few Canadian films opt for "the good old ultra-violence" or go out of their way to imply, for example, that all Arabs are terrorists. That's the kind of thing you tend to find in American films. Movies like "Hostel", "The Kingdom", "John Rambo" and the like, trade fairly equally in copious blood and racial or ethnic stereotypes.

Last year, somewhere around 3% of movie admissions in Canada were paid to see a Canadian movie. So even with Bill C-10. 97% of what's bothering you now is going to be bothering you in the future.

Last year, only 4% of Canadian prime time programming on our major networks was Canadian. Which always makes me wonder why "Anonymous" gets so exercised over how much those crappy Canadian shows are ruining his viewing experience.

Maybe he doesn't nap through most shows like the rest of us -- or he's permanently lost the remote between the couch cushions and is stuck watching "Designer Guys" repeats. The fact is, it doesn't take much effort to get through a couple of weeks without seeing anything more Canadian than the cellphone rodents.

According to stats that came out yesterday, Canadian networks as a whole spent 12 and a half times more on foreign product than the home grown stuff. ($462 Million compared to $36.5 Million) And all of those networks were at the CRTC last month, pushing hard to spend even more on the foreign (and more violent and stereotypical) stuff and less on Canadian production -- so not much of what you're offended by or you feel is adversely influencing your kids is going to change either.

You C-10 supporters are being played.

Beyond putting an economic stranglehold on an industry already choking for a lack financial oxygen, virtually nothing you see on TV or in a movie theatre will be any different.

And what's more, nothing's going to alter on all those reality shows you're offended by with the Paris Hiltons of the world or the magazine shows that follow around those same Paris Hiltons when they're not doing reality shows -- because neither genre qualifies for tax credits in the first place.

"The Trailer Park Boys" may disappear, but Ben Mulroney will live forever!

So maybe this really is only about getting rid of film subsidies.

And frankly, I'm not shedding any tears over that eventuality either. Applying for tax credits already takes up more of my time and energy than they're worth, along with killing a small forest to produce the paperwork. Trust me, the only people making money from the current government subsidy system are Grand & Toy.

Look, I don't begrudge you wanting to see your tax money being spent somewhere else. I see a lot of mine go for public schools I don't use and unemployment insurance I can't collect. I'd love to have other sources of money so I didn't feel like I was going on welfare every time I put a project into development.

All it would take is for the Government to allow some investment incentives so the industry could support itself. But that would mean they'd have no more control over what the artists in this country have to say -- or be able to weasel guest shots on "Corner Gas" -- so I'm not sure that'll work for them.

Anonymous and friends -- I'm afraid we're stuck with each other for the time being. And I'll be interested in your reaction when this Government decides to apply the system they're imposing on us on you.

Churches now have tax free status. But imagine if the tax advantages that have been granted to your place of worship had to undergo a performance review by an unnamed panel at the Department of Justice. It could require your church to forego those tax benefits if a member of your clergy had molested children, not reported a confessed crime or maybe just couldn't prove they had actually gotten anybody into Heaven.

After all, abusing children, failure to co-operate with law enforcement and fraud are all "contrary to public policy".

And how would you feel if your church wasn't allowed to be "contrary to public policy" in its day to day operations?

There would be a lot of things in your holy books you wouldn't be allowed to say in public because they constitute hate speech and those gay cowboys would be within their rights to show up and threaten to sue if you didn't perform a marriage ceremony for them.

The shoe would be on the other foot then, wouldn't it?

Or maybe that's the shoe that drops next...

Keep telling yourself it could only happen in a movie.

But you'd be wrong.

LAZY SUNDAY #17: LIFTED

Somehow we made it through another trying week in the Canadian film industry. It's tough enough having to work around indifferent broadcasters, incompetent regulators and producers whose self interest surpasses understanding. Now we've got sneaky politicians and religious fanatics to deal with.

The Rapture really can't come soon enough, can it? And if that doesn't finally get some of these crusaders off our case, there's always the chance a UFO might find some of them -- or even some of us -- on a lonely road and transport our problems elsewhere.

C'mon, admit it! Compared with explaining the film business to one more "honorable" member or un-elected Senator, an anal probe isn't such a bad option.

On the other hand, your experience could approximate this snippet of Pixar hilarity, posted as a momentary escape from the frustration and the madness.

Don't lose your sense of humor people. That's what happened to those you're fighting and I think we all know that we can never become like them.

Take heart and enjoy your Sunday.



And if it happens to disappear, you can find it here.

SILENCE IS GOLDEN

It's nice when it's quiet. Life can seem peaceful then. Orderly and untroubled. No reason for concern. A fella could drift off to happy slumber. There clearly isn't a problem in the world. How could there be? It's so quiet. And silence, we're taught from the earliest age -- is golden.

I've been in the rain forest when it goes quiet. It's the oddest feeling. Because it's not a sign of serenity. It's a signal that something is very, very wrong. Birds stop singing. Tree critters freeze. Even insects have the good sense to STFU. Something dangerous has entered the neighborhood and nobody wants to be noticed until it moves on.

We can all recall some grizzled B-Movie character scanning a hostile horizon and muttering "It's quiet. Too quiet..." just before all hell breaks loose. And we all know the cliche is accurate.

In the natural world, silence defeats the predator and it moves on, knowing it can't find prey now than it has been detected. In human endeavor, the opposite is true.


In our world, silence means nobody noticed the window breaking. It means whoever heard the scream decided not to get involved. It means that the victim is too intimidated to speak.

So the human predator succeeds and gets to victimize again and again and again.

The rest of us are expected to suffer in silence for any injustice we may receive, especially when that injustice is meted out by our 'betters', the guy who signs our paycheck or authority in general. They have the rights and privileges. A "good" person "turns the other cheek" and leaves retribution to a higher power that may not ever appear.

I beg to differ.

A thousand years before the biblical exhortation to love our enemies and leave their punishment to God was written, a man named Confucious asked this simple question: "If you reward evil with good -- how do you reward good?"

Well?

Y'see not rewarding evil with silent compliance is not really a bad thing. It's a basic human instinct to protect yourself from harm. So why do people who are exploited, misused or unfairly vilified come to think of themselves as "troublesome" when they make any effort to merely defend themselves?

That's simple too. Because thinking that way helps the people who don't have your best interests at heart continue to take advantage of you and increase their grip on the power they've already gained by your silence.

Don't like the fact that some faceless bureaucrat is going to decide if your script is "offensive"? Maybe you should have said something when faceless bureaucrats were deciding what got made in the first place.

Every minute you keep quiet about things that upset you because doing so might hurt your job chances, damage your rep as a team player or eliminate an opportunity to cozy up to the "right" people; every single time you turn a blind eye to something you know is wrong -- you make the people doing those unfair things stronger and you ensure that your future chances of ever defeating them become less likely.

I'm not couseling you to become Paul Kersey here, creeping around Manhatten with your .38 and a mind bent on revenge. But I do remember seeing "Death Wish" on its opening night in a Manhatten theatre and watching an entire audience rise to its feet and cheer with a deafening, primal roar the first time their vigilante hero pulled the trigger.

That experience didn't teach me that revenge was a good thing. It schooled me in the cathartic power of breaking the bonds of expected behavior. It instructed me that self defense doesn't mean letting the other guy pound on you for a good while before you can react.

I know this goes against everything you've ever had drummed into you about being a good little Canadian artist. But fighting back can actually be quite constructive. Here's why:

1. It stops you from being injured any further. In less than ten years of bureaucratic stranglehold and corporate lying, we've gone from a vibrant industry that couldn't find enough people to make its films and television to one that's a shadow of its former self and in danger of completely disappearing.

For too long, too many of us have shaken our heads and shrugged, "What're you gonna do?"

Gee, I don't know, how about "something" -- "anything"!

The first step in getting out of a hole is not letting anybody make it deeper.

2. Fighting back puts the people who would control you on notice. Most of us human types follow the path of least resistance in life. If you bite, spit and scream and the next guy doesn't, they'll move on to him, or at least back away from you. And they'll have serious second thoughts about whether they can actually get away with whatever they had planned.

And that gives you the chance to make some moves of your own.

3. There really is such a thing as Creative conflict. You use it in your writing. Start using it in your life. Sure, it'll make some people get out of your way -- but, ask yourself why they even thought they could get in your way to begin with!

You're the artist here, the one with the ideas and the big dreams. Empires and fortunes are built on that stuff. Take charge and start dictating just how it's going to be from now on.

And try this -- the next time a dog barks at you, bark back. I guarantee you'll get his attention if not his respect. The next time somebody bumps into you at the supermarket, don't say "sorry". And the next time some faceless bureaucrat decides to take one more of your freedoms -- tell them "No!" and mean it!

There may not be a lot of us, people. But there's enough. And this has to stop.


Silence is only golden when it is being practiced by an audience listening to your uncensored words.

HOW MANY ACCOUNTANTS DOES IT TAKE TO CHANGE A LIGHTBULB?

A: HOW MUCH MONEY HAVE YOU GOT?

An old joke, but unfortunately apt, especially in Canadian Show Business.


I've received enormous response to the experiences I related in chasing earnings made by some of the films I've made. Thanks to all of you who wrote. Apparently, many of us share the same pain.

And while it's comforting to know I haven't been singled out for special treatment; it also brings home the point that we have a serious problem in this country when it comes to accountability.

As I said in the original post, these issues could all be resolved if Telefilm Canada would simply allow the artists they were incorporated to support and the tax paying community that supplies film funding to verify that our government has the same numbers we do.

It wouldn't be a tough job. Just get somebody to put the paper I send over top of the one already on file -- hold it up to the light. If they match, they match. If they don't -- Lucy's got some 'splaining to do.

Until that happens, Telefilm retains its position along with an out of touch regulator and our mysteriously enriched production entities as the axis of weasel that keeps Canadian artists from realizing their full potential.


Among the items forwarded to me from readers was a study published by the Communications Department of Penn State in 2001 which states, "the Canadian television production industry has been able to grow and prosper to the point where Canada now ranks only second to the United States in exports of television productions to the international market..."

Wow, second only to the USA in foreign sales! Ahead of the UK, France, Germany, even Bollywood!?! And yet, somehow, these earnings never get that programming into profit nor trickle down to the country's artists....

Does that seem logical to you?

Someone else linked me to an article written by Doug Saunders for The Friends of Canadian Broadcasting entitled "A Cheaters Guide to Canadian Television" or "How to Bilk Taxpayers and Influence People". Among his many revelations, Mr. Saunders includes a reference to the exclusive and expensive Muskoka vacation area near Toronto and a body of water the locals have dubbed "Lake Telefilm" because of all the film and TV executive properties which dot its shoreline.

Some of those vacation homes belong to the same executives who regularly go hat in hand to the CRTC or publish financial statements claiming their programming hasn't made a dime.

On a more troubling level, I was also supplied figures from SOCAN (The Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada) suggesting that sales territories communicated to them by Alliance Atlantis on my films aren't listed in those provided to me and the Writers Guild of Canada.

So this whole affair begins to shade a little darker.

Not that my gut didn't tell me it was headed that way from the beginning.

The financial reports I'd received from Alliance on the Harlequin films were initially troubling because they didn't reconcile with the claims the company had made to their shareholders in its Annual Reports.


But if you recall, I said I departed Alliance because I couldn't align myself with the corporate culture. And that had nothing to do with an office dress code that seemed dictated by the latest "Banana Republic" catalogue or the constant feeling that at any moment somebody might stuff a couple of soup cans into my hands and ask me to take a "personality test".

All productions are rigorously budgeted and those budgets are often revised to reflect the realities of production. Unexpected costs, currency fluctuations and savings all conspire to alter the final numbers.

One of my final formal duties on the four films I co-wrote and executive produced was to deliver what's known as an EFC, an Estimate of Final Costs. The production's line producers, accountants and production managers gathered to compile that and we were all in a pretty good mood.

All our records indicated we were well under budget with only a couple of outstanding invoices in dispute for reasons related to rental car insurance or incomplete employment schedules. All quite normal and amounting to an insignificant future expense if they had to be paid.

I signed off the EFC and left for what I figured was a well-earned vacation.

Two weeks later, I was back in the office as a lawyer from Business Affairs handed me the final audited cost report I needed to sign. The bottom line number, however, was now over budget. I inquired about the discrepancy and asked to see the line item budget that would support it. He said that wasn't allowed.

Que?

I made it clear I wasn't autographing any budget I hadn't read. He suggested that would put me in breach of contract. I thought over the troubling incidents I'd shouldered aside to bring the films in on time and under budget, decided a breach of contract suit could be the least of my worries -- and walked.

Nobody sued.

About a year later, I received my first financial statement and requested the audited final costs of the films in the hope of figuring things out. After a bit of a tussle, my lawyer managed to acquire them.


Because government funding regulations in Canada require that final production costs are vetted by independent auditors, I decided to get in touch with those guys to see if they could shed any light.

There were two audits. One for the two Canadian location films and one for the two that we had filmed in Europe. Each had been done by a different audit firm.

The first had been published under an impressive scroll font indicating a triple name partnership of some repute. Despite the fact that Alliance was headquartered in downtown Toronto, this firm was tucked into "Suite 201" of an address on the far Eastern edge of the city. Initially, this didn't strike me as odd. When you find a good accountant, most producers will walk a mile of shattered glass to get to him.

But my suspicions were aroused when I pulled into the parking lot of a rundown strip mall and further heightened when I discovered "Suite 201" was on the lone floor over a Korean nail salon.

I went upstairs to discover not one large suite which might house three accounting partners, but a warren of tiny offices. "201" bore the nameplate of a single accountant. But the name didn't match any on my audit letterhead.

I entered a sparse office with a single desk, one chair and a polite man of South Asian descent working on a pile of receipts. I apologized for interrupting and told him I was looking for the triumverate of auditors. He visibly tightened.

"They're not here."

I told him I'd realized that much, asked if maybe I had the address wrong or they'd moved since the document I was holding had been created. He asked to see the papers. I handed them over and said I just needed to ask the auditors a few questions. He was perusing the document now and looked scared.

"Who's asking questions?"

I told him right now it was just me. But he was getting really nervous. So I assured him that I knew he hadn't created the audit and just wanted to find the guys who had. He handed back the papers.

"Sometimes they use this office."

I looked around at the single desk and chair. "All three of them?" I asked.

He looked trapped. I wish I could account for that with my imposing presence and threatening nature. But it's far from the reality.

"They're in Montreal. That's all I can say."

I tried to ask a few more questions, but he didn't want to know. So I thanked him for his help and left.

But it got me wondering why a respectable Canadian production giant would farm out a government required audit to a firm in Montreal that would then feel the need to publish it under a Toronto address that they and the production company both knew they didn't occupy.

It didn't fall into any category I could define as "the normal course of business".

A few days later, I saw the photograph of an RCMP Officer I'd interviewed for "Top Cops" in the Business section of the Globe and Mail. He'd retired from the Mounties to work as an investigator for an accounting firm. I called to congratulate him and related my story. He laughed for an uncomfortably long time and invited me down to "meet some people" he thought I needed to meet.

His people were forensic accountants who soon uncovered other aspects to the audits that seemed normal to me but drifted off that scale for them. One audit, for example, had been generated less than 48 hours after the reporting period it covered. Something that people who do this work find somewhat unusual.

The forensics guys were also able to define specific dollar amounts for costs that didn't reconcile with anything in my crammed bankers boxes of related documents. Two of their repeated questions were, "Where's the Government in all this?" and "Why did Ottawa accept these numbers?".

I told them I didn't know. Production company records disappear into a black hole at Telefilm impermeable to even the Freedom of Information Act. There is no way to access what a film or television program earns in those foreign markets we apparently excel at selling, nor is there any way to be certain the audited costs of those same productions are accurate.

That said, some accuracy in financial reporting may soon arrive through the foreign investment of Goldman-Sachs in the CanWest purchase of Alliance-Atlantis and the film and television library in which my films reside.

Interestly, the current head of Telefilm and others intimately connected with many of those library titles suggested the Goldman Sachs acquisition was a "threat" to our cultural integrity. And perhaps threatened something else of greater concern to these players...

I say that because the executives at Goldman-Sachs must deal with two words foreign to most Canadian corporate accounting -- Sarbanes Oxley.

The Sarbanes-Oxley laws were enacted in America in 2002, in response to the outrages at Enron, Worldcom, Adelphia, Tyco and others, making corporate executives personally accountable for their company's financial reporting. I hope the powers that be at Goldman-Sachs knew what they were buying into up here. If not, I'm certain they are quickly learning.

Wouldn't it be ironic if the system put in place when television arrived here in 1952 and Parliament stipulated "Canadian television must safeguard, enrich and strengthen the cultural, political, social and economic fabric of Canada" might finally be realized through the intervention of foreign ownership from the very nation Parliament was trying to protect us from.


As I write this, Karlheinz Schreiber and former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney are converging on Ottawa to explain envelopes of cash exchanged in hotel rooms. David Radler of Canada's once eminently respected Hollinger Inc. reports to prison in Pennsylvania while his partner Conrad Black faces the same fate next week in Chicago. Across town, executives for Nortel, once our largest, most prestigeous corporate citizen, await arrest warrants that may send their top echelon of executives to the crowbar hotel for a very long time.

The impression given by some of our once respected Captains of Industry (and any number of quotes in the NY Times by Wall Street heavies) is that corporate governance in this country is unreliable if not downright crispy.

If the film and television business managed to escape that malaise, our Federal Government and Telefilm is in the perfect position to prove it. If we slipped, maybe it's time to come clean, balance the long overdue accounts to our artists and taxpayers and figure out where we go from here.

But if my own suspicions prove correct, there could also be a lot of lakefront property in Muskoka available real soon.