Hollywood's Canada

filmelife

filmelife

Well-known member
I had to write this essay to get in to film school, as to why there are no Canadian films shown in theatres but only TV.
According to research of various books, including burton's hollywood's canada, is that canadian films lack professionalism.
I see there are canadian film directors, producers etc.

but have you seen a fully produced canadian film, other than those canadian heritage shorts at the beginning?
 
Re: Hollywood's Canada

I don't have any answers for you being a yankee myself, but I  am interested in the books you mentioned.  I did a search for 'burton's hollywood's canada' on Amason and couldn't find any listing.  Can you provide a list of books with authors so I could research this topic myself?

~edit~ I did a little searching and found the follwoing link online. Maybe it will have a little more information.

http://www.mta.ca/faculty/arts/canadian_studies/english/about/movies/
 
Re: Hollywood's Canada

What film school is asking that?

I see Canadian films all the time. In the theatre.

Additionally, I've never seen a Canadian Heritage short in the theatre... only on television. It sounds like this question was asked by someone who hasn't been to the theatre in 10 years.

There are lots of English Canadian films shown in theatres. They're mostly in the major centres (Toronto, Vancouver), but there are usually plenty at any one time. A few weeks ago there were five different films playing in Vancouver in commercial cinemas.

In the last several years, there has been a vast improvement in the state of english Canadian films in theatrical release. They are often quite good, but rarely excellent. This is because we're still young as far as knowing what does and doesn't work as a movie, and because much of our film business talent (eg. producers, film execs) have chosen to move to the US.

There's a very good book called "Hollywood North" by one of the creators of what is now telefilm Canada. It gives a good idea of the history of the Canadian filmmaker, including the American influence on distribution (specifically pressures from American studios), quality, etc.

The conception that English Canadian film is overly artistic and introverted is untrue. I think some of the better films have been on the more academic side, but this is the same with films from any country. The difference is that a "critically acclaimed" Canadian film is usually the only kind of film that gets enough recognition for people to realize it's Canadian. In the past year though, I've seen Canadian action movies, horror movies and comedies. All in the theater. Usually they only get a week or two in the theatre, but there are other reasons for that (marketing, quality, etc).

Don't be tricked into thinking they aren't out there though. English Canadian film is getting better and better, and more people are going to see it, even if they don't know it's Canadian.

Now French Canadian film is another story. That is a much more established industry as far as storytelling, quality, and business sense. They make darn good movies in Quebec. The big reason they have this "head start" is because of the language barrier. Quebec moviegoers are, and always have been, more inclined to see Quebec films than the rest of Canada has been to english Canadian films because of this language "monopoly" (whereas English Canadian films have always had to compete financially with American films), so the Quebec producers have an advantage and are much more likely to make their money back.

Anyway, I do agree in one sense about the quality comment. I believe that many of English Canada's "celebrity directors" are weak (of course there are also some that are quite strong). It seems that the better films I've seen recently have been made by little known directors.

The statement that no Canadian films are shown in theatres is ridiculously false though. If a Canadian film doesn't get theatrical distribution chances are it's not very good. So as an aspiring Canadian feature film director, I say, "Stop whining and make a better film next time".
 
Re: Hollywood's Canada

[quote author=John Hudson link=board=Offtopic;num=1082580894;start=0#3 date=04/24/04 at 22:19:57]What would define a CANADIAN film?  Specifically...[/quote]

Officially? Well in Canada there is a credit system. In order to be a Canadian film and recieve all the benefits therein (tax incentives, telefilm loans, etc) a certain percentage of your key talent (director, producer, art director, etc) have to hold a Canadian passport. For example, I think the Triplets of Belleville may qualify as Canadian, even though it's a coproduction.

I'm not sure how it is right now, but at one point the American productions would hire much of their key talent (1st AD, production designer, etc) in Canada to gain these benefits. I don't think the larger American films like X-Men 2, Catgirl, iRobot, Chronicles of Riddick, etc, get federal tax incentives, but I think they may get provincial ones. I know "The Shipping News" really benefitted provincially from shooting in Newfoundland (not that they had much of a choice).

For me though, a Canadian film is simply a film made here by Canadians, with primarily Canadian money (excluding foreign presells of course).

It's interesting, because for most of our recent history we didn't have any sort of studio system, so all of our productions were independent productions. In the last ten years or so though, we've had Alliance Atlantis in Toronto, which is actually one of the larger studios in North America in terms of production and distribution. Most of their business is distributing foreign (including American) film, and they are very big in television production. Anyway, just like any studio it's next to impossible to get anything made with them, but they are fairly dedicated to building a medium budget film industry with star talent in Canada for Canadians, which is cool. Their first big experiment was "Men with Brooms", which sort of epitomizes everything I said above about being embarrasingly stereotypical, but it did okay in the theatres. Their experiment is to put enough money into Prints and Advertising that Canadians will get as much advertising exposure to the film as they would to an American film, which was unheard of before.

Many of these bigger movies aren't even promoted as being "Canadian"... they're just promoted on their own merit, which is good. In general, to watch them you wouldn't even know they were Canadian owned and made. And like the American studio films, most of them are pretty lousy, but they probably all have a good video shelf life.
 
Re: Hollywood's Canada

[quote author=John Hudson link=board=Offtopic;num=1082580894;start=0#3 date=04/24/04 at 22:19:57]Just out of curiosity

What would define a CANADIAN film?  Specifically...[/quote]

A film that cures insomnia...
 
Re: Hollywood's Canada

[quote author=John Hudson link=board=Offtopic;num=1082580894;start=0#6 date=04/25/04 at 10:22:22]cameron baby. cameron.[/quote]

exactly!
 
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