Sunday, November 18, 2007

Q. I've queried a Canadian producer with a MOW script. He's interested in the concept but tells me his funding requires Canadian writers do the work.

Is there a way to deal with this short of becoming an iceroad trucker? Get a Canadian agent? Aquire some sort of work visa? Accept the fact that hockey is here to stay? What?

Heh.

Have you finished the script? Or is it just a treatment at this point?

If it's a story idea, he can buy the idea from you, then hire a Canadian writer to write it. You can negotiate some sort of producer credit (Exec Producer, Associate Producer) and payment in lieu of getting to write it. Not great if the whole point was you writing it, of course.

If it's a script, you're out of luck, unless you want to immigrate to Canada, which seems extreme for the sake of one producer's interest. (Though it is an excellent thing to do for any number of other reasons.)

There's generally no point in querying Canadian producers if you're American. It's a protected market.

You can query Canadian producers if you are European, because they can do a Euro-Canadian co-production. Though it makes more sense to query producers in your own country, who can then contact a Canadian co-producer.

Of course, if you're American, you're really out of luck at the moment -- you can't query American producers, either, until the strike is over!

Q. If the writer is American, doesn't a Canadian director, actor(s), dir. of photography, composer, set designer, etc. culminate in enough points for the company to qualify the production as Canadian content (Cancon)

Yes, for CAVCO, which is the 15% production subsidy that can be combined with a provincial subsidy for about 25% of the budget. No for a producer who's just planning on getting the other 75% of his budget from Telefilm.

Labels: queries

11:36 AM

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