spoiled rotten

I promised myself I would refrain from commenting on the politics of the Canadian film industry in this blog, but sometimes I feel like we don't realize how good we have it here. 

It's true that, in the entertainment marketplace, it's like trying to run an independent variety store right next to a Wal-Mart. It is incredibly difficult to attract a mass audience when your neighbors have all the buying power and spend more on marketing than you are able to spend on your product. But we do have certain advantages.

I tried explaining the Canadian funding game to an American filmmaker friend once. He couldn't wrap his head around the fact that we can get government funding for everything from zombie movies to hard-core experimental cinema. Meanwhile, he and his colleagues are forced to hustle their butts off either working their way up the industry ladder or scraping together donations from wealthy relations to get their films made.

Although I admit that there are many problems with our system, at least we Canadians have a hope of getting films that aren't based on video game or TV franchises made. Heck, we can even get paid to write screenplays by a government that we may or may not have voted for! (In my province, they even have a special piece of the pie set aside for those under age 35--imagine!)

We should remind ourselves that filmmaking is a privilege; as those March 1st deadlines loom, let's thank our lucky stars for even a shot at funding. We should also stop blaming the system and the audience for our shortcomings, and take responsibility for our national cinema. The focus should be on telling great stories, and I believe the rest will work itself out.

Maybe we should use our imaginations for a change (this is supposed to be a creative industry, after all) and try out some alternative distribution models. If we hustled half as hard as the Americans do, who knows what might happen?

There. Now that that's off my chest, you will likely not hear about this issue from me in a long, long time.