Sunday, June 20, 2010

So what are we doing? How do we fix our slipping film industry in Alberta...and does anyone really care?

I do, I do desperately. I love being a filmmaker. I love telling stories, I love reaching people with ideas, and I love entertaining audiences. But it is a way of life that is rapidly declining. Alberta is in crisis...True That!

There is all this animosity toward the government. I understand this, and just a little while ago I would have been 100% there. But I am getting to know Edmonton's Film Commissioner Brad Stromberg (you said it Brad so now I own it)and he said something to me that literally made my mind snap completely full circle and it changed my thinking. I was very anti government and wanted them crucified, still do but I now know why I need to tame this anger. Brad simply stated "When you are in an election, you support the person you believe in, campaign for them, vote for them, tell other peoples about them...but the day after the election you have to live with one that won". So what I take that to mean, while the conservatives might easily be the spawns of Satan, we need to work with them and try and get the best we can out of them. Otherwise we will suffer. Look at the comments of Lindsay Blackett. Do you think he is still a supporter, still our Representative looking after our best intersts. I think he is pissed at us, and we are feeling his heat.

I guess my suggestion is that every one chill, try to get along, try to get as good a deal as we can, and then just a bit before the next election lets tell the voters about our industry and why it is worth preserving and see if we can't do what the Alberta Film Industry must totally do to save our way of life and that is make sure Alberta has a change in government.

Perhaps if we did this with a strategic plan in place we would have time to battle the true demon of our industry and that is the lack of support for Canadian Content.

Just some thoughts...please comment, lets see if we can turn this into a sounding board that comes up with some real ideas.

1 comment:

  1. I suspect his intent was to bring the issue to the fore. Someone suggested he said, had he said crap there would have been no news coverage.

    This is not provincial but a federal issue. If you really want the industry to take off an echo of the Green Paper on FM in the early 70s is needed.

    Juneau's Green Paper set 70% Canadian content and the MAPL ratings system as the standards. We lived through years of April Wine. We ended up with Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, k.d. lang, Shania Twain and many more. The Canadian music industry is second to none. Hence the Junos.

    Blackett has lit the match. Who will provide the kindling? Who will step up and say if we wish our visual industries to be as strong as our music industry we need to develop our talent. We will make mistakes, we will learn, we will get better, we can and will be the best.

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