‘Action’ adventure

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This article was published 29/05/2020 (2114 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

As Manitoba’s film production industry prepares to cautiously relaunch on June 1, producers are anticipating a brave new world of safety protocols, including periods of quarantine for out-of-province talent and extraordinary levels of sanitation.

But one of the key challenges is going to be as mundane as… getting insurance.

“Unless you’ve got a key to unlock the purses of the funders… as well as the lenders like the bank, unless (producers) have insurance without exclusions, it’s going to be a tough time,” says Claude Forest of Assurart, an insurance company that caters to the world of arts and culture.

Based in Vancouver, former Winnipegger Forest is an insurance broker who has facilitated insurance coverage of Manitoba-made films for decades, going back to the 1993 Russell Crowe film For the Moment, up to last year’s Sean Penn film Flag Day and the Liam Neeson thriller The Ice Road. He inherited the business from his father Georges Forest, the legendary St. Boniface figure who co-founded Festival du Voyageur.

Forest says the possibility of a production being shut down by COVID-19 will change the game for the foreseeable future, even in a province where the active cases are currently numbered at 14, with no one currently in the hospital.

Insuring productions may not be problematic for small, intimate productions with limited crews and minimal sets. (Forest uses the example of a film shot in a single abode using family and close friends as cast and crew.) It will be the medium-sized projects that may face the most challenges.

Forest says larger studios have a distinct advantage over smaller production companies when it comes to insuring productions.

“The advantage of having a large studio like a Disney or a Netflix, they completely fund the production without the need for any other money,” says Forest.

“What’s preventing a big studio from coming into Winnipeg? Nothing,” he says. “They don’t need to get a bond to guarantee it. They are taking the risk and assuming the risk. So as they begin to look at the world — because they’re producing all over the world — and they say: ‘Where are the places that are safest to resume our work?’

“Manitoba could well fall into that group, because of the low case counts and because the government is being more permissive in its opening.”

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One Manitoba production endured a worst-case scenario when it was shut down in mid-production in March. The eight-episode series Edgar was produced by Montreal-producer Zone 3 and Manito Media, a Winnipeg-based production company founded by brothers Charles and Patrick Clément. It’s a mystery series about a brilliant, eccentric, Winnebago-dwelling detective who solves unsolvable murders.

The series was not quite through its fifth episode when it was shut down by the province in late March in response to the pandemic, according to Winnipeg producer Jeremy Guenette, who says the show was “the first French dramatic series in Western Canada ever.”

“The province’s state of emergency came down on our last day of the episode shoot, just before noon,” recalls Guenette. “Everyone was already a bit shaky about carrying on, not knowing. It hurt quite a bit to close it down and not finish that episode, but it was for the social good.”

Guenette says he is not at liberty to reveal much more than the show’s premise, but he hopes it will finish its final episodes beginning in August.

“That feels realistic. The main actor for the series and our guest stars are all from Quebec. So there’s a little bit of an extra element for us to figure out,” he says, referring to current guidelines that require out-of-province talent to submit to a two-week quarantine period before working.

With post-production already underway in Quebec, the first four episodes may be viewable this summer on the French-language edition of the streaming service Crave.

“It’s very difficult to stop a series and then wait until we can come back,” he says. “Everything was clicking, so everybody has a good sense of the show halfway through. We’ll have to refind all of that.”

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In February, Frantic Films CEO Jamie Brown found himself yet again up to his neck in the TV production business after he single-handedly purchased Frantic back from Kew Media Group following that conglomerate’s free-fall into receivership. This was just three years after Frantic had been sold to the troubled Canadian company.

In so doing, Brown helped rescue Frantic’s shows from going down with the Kew ship. Now, in the wake of the COVID pandemic, Brown again finds himself steering the Frantic vessel through troubled waters. What’s the plan?

“Getting through the pandemic is a good start for us,” he says.

The cancellation of the Winnipeg Comedy Festival meant Frantic’s TV broadcasts of the comedy concerts were also scrapped. Fortunately, Frantic still has shows in post-production, including the final season of Baroness Von Sketch Show on CBC, the HGTV lifestyle series Backyard Builds, and the comedy/reality series Still Standing, which sees comedian Jonny Harris visiting small Canadian communities and building a geographically specific act for each one.

“That helped,” Brown says. “Still Standing has been renewed and should shoot this summer if all things work out with the way things are opening up a bit.”

Backyard Builds, also produced out of Frantic’s Toronto office, “may not get to go this year. It might get pushed to next year because of the situation in Ontario,” Brown says, referring to the province’s comparatively high COVID-19 rates.

“But we’re OK for 2020, even with those things happening,” Brown says. “It’s not going to be a banner year unless something new comes along. We are like the proverbial duck with the feet under the water. We’re paddling like mad to get to get new shows going.

“Manitoba opening up early is definitely creating some opportunities,” Brown says. “There are some outstanding issues that we’re trying to work with the province and the city on.”

Brown is no fan of the obligatory 14-day quarantine for out-of-province talent.

“(It) creates a real problem, even with a June 1 opening of the industry. For a director or an actor from Ontario or Vancouver, you bring them to Manitoba to shoot on a show they’re going to have to sit in a hotel room for two weeks as it stands,” Brown says. “That’s not workable.

“If you’re trying to open up the industry in Manitoba and have to fully cast and crew it with just Manitobans, that’s going to create some real issues.

“Aggressive testing is a pretty good strategy,” Brown says, adding consideration should be given to whether or not talent is coming from a COVID hotspot.

“If somebody was coming from Ottawa, that’s different from coming from downtown Toronto. So that’s one part: Is the person coming from a hotspot? Do they have to fly through an airport?

“No system is perfect,” he says. “I would make the case that if someone comes with no symptoms from a non-hotspot, arrived in Winnipeg and got tested with no indication of virus and then they go on a set that has social distancing, masks, handwashing and all the protocols that are to being developed for safe shooting, I think you’ve got a very safe situation.

“Nothing’s going to be perfect,” Brown says. “But in my opinion, I think that would be a reasonable approach.”

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @FreepKing