Canadian Heritage Committee on April 27th, 2015

[Jack Blum]

Thank you very much for having me.

My name is Jack Blum. I'm the executive director and co-founder, with my partner Sharon Corder, of Reel Canada.

We bring Canadian films to new audiences. We've been doing it for 10 years. We do that through three programs. We go into high schools and we reach new Canadians through their English classes—and we could do French as well. We deliver the program in both official languages.

Also, very recently we began celebrating National Canadian Film Day. We did that for the first time last year. The second National Canadian Film Day is in two days, on Wednesday. I hope you all take the opportunity to celebrate the country by watching a great Canadian film.

At the moment we're serving about 50,000 students a year through our various programs in every province and territory and, as I say, in both official languages.

For the sake of time, I'm going to restrict my comments to the English side of the industry. There's much to say on the other side, as well.

I'm really pleased to be here. I think our experience at Reel Canada gives us a really unique perspective, because we show Canadian movies directly to the audience that everyone else is trying to reach. We reach young people and new Canadians, and we have learned a lot about the relationship these films have with the audience they're intended for, and sometimes the relationship they don't have.

So I have good news and bad news. I think you're familiar with the bad news to some extent. There is very little awareness of Canadian film among the students and new Canadians we speak to. Not only is there little awareness among the students, but their teachers, principals, coaches, guidance counsellors and, frankly, parents have very little awareness of Canadian feature film. The hill we're climbing to raise awareness about Canadian feature film is extremely steep.

And in fact I'm not just talking about Canadian feature film, I'm talking about Canadian culture in general. Many of you will perhaps think that Canadian novels are still taught in high schools. Unfortunately, that's not the case. That's a much bigger subject, but I'm just mentioning that Canadian content in general in the education system is at a critical low.

As you know, culturally the world is increasingly borderless, and young people in particular are overwhelmed with the devices in their hands and the fact that content comes from everywhere. I don't think I'm saying anything you don't know if I say that competing in the commercial marketplace for their attention, particularly for the attention of young people, is virtually impossible.

But the news isn't all bad. I promised you some good news, and the good news is that, first of all—pace what some of the previous presenters might have been saying—the movies are getting better and better. They're actually fantastic. Also, when we introduce audiences to these movies in a way that is engaging, dynamic, innovative, and gives them room to participate, the response is overwhelming. This is why we have grown so quickly in the course of just 10 years to be a national program. The demand from teachers and the response from students have been overwhelmingly positive.

So when I talk about presenting it in a dynamic and innovative way, in particular I'm talking about a film festival setting. So high schools will speak to us and arrange for us to come in for a day, and the students themselves program the films we bring, and we may serve a whole school of 1,000 or 1,200 kids. They might see six films in a day spread out among them. They program the films from this book—and I have copies for any of you who would like to see it—and on the website where there are clips. Then after the screening there's a dialogue, sometimes with an actor and sometimes with a director, sometimes in person and sometimes via Skype. But it's an extremely exciting experience for them and, as I say, the response is really terrific.

In our experience, Canadians really want to see themselves on screen, and feature film is still the most powerful way of doing that, far more so than a two-minute video on YouTube.

So we're really glad you're looking into the feature film industry, and I want to say the feature film industry is really important, and telling Canadian films via features is really important. Nowhere was this more dramatically demonstrated than on National Canadian Film Day, which we sort of invented with a couple of months' notice last year. We are astounded by the response and the degree of participation we got. Last year, on about two months' notice, we had 70 screenings across the country.

In two days, on April 29, we're going to have more than 160 screenings in every province and territory. Libraries, restaurants, film clubs, and pubs are all showing Canadian films they have chosen, sometimes with our help. We also have broadcaster participation and the broadcasters agreed to schedule Canadian feature films. Many of you familiar with this territory will realize what a big deal that is. There are many online offerings as well. Indeed, even corporate partners rushed in. Cineplex, CBC, Scotiabank, and many others supported the day and it's growing very quickly.

It affirms for us that there really is an audience. There really is a hunger. There really is an appetite. There really is a demand. The issues are promotional. They have to do with awareness, as the previous presenters have been saying, and accessibility

Where I differ with some of those preceding me is that I think we have to look at alternative ways of reaching the audience. We have to look at innovative ways of reaching the audience.

In terms of recommendations, I'll speak to Telefilm for a moment under the leadership of Carolle Brabant. In recent years they have switched their orientation to promotion. I believe that their change of criteria to include international celebration of these movies is a very important and positive one. We have to get the attention of the audience any way that we can. I urge you to support Telefilm, to restore cuts, and to increase support.

We also get funding from Heritage Canada called Youth Take Charge, which is aimed at engaging youth in the culture of Canada. The allocation of the program this past year was cut by half. I can't imagine a more important investment for Heritage Canada to make than in a program like Youth Take Charge, which goes directly to youth and engages them and teaches them about culture.

If I have a minute left, I'd love to show the video—

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

I see, but with 45 seconds you don't have enough time to show it.

[Jack Blum]

I'm going to hit play. This is for those of you who can't imagine that Canadian film and Canadian actors could get a response from young people.

[Video Presentation]

This is in schools across the country.

I'll tell you about the movie during questions if you ask.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

Thank you very much.

We are now going to move to Mr. Helliker, for the next eight minutes.

Thank you.

[John Helliker, Director, Screen Industries Research and Training Centre, Sheridan College]

I want to thank you for inviting me. I'm the director and founder of the Screen Industries Research and Training Centre, or SIRT for short. SIRT is a technology access centre, designated as such by the federal government. We're funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the Ontario government, Sheridan College, as well as industry partners.

We're nationally and internationally recognized for the work we do serving Canada's screen industries, which for us includes film, television, gaming, and interactive media. The work includes applied research, consulting, access to equipment expertise, and specialized training. We've existed since 2009 at Pinewood Toronto studios, and we're an extension of Sheridan's renowned programs in animation and other areas of the screen industries. Our work, though, is dedicated to relationships with companies and industry associations. We work with them to drive innovation within the sector, with the goal of establishing a competitive advantage for them internationally. The screen industries for us are part of the knowledge economy, operating within a global marketplace. The ability to innovate is critical to these industries in order to have continued company and job growth that will benefit the country and their individual regions.

In my case, I'm going to focus my attention on the area that I know most well—innovation and how it relates to paragraph (c) in your list of areas that you wanted us to address, and that's support for the industry.

Innovation at the company level is critical, which I'll address, but so too is ensuring that the workforce that makes up the feature film industry is adequately prepared to both develop and apply innovative solutions. In crews and personnel I include camera crews, art department personnel, and editorial and other technical and management crew who help directors and writers realize their creative vision.

Key aspects of this sector need to be recognized if innovation is to be adequately supported. The industry is primarily composed of small and medium-sized enterprises. These are enterprises that in any particular production may have 10 or 15 or 20 touching or processing a unique product, which is a series or a feature film, on the way from concept through to production and delivery. The fact that you have that many companies and they're all SMEs, and the fact that it's also a project-based industry and a project-based manufacturing process, creates special challenges for the innovation within that sector, as does the fact that a lot of the employees are freelance or contract. This means that you have key technical staff who would be involved in innovation who are hired at the beginning of a project, are staggered in terms of when they leave a project, and who then go on to other projects.

These aspects of the feature film production process, in terms of the impact on the workforce and the impact on companies in terms of their ability to innovate, are challenges, but there are developments happening now that are actually helping the industry deal with that. This is the fact that there is a convergence of the different sectors within the screen industries. What you have is a totally digital process that's happening from beginning to end of the production process.

As a result of that, in Ontario we've been developing something called SirtNet. This initiative has been developed with leading companies as well as industry associations, including feature film companies. We've been developing a broadband network that will allow people in different companies to interact from beginning to end, from shooting on a sound stage through to post-production, visual effects, and delivery. This process ties together companies that are SMEs, allowing the creation of a studio within a province, basically, where you can move production or post-production activities to different regions, different areas, of the province. You can build and have those very small companies that are just starting out interacting immediately with larger companies. You can regenerate the industry through that process.

The development of SirtNet that is currently going on is with the involvement, as I said, of companies across the different sectors. I have to emphasize that what we have here is a screen industry sector that involves feature film, television, interactive media, and gaming. I'll get into the connection among them, but what it means is that in order to develop that sector as a whole, it's critical that the feature film sector also be developed. There's a cross-fertilization, which I will get to, that is critical to the development of the sector.

The key thing in terms of the cross-fertilization is that you have people who are working in feature films, but as I mentioned earlier, they move at the end of a production to other productions. They also move to other sectors. You have people who are working for film and television projects who are moving from there and working with gaming companies, with interactive media companies, so that cross-fertilization of both the technical and the creative process is taking place. It is especially important now, because you also have a technical convergence that's happening.

What we're doing at Pinewood with SIRT is working with gaming companies, with feature film companies, with television companies, and we are all using the same technologies. They may not realize that, but to be able to work together with them and to have that cross-fertilization is really important, especially because it's the larger budget productions that offer the feature films that are starting to use these innovative technologies. So there's a trickle-down effect that takes place. You actually have an innovation process that is happening within the sector that is partly caused by the fact that you have a developed feature film industry. That's one of the strengths that Ontario has, and Canada has.

I'd like to finally get to the fact that our unique global competitive advantage in Canada is based upon that cross-sectoral development that's taken place. For example, you have companies like Side Effects Software and Alias in Toronto, now owned by Autodesk, who develop software for the feature film industry. That software is now used throughout other sectors of the screen industries, but it was developed for the feature film industry.

You have companies like Christie Digital in Kitchener—Waterloo. They developed as a projection company. They are the leading company in the world in terms of digital projection, but their technologies are also used in other sectors. They're a leading company in terms of screen industries, throughout the sectors within the screen industries.

You also have schools that are developing graduates. Sheridan, for example, had three of its graduates nominated for one particular category at the Oscars this year. Three of the five were for feature film animation, and I think that's really important to understand: feature film animation. This idea that feature film is separate in some way from other parts of the sector, I think, has to be rejected and it needs to be realized that we have a strength: we have the integration of those different elements of one sector.

I think the important thing to do is to recognize that there are SMEs that are involved in this. It's project-based. It's difficult in terms of the workforce, because the technical, creative, and management staff are staff that are freelancing contract in a lot of cases. It's a unique sector that has to be nurtured in special ways in terms of the support for innovation.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

Thank you very much.

We'll now move to questions and we'll start with Mr. Young for seven minutes.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, everyone, for being here today, for travelling here and for sharing your time with us.

I'd like to start with Mr. Helliker, if I may.

Welcome. Do you work in Oakville, or do you work at Pinewood?

[John Helliker]

I work at all the campuses, but I'm based at Pinewood.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Okay, thank you very much.

I'm proud to represent Oakville, and Sheridan College, which is the jewel, not just for Oakville but for all of Canada. We've just heard a little about it right now, and what's going on there. In fact, I remember in 1997 as a member of the provincial parliament going to watch a screening of the film Dragonheart, which was not only produced by a Sheridan graduate, but the animators had been hired by the producer after they graduated to go to Hollywood to animate that film, and I now see how much farther it has gone.

The government recently invested in Sheridan's technology access centre through NSERC as well as in digital media technology through the Canada Foundation for Innovation. Can you comment briefly on the economic benefits of those investments, not only for the students but also for the film industry and our economy at large?

[John Helliker]

Sure. That funding actually went to SIRT, the Screen Industry's Research and Training Centre.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

To SIRT or SirtNet or both?

[John Helliker]

To SIRT. SirtNet is a sector-wide project that we're developing right now, partly because of that funding from NSERC for the technology access centre. What that funding did for us was to expand what we could do, and it changed our mandate.

We were an applied research centre funded as part of a traditional sort of university mentality, in terms of what was happening, but moving slightly over to the college side. This meant that we were funded to do applied research. We weren't funded to do professional development. We weren't funded to do a lot of the nuts and bolts of consulting and access to infrastructure and expertise on a short-term basis. The technology access centre funding two years ago now allows us to do that. That's what changed our mandate and got us involved in developing SirtNet, because it was more of an access to infrastructure and expertise.

In the work that we do, the students act as researchers. We are outward facing. For example, last year we worked with about 25 companies in terms of individual research projects, but also consulting on certain projects. We trained over 1,000 people in the different unions and guilds and other people in terms of work.

Through SirtNet, we've also been involved in helping to draw at least one company to the Ontario region, based on the fact that SirtNet exists right now in the pilot stage.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Lewis, the recent Ontario budget reduced the Ontario production services tax credit from 25% to 21.5% and the Ontario computer animation and special effects tax credit from 20% to 18%, affecting those contracted for visual effects on set and post production, and making less money available for the film industry.

You were talking about the benefits of federal tax credits, etc. What impact do you think this will have on the industry in Ontario?

[John Lewis]

Let me first answer by saying thank you to the federal government for maintaining a stable tax credit base. That's gone on for a number of years, and there's always been consultation with the industry.

In this industry, stability is crucially important. We compete with other jurisdictions. Atlanta has become a really big hub of production. Pinewood has built sound stages there. The state of California has introduced tax credits. You have New York and New Orleans. It's money in a bag, and studios can go anywhere around the world. They're looking at the financial impact, the availability of crews, and capacity of the industry. The announcement last week took the industry by surprise.

A couple of weeks ago, the Government of Nova Scotia did something similar, although there's been discussion with the industry and it looks as though a compromise has been reached in Nova Scotia. I think what happened in Ontario is unfortunate. It's going to have a real impact, and there are a couple of specific issues that, as an industry, we hope the provincial government in Ontario will address. Their announcement has had some unintended consequences.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Thank you for explaining that.

I think I'd just like to go back to Mr. Helliker for just a minute.

Mr. Helliker, it sounds as though the work you're doing is on the leading edge, the technological edge, for the industry but that students who graduate from Sheridan are being educated or trained in the leading-edge jobs of the future. What are the future jobs in your industry for Sheridan College graduates, and where will they be contributing?

[John Helliker]

Do you mean in terms of the screen industries?

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

I mean in the film industry.

[John Helliker]

The change we're seeing is that it's a digital process, as I referred to. A lot of the work we're seeing right now, in terms of the production process, requires an understanding of what that means for the production process, which in certain cases means a lot of interactivity between people with a programming background, people with a computer science background, and people from the creative arts. For most of the projects that we work on with people from a visual effects company or even a content production company, we have interns from different schools working with us. They are split about half and half between computer scientists, computer programmers, network security people, and cinematographers, editors, directors, and content production people.

I think that merging of IT purely defined and the screen industries is critical to the development of the screen institute sector as a whole. It's not just in gaming and interactive media; it's happening in television and the feature film industry also.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

So I would assume that your students have a good graduation job rate and graduates are able to find well paid jobs fairly easily.

[John Helliker]

It's extremely good.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Did you want to express any opinion with regard to what Ontario has done by reducing those tax credits? Do you have any thoughts on that?

[John Helliker]

I work in a limited sphere with a focus on innovation, so I will leave that to the experts.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Thank you.

Sheridan is part of the federal government's college-university “Idea to Innovation” grants. Can you comment on what this fund does and whether it is working for Sheridan College?

[John Helliker]

It's a fantastic fund. It's a partnership between colleges and universities. We work with Christie Digital and York University's Centre for Vision Research. Again, you have colleges working with universities and you have people who are very practical in what they do. Our students advance content production, working with people who are vision research scientists and those who are training to be that. It's a fantastic opportunity.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

Thank you.

Mr. Nantel, the floor is yours for seven minutes.