Thank you.
Mr. Chair, members of the committee, it is my distinct pleasure to appear before you today to discuss the Status of the Artist Act. My name is John Welsman. I'm president of the Screen Composers Guild of Canada. With me is John Rowley, vice-president of the SCGC.
SCGC is certified under the Status of the Artist Act to represent all anglophone screen composers and producers of music for audiovisual services in Canada. SCGC's members create musical scores and background music for original television and film productions. They work with other members of the creative team to conceive and develop the sound of the production. They write and perform the music, sometimes in collaboration with other musicians and performers. Screen composers embrace the latest in digital technologies to oversee every aspect of the engineering, mixing and editing of the sound recordings. They synchronize the music to the picture and deliver individual musical components to the production's mixers. They adjust and amend the score as required by the media producer.
When a media producer engages a Canadian screen composer for a project, it triggers one point under the “key creative points” system used by CAVCO and the CRTC to determine whether a screen project officially qualifies as Canadian content for regulatory and taxation purposes.
Over to you, John.