Take a deep breath and step off…
Needless to say I’ve been busy these last few weeks. Unfortunately, not in writing.
I do however have a really nice new Bamboo hardwood floor in my Master bedroom. Next step will be doing the main living room followed by the dining room. It’s nice to know I can still do the finish carpentry when I have too (one of the first trades I trained in).
This is however a writing blog. The strike is over (golf clap). IMHO, the writers still got screwed and thats all I’ve got to say about that. It seems to me that the only way to get money out of the studio system is to step around the system itself. I’ll hopefully have more on that in the coming year. This of course is directed more to the small independent operations out there.
I recently had a friend who had her post production funding turned down by one of the govt. funding bodies because, “It was too commercial.” There in lies the problem with the Canadian system. We favour art (and I use the term very loosely here) over commerce (substance) and then wonder why our English speaking cinema doesn’t do any trade on the world stage. So here’s a thought, bring back the film makers tax credit. You remember, the one where if you invested in film, you got to write off 100% of the money off against taxes? Sure a ton of crap got made but we also launched the careers of Cronenberg, Reitman, and countless others. Cause let’s face it, nobody in Govt. on any side of the aisle give a shit about expanding our film presence in local product. And that’s fine, just give people an incentive to invest in Film and TV and we’ll carry it the rest of the way home.