Cinema Canada (Feb 1977)

drawing a bead on sherman Ken Dancyger met with Harve Sherman early last year and noted some of his thoughts on the production of Shoot and on the feature industry in Canada in general. In December, Harve Sherman, a young Toronto-born producer, saw the release of his latest film the $1.5 million Shoot. As for many in the Canadian film industry, the road to Shoot has been long and bumpy. You don’t become a producer by being born with a cigar in your mouth. Harve Sherman has been an assistant film editor, a unit manager on the CFTO news, and then a production manager-producer on the John Bassett-Agincourt Productions films from Face-Off to Follow the North Star, an ABC-TV Movie of the Week. He produced, for Universal, the Canadian segments of four Movies of the Week from She Cried Murder to The Execution of Private Slovik. Perhaps his greatest accomplishment was his involvement, through the production company Vision IV, in Black Christmas, one of Canada’s most successful feature films. Kenneth Dancyger is a lecturer in film at York University and has taught film in the U.S. and Canada since 1968. His film The Class of ‘75 won Best First Film at the International Experimental Film Festival in Buffalo, and he has since worked on a number of film projects as director, producer, production manager and scriptwriter. 42 / Cinema Canada by Kenneth Dancyger Naturally a producer’s interests differ from a director’s. But not as much as one would think. We are still a young industry and as such the romantic view of film prevails. Beyond the loving close-up lies a complex operation dealing with preplanning, scheduling, coordination of the creative and practical elements that enter into making a film. It’s as simple an equation as: if people don’t have food to eat, they can’t create. If crew and actors don’t appear at the appropriate location, at the appropriate time, no close-up. Coordination, planning, facilitating the creative process, these are the responsibilities of the producer. An indispensable man; too often a forgotten man. (The same might be said for the screenwriter, but I'll save him for another article.) Harve Sherman was very lucid about the Canadian film industry, its potential (which he feels is great) and its problems (which he feels are not small). I might add that he discussed these problems much as he would production problems on a film: Identify them, anticipate them, and then provide solutions. He feels many of the problems are born of inexperience. Solution: regularity of produc tion. Presently there are 10 feature films produced in one year, and five in another. If we could achieve a regular production schedule, say 10 to 20 reasonably budgeted films a year ($1 million budget per film, say), our talent could gain the experience required of all professionals. Efficiency of production would be a side benefit, as crews would work together more frequently. A spinoff of the larger budgets involved in these films would be additional preproduction time. Too often Canadian filmmakers get the final go-ahead for production a week before the film is scheduled to begin shooting. The logistics of an expensive undertaking like a feature film require pinpoint planning. Without it, the film begins under a handicap. Preproduction costs money, but adequate script development, location selection, costuming, crew hiring and cast selection can’t be residual to a film production budget they are essential, and they cost money. Now we get into the grey areas of Canadian feature film life. Some people may not realize it, but films are a business, a proven business where many people make a lot of money. Harve Sherman is not in the business