Cinema Canada (Sep-Oct 1978)

The major reason for NFI’s focus on television production is that they want to reach “as broad a market as possible”’. This means then that the American market is very important to the company. Ferns elaborates, ‘“‘One of the things Canadians should recognize is that they should not look at the giants south of the border as something to fear but as an opportunity. We’re sitting next to the largest marketplace in the world. Virtually half of the television market in the world is the U.S.! It is very difficult to get programing into the U.S. networks, but, through syndication, through underwriting with PBS etcetera, you can get very good dollars out of the American market. It is important that the Canadian industry reaches a large market.” Apparently the U.S. thinks so too. NFI has recently completed a thirteen part, half-hour series entitled Portraits of Power (critical portraits of Hitler, Stalin, Roosevelt, Churchill, de Gaulle and Mao Tse-Tung) with The New York Times, narrated by Henry Fonda. photo: Christopher Darling Ferns recounts, “This was a case of journalistic expertise the Times looking for the best documentary producer they could find, and we felt very pleased that they turned to us. I’m going to New York tomorrow to negotiate another thirteen programs.” In addition, the company boasts that the majority of NFI productions are “entirely Canadian” with ninety-nine percent of its programs in the past few years satisfying the CRTC regulations as “Canadian content.” This does not mean, however, that the subject matter, nor on-screen talent, need necessarily always be Canadian. Explains Ferns, “We’ve made a commitment to Canada. We are producing here. We are going to use the talents that are available here. We feel with The Newcomers/Les Arrivants series (CBC) that we proved we can produce drama as well as anyone in the world. However, you have to be realistic. If you have investors who are putting money up for a series, are they going to get a return? “On the New York Times series, clearly, the Times, is one of the reasons that it is going to be sold. Also, when someone is looking in the TV Guide, all they are going to see is Portraits of Power: Hitler, narrated by Henry Fonda, which will be important from a rating standpoint. I think it is important that we generate some successes in this country.” Other more uniquely Canadian successes have included the series on Canadian Naturalist Al Oeming and a one hour portrait of Karen Kain: Ballerina, which was shown on the BBC and described by the Observer as “‘the best program on the BBC that Christmas,” says Ferns. The Newcomers/Les Arrivants, is seven one hour films (in French and English) dramatically tracing the arrival and settlement of the different cultures in Canada through individual families, with the first episode as prologue dealing with the Indian. Commissioned by Imperial Oil Ltd. to mark their 100th anniversary, it cost three million dollars and was filmed on location throughout Canada. From this experience Ferns speaks highly of Canadian talent “I think if you look at the episode 1847, directed by Eric Till, out of a performance cast of ninety, only a couple gave really weak performances and they were in minor roles. I think the standrads of performance were exceptionally high. We have got no qualms about casting things with Canadians. “My personal view of the acting community here is that it is getting better and better. I think there has been a lot of interesting theatre happening here in Canada and it is giving more work opportunity to the Canadian performer. Frankly, the standards can only rise as more people work.” Though there is a rising optimism in the growth of the Canadian film and television industry, it is obvious that as a whole our industry has not matched the standards of other countries. There is not sufficient work available for producers, writers, directors and performers. The reasons for this according to both men, rests squarely on the shoulders of the Canadian government and it’s agencies, the CBC, NFB and the grant giving bodies. These are not recent views but have been developed independently throughout each man’s career. Ferns inherited his initial distrust of the Canadian government from his father who worked in the office of Mackenzie King during the war and found himself in exile from Canada in the early McCarthy days because of his suspected activities which included an address to the Anglo-Soviet Friendship Society. “Subsequently,” reveals Ferns, “he published the first critical biography of King and that mysteriously dis-. appeared from the bookshelves in Ottawa just after it was published. Which indicates the long arm of the Liberal establishment in this country.” Ferns, a top first in Economics at Cambridge was also influenced by the thriving satirical movement at the university which included the people who went on to create Monty Python, the.Beyond the Fringe group, and notables David Frost and Germaine Greer. Says Ferns, “My own politics have probably shifted from a fairly left to a much more free enterprise position. I have very lit Cinema Canada/53