Take One (Apr 1967)

CLIP OUT AND Fit NOEL MOORE'S TRIED-AND-TRUE > PRODUCERS HANDBOOK: [ESSOn / There are a number of areas in which the up and coming young producer can choose to operate and make a name for himself. Let’s start at the beginning with — YOUTH. The first thing to remember when preparing a program for YOUTH is that the last people you want watching it are young people. All the best YOUTH programs are beamed towards Grandmothers and this includes half the tv critics in Canada. Avoid folk rock, the Monkey, the Frug and the Swim and concentrate on dance programs which feature the Viennese Waltz, the Polka and the Minuet. The ‘'Teens’’ who appear on the program should be carefully selected from Miss Cramp’s Academy, Upper Canada College and similar institutions. The girls should all vaguely resemble a cross between Ann of Green Gables and Margaret of Fair Hill and the boys should all bear a close resemblance to Little Lord Fauntleroy and Horatio Alger. Soon critics across the country will be hailing you as an exciting fresh »young talent who is not afraid to experiment. The Church Advisory Council will make you an honorary member. The Catholic Womens’ League, the IODE and the Mothers for Moral Rearmament will invite you to address their annual fund-raising banquets on the problems of today’s teens. And best of all, as a YOUTH producer you will qualify for the Special Youth Award which only you and two other producers can win. One makes the speech, the other presents the trophy and the pictures of all three of you will appear in the entertainment section of the weekend paper. If the YOUTH market is closed, don’t be discouraged. You can always discover the NORTH. Study the map carefully and find a river or a valley that has not been filmed by either the CBC or the NFB. It will be difficult but keep on trying and you will soon be reward ed with success. Next you must discover an Indian or an Eskimo with a fine old face, because most films on the NORTH consist mainly of closeups of fine old faces. The best place to start is Skid Row and your writer should be of some assistance here. The face must have lines of suffering, anguish and hardship, because you want it looking at the mighty river defiantly, or the frozen mountains with unquenchable courage. Having discovered your fine old face, all you have to do is send the camera crew up north for some location shots. Cariboo hooves drumming on frozen ground, mighty river swirling down over rocks and snow drifting across a frozen landscape. Soon you will be in a position to organize a festival of your own films at the Montreal Filmtheque but to put this across successfully you have to hook some foreign film maker who does not speak ‘English too well. You sit beside him during the festival and, whenever you see him wince, explain (through an interpreter) that it was a deliberate attempt to break away from the formal and traditional. Make sure the reporters pick up his exclamations such as, ‘Dats a nice a — dats a goed. I likea da break a wit tradeeshun.”’ It is possible however that during the period you are winning your cultural spurs, both the NORTH and YOUTH are saturated. Don’t be discouraged. You can always seek to interpret the FRENCH FACT. All you need for this is an office, or eve a desk in the Montreal branch of the CBC, o the French section of the NFB. Learn a couple of words of French ana have a drink with a French-speaking producer. Get into the habit of dropping enigmatic utterances such as, ‘Storm clouds are gathering around the Plains of Abraham,”’ or ‘The Quebec Dragon is awakening from its slumber of centuries.’’ Don’t use the Winds of Change or Quiet Revolution bits — they've heard those too often. In no time flat you'll have a bilingual script assistant and a bilingual writer to do the work while you collect awards for helping to bridge the gap between the two solitudes. But don’t accept invitations to address the annual fund-raising banquets of the Richelieu Club Ladies Auxiliary or the Daughters of St. Jean Baptiste. They'll expect you to speak French. And above all, remember that to succeed in Canada you must never be a music maker or a dreamer of dreams. They're just bums. You must analyse your market beforehand, package carefully and make sure your product is market-tested before you start to produce. That way even a high school dropout is assured of success.