| With so many Canadian filmmakers reliant on government funding to complete their projects and a government that is becoming more concerned with the bottom line, it means fewer projects will be going to camera. Faced with this looming obstacle, more filmmakers than ever are turning to the small screen to help get their movies made.
In the fall of 2000, aspiring Calgary filmmaker Corey Lee started work on a script for a film loosely based on a real-life case of amnesia. He had heard about a former CFL player who had lost his memory and, on top of that, was living a life of primal extremes, being either really happy or really upset. Lee ultimately turned the football player’s experience into his debut feature film Defining Edward, but finding the story proved to be easier than finding the money.
"I was trying to… come up with an idea for a feature that we could do for next to no money, which is pretty much what I had," says Lee. The $30,000 budget, which came mostly from his own pocket, was enough to get him through shooting – barely – but only after calling in a few favours.
"You don’t shoot a feature for $30,000. Maybe you do on short ends (surplus film stock not used on large productions) over the course of a few years, like the Cabin Fever guys did, but we didn’t feel like we could do it that way," he says. "There was this core group of people who thought, ‘We have an opportunity to do something here and if we don’t do it now we’re going to lose that window.’"
Defining Edward, starring Joel McNichol in the title role, looks at a small group of damaged individuals trying to come to terms with their own demons. Edward’s amnesia has left him lost, but not as lost as those around him. Shot on high-grade digital video, it’s a simple story certainly suited to a minimal budget, but once Lee had completed principal photography there was no money left.
"That’s when I started to live off of my credit cards and do all the post-production stuff we needed to," he says.
Enter Movie Central. The national cable movie network is required to broadcast a certain percentage of Canadian content. As a result, they are always looking for new material. When Lee took a finished cut of Defining Edward to the Real World Film Festival in March of 2002 things finally began to fall into place.
"Movie Central was pretty instrumental, (as was) Alberta Foundation for the Arts. They came in after the fact," says Lee. Finding funding from a combination of sources is nothing new, but in this case Lee received more money from private sources than he did from the government. This is a trend that he sees continuing for aspiring filmmakers.
"Filmmakers in this country have been so reliant on government money," he says, pointing to Telefilm, the federal agency that is set up to fund Canadian film projects. He adds that Telefilm is in the process of hiring the large American talent agency CAA to help it decide which projects to fund.
Lee feels that the deal he struck with Movie Central was a beneficial one. He received a sizable supplementary budget and, in return, the network was given first broadcast rights for Defining Edward. Once Lee had delivered a final cut of the film (along with a closed captioned version), Movie Central had an 18-month period in which to air it.
"The only reason we were able to finish that film was because of that sale," says Lee. "That is why I am happy about Movie Central. It’s just about getting it out there and having people see it."
Defining Edward is running on Movie Central throughout the month of April. |
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