Legal news and trends for Canadian in-house counsel and c-suite executives
Issue link: https://digital.canadianlawyermag.com/i/50877
[contracts] or more" that go into a typ- ical picture, says Wong. The process of making movies has become more complex as studios increas- ingly use far-flung locations to take advantage of tax credits and other incen- tives, says David Friedman, executive vice president of Summit Entertainment LLC in Santa Monica Calif. The studio is famous for its Twilight series. While there are financial incentives in much of Canada and parts of the U.S., bankrolling pictures has become increasingly difficult as the economy has worsened in the U.S., says Friedman. "If you are not one of the big studios, put- ting the financing together for a movie can be a real challenge, particularly in the last couple of years." There are a lot more moving parts to the advertising of completed films to the public. "It used to be much more simple in that you used to just take out some newspaper ads, TV ads," Friedman says. The Internet has brought the opportun- ities of promotional tie-ins, cross pro- motions, and consumer contents. "I have to bring in more people who have different skills," says the Summit counsel. "The marketing function for example, from the legal side is more complicated than it used to be with things like running sweepstakes and contests," a common promotional tool with mass-market films. "There are basically rules in all 50 states, there is some federal legislation that you have to be mindful of and I know it is the same with Canada." Don Carmody has 90 producer film- credits on his Internet Movie Database page. He likes Canada as a locale because of the tax credits "which are attractive," along with the Canadian dollar differen- tial which he notes is not as wide as he is used to, along with kinder work rules, and less unionization which helps shave production costs. Fees associated with shooting on the streets are typically far less than shooting on the streets of Los Angeles or New York. "I have done a lot of pictures in Toronto or Montreal or Vancouver that were supposed to be somewhere else," says Carmody, a veteran producer who has overseen the creation of "60 or 70" films from Canadian locations stretch- ing back to before the 1982 comedy Porky's. In fact, Porky's, which spawned the careers of the likes of Canadian actors Art Hindle, Doug McGrath, Susan Clark, and British-Canadian Kim Cattrall, is still the highest domestic grossing movie in Canadian history and was filmed in Miami, Fla. Carmody is perhaps best known as the co-producer of Chicago in 2002, the musical set in Chicago in the 1920s starring Richard Gere, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Renée Zellweger that won six Oscars. Chicago was shot mostly in Toronto, a locale dictated by the film's tight budget. "There were really only three places in the world that Chicago could be made because of the requirement of trained dancers and musical per- formers. That was London, New York, and Toronto," Carmody says. The choice was easy: "the tax credits that were available at the time, the dollar being as low as it was," and the far higher costs of London and New A Vancouver, B.C. school doubled as the Forks, Wash., one in Summit Entertainment's New Moon — the second instalment of the Twilight-saga. York. "It just made sense and my studio didn't want to spend a penny more than $40 million so it was the only place we really could do it." Carmody has a unique perspective on the 49th parallel film divide. He spent his formative years in Canada, raised in Montreal from the age of 10 when his American father's two-year stint working as a lawyer there lasted 27 years. The younger Carmody did briefly follow in his father's footsteps. "When I produced my first film, and everybody got money but me and my partner, I went back to law school." Though never a practising lawyer, Carmody serves as his own in-house counsel and uses Heenan Blaikie LLP in Canada and another firm in the U.S. for most legal work involved with his films. His legal background "helps me with contracts," he says. "On the legal side you are constantly the only one in a number of areas, so you need to know what you are doing." In the U.S., movie companies are often looking at how they can grow beyond simply making movies. A good example is Lions Gate Entertainment Corp., a company based in Santa Monica and Vancouver, producer of the Oscar- winner Crash debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2004 even- tually hitting the worldwide big screens in 2005, and the popular Saw film fran- chise. It has branched out into television production, program syndication, and specialty networks. Wayne Levin, Los Angeles-based general counsel with Lions Gate Entertainment, spends much of his day with the company's corporate develop- ment unit "looking at business opportun- ities in growth areas for the company" He is generally upbeat about the prospects for entertainment companies despite the weak U.S. economy. "I don't believe that any business is recession- proof but from the standpoint of the overall economy, this is not a bad time to be in this industry. This industry faces other challenges like integration into new media [and rising movie piracy] but from an economic standpoint . . . I think people are still going to the mov- ies." IH INHOUSE DECEMBER 2009/JANUARY 2010 • 39