First, Hollywood came to Sara Shaak, then Sara Shaak went to Hollywood, and now Sara Shaak is coming back to explain how it works.
The latest announcement from Northern FanCon is an all local one. One of the special guests anchoring the Creative Corner aspect of the convention was born and raised in Prince George and some say it was Shaak who pushed over the first dominoes that got a film industry underway in this region. Shaak was the city's inaugural film commissioner and scored the three largest film projects that to this day have ever come to the city to film: Reindeer Games, Dreamcatcher and Double Jeopardy.
Following Prince George, she took on the role of film commissioner in the Okanagan, with more success attracting the outside screen arts industry into that part of the B.C. interior.
Shaak used that experience to launch a career in film production. She has been involved with a number of companies - Trilight Entertainment, Arrowleaf Entertainment Properties, Anamorphic Media Inc. - that specialize in the business side of the screen arts industry.
Her recent credits are numerous and high profile, like the robotic dog comedy ARCHIE and its sequel starring Michael J. Fox voicing the title dog character, Robin Dunne, Farrah Aviva, and more; Welcome To Nowhere with talent like Sara Canning and Chantal Kreviazuk; Cold Brook with its critically acclaimed cast of William Fichtner, Kim Coates, Harold Perrineau and Robin Weigert; the innovative satire series Gamer's Paradise; the highly anticipated action movie Doorman starring Ruby Rose (Katie Holmes was attached to the project but had to withdraw) and Jean Reno, directed by Ryuhei Kitamura; and the MMA-themed fight flick Cagefighter starring Gina Gershon, Michael Jai White, Michelle Ryan and others.
"The focus of what I'll bring to FanCon will be on the business side of the film industry," she said. "The creative elements are covered by a lot of other people, but no project gets to go ahead without financing, and you won't get a second shot at financing unless your project has a viable business plan and that plan is executed. Business fundamentals in the film and television industry is really what I'll be there to talk about."
She could be an aspiring filmmaker's cold reality check or explosion of inspiration, depending on how practically prepared they are with their hopes and dreams. It is fine to fantasize about being a star, she said, but actually achieving it requires plans and more plans written down and costed out.
"A lot of people have good intentions but don't have the solid business model," she said. "It's very much a relationship-driven business but you have to be legit, you have to be resilient, and you have to have the plans in place that make sense to investors. Have a very realistic idea of what a budget is going to be. If you don't have the rich uncle or a golden credit card, can you secure in-kind or cash-equivalent contributions to your project? Can you talk to actors and tradespeople you know about taking part at lower rates for your independent project? And most importantly of all, what's your plan for distribution? You have to find a mentor to help you cross that gap. And you have to open those conversations with more than just 'I have a good story' or 'I have a good idea for a project.' It's a hard road, but like any industry, if you want to get past a certain point you have to think with innovation, you have to work at standing out, and you have to do a lot of homework before you go asking for money."
The projects to which she is associated have reached across the globe in the "making of" process. Cold Brook did a lot of its filming in Buffalo with some work in Los Angeles. Doorman is filming in Romania. Cagefighter is shooting in England. Her office is in Calgary, but her projects could have pins anywhere in the global map.
She even attempted to use Prince George with a recent project. She made a pitch to city hall for some support to have a TV series come here for some filming in 2015 but the officials turned her down. She was not at liberty then to disclose what the project was but now she can say that it was Between, the teen sci-fi drama starring iCarly celebrity Jennette McCurdy and Jesse Carere from the teen dramas Skins and Finding Carter.
A town in Ontario agreed to the request and the two mini-seasons of Between were filmed there instead.
Prince George has another element beginning to boil within its arts community, Shaak said, and that is why she is all too happy to come back to her beloved home town for Northern FanCon. The success of The Doctor's Case feature film and Geoff & The Ninja television series are the first examples of national and even international eyes tuning in to watch entertainment projects made by P.G. people in their home region using local resources.
When Hollywood projects first came to Canada in significant numbers, it was just to use this country's favourable tax structures and lower currency rate to make their shows more cheaply. Over time, the investments of money, studio facilities, and human resources grew to the point there was all-Canadian capacity to make all-Canadian films like never before (Canada has always had a domestic film and television industry, but it was very do-it-yourself and had many practical limitations).
Prince George is now developing an in-house screen arts industry in much the same manner.
"I know the guys behind those projects, and they are champions. That's how the industry gets started, and those initiatives are trailblazers," she said. "I have a huge soft spot for Prince George, I have a lot of reasons for helping promote the industry there, and I am seeing people expanding to that next level building from within and that is exciting, and it has to have that grassroots effort coming from within the community."
She noted that in her junior high school, Lakewood (now Ecole Lac Des Bois), she went to class with well known actor Demitri Goritsas and producer Nolan Pielak of Electric Entertainment, all three of them still in touch today because of their involvement in the international film industry. If one neighbourhood school in Prince George in the pre-2000s could stimulate that much screen arts involvement, she said, imagine what could happen when an event like Northern FanCon does its part to deliberately initiate hands-on knowledge about how movies and TV gets made.
Her main message of advice for aspiring filmmakers, and she will go into it in much more detail at the event May 3-5 at CN Centre, is know where its going before you attempt to go there.
"Your project is not complete unless someone wants to buy it, so who is that going to be? People think too much about the 'getting it made' part and don't complete the thought about 'who's going to watch it?'," she said. "Canada is producing great material. The infrastructure in Canada on the public sector financing side is favourable to made-in-Canada material, and there are a lot of grants available out there, but don't fall into the Catch-22 trap of aiming your project's content at satisfying the grants' criteria if it compromises the project's ability to actually make money out in the world of the audiences. You have to really think through the business elements, including the distribution plan."
