Women in Film and Television: My First WIFT-T Meeting in Toronto

I attended an AGM event this past Monday with WIFT. Hosted downtown Toronto at Goodman LP, I found myself immersed in a group of talented and career driven women.

| What WIFT-T excels at is creating a supportive community where women can meet, network, voice our concerns, face common challenges, and celebrate our triumphs. No other organization does this for women filmmakers - Stephanie Law, WIFT website.

What an organization like this does for women is provide a platform for women to discuss challenges, issues, and everyday career obstacles together in a non-judgmental atmosphere. From entry level industry members to members with 30+ years of experience, WIFT-T excitedly invites anyone and everyone who is interested.

Membership Flexibility

Membership is flexible and based on your industry experience. This is important because some of their networking events and professional development courses are catered to level of expertise in the industry.

The thing I am looking forward to the most as a new member with WIFT is the educational opportunities and course modules they organize and host. These intuitive courses are catered directly to industry professionals and offered for a fraction of the price of other development courses. 

Media Business: Marketing and Distribution

The landscape for our industry is changing. Digital media is going to take over TV distribution sooner or later. We have to stay at the forefront and be a part of the box that pushes the boundaries for content creation. WIFT provides incubator programs for emerging talent that go through the entire production and business end of media creation. They offer a Digital Media Bootcamp course:

| Content creators will learn about the technical environments available to them to tell their stories and distribute their work – plus manage projects on deadline and on budget. Participants will leave confident with the understanding of what it takes to get their original or digital extension project executed. This program was formerly called the Convergent Media Program - WIFT website.

Other exciting events to look forward to: a short film festival championing member work, a TIFF reception party, and networking opportunities.

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At the AGM I met the Chair, Joanna Webb. She approached me with a smile and personally welcomed me to the event. I felt instantly warm and at home. I also got to talk to a new board member, Andra Sheffer, who has such an inspiring career tract: from working at festivals to being the CEO of the Independent Production Fund and other Canadian film industry companies. This was enough for me. I felt included, excited, and on board with their mission statement.

If you are interested in joining, visit their website and check out all the flexible membership options.

- Jenn

*Stay tuned for our blog tomorrow: In Conversation with Andrea Ziedenberg, Far From the Madding Crowd.

Netflix and Vervegirl TV - Changing Canadian TV Watching Experiences

Youtube web series, TV shows created and released for Netflix consumers, Canadians with the power to choose their own personalized TV bundle kit ... this is the dawn of a new age.

Toronto is one of many leaders in quality media creation in Canada. It is important for industry reps. to stay on top of the changing media landscapes. We have to not only process the information but question what the future holds: what do the new CRTC laws do for consumers? How is my TV and movie watching experienced changed with Netflix and Shomi?

AND: what does this ultimately  mean for people working in Canadian TV?

The Globe and Mail says it very astutely:

The decision caters to consumers who have vented their frustrations to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), wondering why they had to pay for bundles of channels they don’t watch simply to get the ones they like. But greater choice could come with consequences: Some customers may pay more, a number of channels will likely die out and substantial revenue losses across the industry could mean job losses and less new content. - James Bradshaw, Media reporter

If you are unfamiliar with the current CRTC action, here is a good article that summarizes the new laws: clink here.

Not only will the industry suffer a loss of production, but TV networks are being forced to shift in a new direction: online video content production and distribution. This is, without a doubt, the most ideal distribution for consumers. They will eventually have all their favourite shows just a click away. For Netflix, the viewers will have access to the show in its entirety. No TV broadcast release date will precede a Netflix original series. OKAY. How does a network assess a shows popularity then? How do they keep their fans happy? You can binge watch an entire show and forget it after a week. How are producers going to address this concerning factor? 

Youtube web series still use a weekly release date model for each episode. Episodes are compressed to five minutes or less (give or take). They are generally, thus far, orchestrated for the millennial generation, what we may call the generation with an attention span of three seconds. Being used to watching 30 minute and hour long episodes, it was rather jolting to watch a show unhold in four minute segments. 

Let's take a look at two key examples that are fresh off the internet press: Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (Netflix production and distributor) and Carmilla (a Smokebomb Entertainment production and Vervegirl TV, distributor, Youtube) to begin to answer these questions.

KIMMY SCHMIDT

Kimmy Schmidt follows a line of successful Netflix-original series: House of Cards and Orange is the New Black. Both highly watched shows set the bar high for future productions. Kimmy Schmidt is a story about a woman who was trapped for 15 years in a bunker and resurfaces into modern day New York. From this perspective, she has to rehabilitate herself back into the world. The perspective taken is one of an outsider looking in on what we might consider "normal" behaviour. There is nothing normal about this show. It borders on slapstick humour and uses a referential system to see how well we consumers have been paying attention over the last fifteen years (HASHBROWN no filter).

The intro is a good example of this referential phenomenon. Five year s ago, a unique Youtube video went viral. Someone posted an edited news story and added a beat with auto tune. We also see this in Kimmy Schmidt: clink here for Kimmy Schmidt original news story.

Auto-tuned Kimmy Schmidt full intro

Antoine Youtube news story with remix song

The originals feature two similar outspoken characters whose concerns for their community become swallowed in a pop-culture-catchy beat. The strength and intelligence in Kimmy Schmidt is not only in its use of popular media tropes, but how it chooses to comment on them. The intro song, when understood in its full context, is complete gibberish. What is unbreakable? Bankston's sunglasses. The song, if written out, has sense, but the words are pulled out of context to create new contextual meaning. As such, we can begin to see how the show will recycle, subvert, and comment on 'normal' behaviour by reinventing itself through the eyes of the protagonist:

"Hey Titus. Apparently dancing is about butts now" - Kimmy

 CARMILLA

A channel on Youtube called Vervegirl TV released its highly anticipated webseries in August 2014 called Carmilla. Based off of Le Fanu's gothic-vampire novella, Smokebomb entertainment, Shift2, and Kotex paired together to create a thirty six episode story. Each episode was released on a weekly basis. The series depicted the struggle of a freshman who encounters weird and unexplainable events in her university. Her inner journalist takes over, and she leads a team of dedicated friends to defeat a vampire cult. Oh yea, did I mention that it also explores sexually diverse characters? Cool and refreshing!

Carmilla | Episode 1 | Disorientation | Laura Hollis is three weeks into her first semester at Sillas University, and things have gotten off to a weird start...

Carmilla | Episode 36 | Life Goes On | Laura turns the camera on one last time to share how she feels about the events that just unfolded at Silas...

There are two ways to experience this transmedia production: progressing through episode by episode each weekly release or spending two hours binge watching it. I was the latter...

The former uses transmedia as a way to tell the story, shifting our experience entirely. The genesis of this experiential form may have developed from consumer's desire to know more about what happens off screen.

Incorporating the U by Kotex® “Save the Undies” campaign, Carmilla also includes transmedia extensions engaging millennial audiences, including character Twitter and Tumblr feeds that extend the story world between episodes, and U by Kotex® integration vlogs featuring the two lead Carmilla characters debating such questions as whether vampires get their periods. - Carmilla article on Shaftesbury

Does this inevitably make us, as consumers, more invested in a show? Perhaps... Likely because we can see and hear and read about a character on multiple platforms.

ADVERTISING ONLINE

One source of revenue for TV stations is advertising. How will the advertising landscape change? Will brands that are incorporated into the videos appear more targeted based on the media being shown?

Smokebomb, Shift2, and U by Kotex came up with one solution: product placement. The characters in Carmilla appear in additional media videos discussing issues related to the show. The issues creatively include and endorse a product: Kotex female hygiene products. How does a teen show about vampires endorse tampons? WELL. One mini episode, actually rather humorous, asks, "do vampires get their periods?" Carmilla states, "yes, I have had 4,000 of them." I did a quick tally on their channel and noticed most ad videos were pushing 28K views. This form of advertising is watched at the discretion of the consumer. And more than 28K consumers chose to click those links.  Clearly an effective approach, as  Vervegirl TV continues this tradition with its recent series release MsLabelled. Clink here to read more.

SUMMARY

The landscape is changing. What can we expect in the future? More online content. An increase in internet costs. More commercials and brands appearing alongside our favourite shows. Shifts in the workforce for Canadian production... etc.

What we need to ask ourselves now, as the gears shift, is where we stand and how we will fit in.

- Jenn

Juggun Kazim - A Night with Western Alumni

Last night I attended my second Western Alumni event in Toronto at the Rosewater building. First off, let me say how much I have so far enjoyed these evenings. Western U Alumni your hard work and dedication to reaching out to past Western students makes me feel purple and proud all over again. Thank you for providing an extraordinary experience.

Last night, Juggun Kazim gave an emotional inspiring talk about her journey from Pakistan to Canada when she was 17 to attend Western U. She didn't know anyone at the school. She knew it was a good school but that was it.

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Western Alumni Gazette - Ft. Juggun Kazim - 2015

When talking about her culture she says, "I am Pakistani. I am Muslim. I am Canadian. But first - I am a human being [...] religion has nothing to do with who you are."

This was the basis of her entire talk: the Power of Human Beings.

From a privileged family, Juggun said she never would have ended up with such a successful career in the media without having attended Western U. She strongly believes that Western provided her not only an education but a lesson on being human: "Western teaches you how to be an extraordinary human being."

"The only way the world will respect you is if you respect yourself" - Juggun Kazim

During her time at Western, she enrolled in the Western Work Program to help pay the international fees. She says it was heart warming dealing with all the wonderful people who worked at Western. They laboured endlessly to make sure she could stay in school. All she had to do was give back to the purple community.

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"Western opened up my perception..." - Western Gazette - Alumni issue. 2015.

After graduating, she entered the media sector in Canada, much to her family's distaste, and flourished as an actress. This was not without its trials. At this point she laughed. Working as a new Canadian actress in Canada, she was either auditioning to play a "desolate" Pakistani woman - to which she said her skin tone was not dark enough for - or she was invited to audition to be a Canadian - which she also laughed and said she was not "Canadian" enough due to her accent. Being stuck in limbo, and feeling slightly spent, her agent suggested to change her name to J. It seemed to work and she landed a role in a film and two stage plays.

She returned home shortly after. She was quickly engaged and married to a man from home. I will leave this part of her story out as she has asked the people who were present last night to keep this part private. But I will say she went through an extremely rough patch in a bad marriage (really bad).

She must have seen the shock and sympathy in our faces. She replied slowly and said (and I paraphrase here) the reason I don't talk about this is because this is something that happens everywhere. It does not define me as a Pakistani woman. "You have to get over it and move on." 

From here, she got out. She left and pursued her media career as a Breakfast television host: Mornings with Juggun Kazim.

She remarried. "I don't have to look far outside my home to find inspiration." And she pointed to her husband in the audience, "that man there deals with me in all my crazy and erratic moods." 

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"Keeping Smiling" - Juggun Kazim

She ended her tale by saying an amazing array of inspiring words:

"Work from the inside out." - (paraphrased) everyone says to think outside the box. I say become the box and slowly help to reshape the world around you to bring about change. 

Her biggest conflict now is changing the perception at home (Pakistan) of being a woman who is both "beautiful" and intelligent." Most people tell her that she can't be on screen and be those two things synonymously. You have to be very careful saying what is on your mind, she told us. She has found that using positive reinforcement is the safest path.

When talking about serious issues such as child molestation, she said she can't come out and just say it point blank. She has to instead guide parents by insisting to care and listen to their children. To watch over both their young girls and boys.

"Send kindness forward, give back" - Juggun Kazim.

Being the ultimate nerd that I am, and having now a massive female crush on Juggun (who is a fellow purple warrior) I asked her to sign my copy of the Western Alumni gazette.

I shared an experience I had and she told me: "whatever you do, do not be silent. Always talk to someone about your experiences and share."

Keep smiling!

- Jenn

A Night with Maureen Jennings

There are always going to be those nights when no matter how blustery the Canadian winter weather is, you are willing to brave it (wind, rain, or snow) to go out and visit an author whose work excites and inspires you.

This is how I felt last night travelling to a Toronto Public Library branch to hear / see Maureen Jennings speak about her career.

Before you say, "wow a person talking about themselves... great?" There is something different when an author stands behind a podium and weaves their life into a tale of adventure. I was awestruck listening for an hour - only it felt like a minute had gone by.

She opened her talk with a passage she had recently written for a new Murdoch TV companion book that is soon to be released in book stores:

Uploaded by Shaftesbury TV on 2011-10-26.

"The darkness is real [...] the actors are soaked to the skin. The one take is successful (here alluding to Shipwrecked) [...] My own story dramatized in real life [...] who would have thought it?!"

Maureen Jennings, born and raised in England (and NOT in any way related to Christina Jennings, owner of Shaftesbury Films) is the author of the Murdoch mysteries series, Bomb Girls, Season of Darkness, and other Tom Tyler books to come. Maureen Jennings grew up in North York, where she started writing "poems and short stories." A friend of hers who was an actor invited her to write a mystery play for their theatre. Of course being a writer, one assumes that a writer is able to write ANY kind of work (plays - short stories - poems - novels - screenplays) ... However, this experience turned out to be a major turning point in her career because it helped her develop a keen interest in the mystery genre.

Being a passionate Victorian, she wanted to base her detective stories in the mid 1890s. Maureen held up an old image of the man she used as inspiration for Detective William Murdoch. He has "integrity and intelligence in his face" she said smiling, hoping to meet him one day. The moustached man in the photo of course does not look anything like our glorious Yannick Bisson, who plays Murdoch in the CBC series, but Maureen is thrilled to have been with Yannick these past eight years. 

An eagre person in the audience asked Maureen how it all began. "It was a funny story," one day my husband, who does things and only tells me when he knows something good will come of it, took one of my five books and brought it to Christina Jennings at Shaftesbury. We developed three movies out of my books. The blond-haired blue-eyed detective cast in the films was much closer to the personality I had written in my stories. TV, though, generally takes the characters and does away with the story. Although she did mention that she is grateful at how faithful "CBC was with the show and her original story." Then CTV picked up my show and it has been running on CBC now for eight consecutive seasons.

"One of the things you can do as a writer is you can steal everything," she said with mischief in her eyes. "There is extra fun with revenge crime, especially when you write someone in and have to decide how they live or die."

She had specifically written these books to take place in Toronto, and one of her earliest memories on the show was remembering how hilarious it was that, given the time for the show to be produced, the first few episodes were shot in WInnipeg. The irony...

Mauren co-wrote three episodes and recently released a solo episode, "Shipwrecked," which explores William Murdoch's childhood and how he came to have such particular habits.

Maureen is currently working on her Tom Tyler series, set in 1940 England during WWII. There are so many country secrets that need a good story telling. You could see glitter in her eyes as she recounted a few fond memories. Her first book, Season of Darkness, explores interned camps in the war.

In Ludlow, there were camps where men and women were interned in the war if they were suspected of being enemies. The camps were peaceful otherwise and many of the brightest minds lay wasting away until someone decided that they could give classes each day. Top scientists and musicians gave talks and lessons and worked with other camp members, mentoring them on their talents. Two such violinists went on to establish the Amadeus Quartet after they were released.

In Burmingham, Maureen developed her munitions factory stories that lead to Bomb Girls. She worked closely with someone she met on set whose great grandmother worked at a munitions factory during the war. Using real accounts from ladies in history, the two embarked on a short episodic series.

Book three in her Tom Tyler series takes place back in Ludlow in a small village where there is a hotel called St. Annes. "I saw this, and the hedges, and imagined it was a hospital. She later discovered the town secret during WWII. When Pilots returning from the war were greatly burned and disfigured, they were sent here for peace and tranquility. The townsfolk were to invite them in their homes and rehabilitate them into social life. A special rope was built that lead from the country to the town centre so the blind but independent pilots had a guide to hold onto.

I think the best thing I learned from this talk was that genre fiction is a great way to explore your passion for life during a specific era but it is also a way to slip in things that you wish to say. Not in any obtrusive manner though. It is the engine to discuss issues. Current issues, set in a different time period but also allowing the audience to connect in the present!

Best-selling mystery author Maureen Jennings talks about her beloved Murdoch, writing historical fiction, and of course, her latest book in the Inspector Tom Tyler series.

Thank you Maureen for sharing your wide spectrum of storytelling success. I am so inspired with how you turn quirky facts into something wonderful and great.

- Jenn

X Company - Canadian TV and Historical Dramas

I have been just bursting to write this blog since last Monday. I was invited to the premiere screening of X Company at TIFF. It was hosted by the Writers Guild of Canada and they asked us to hold off any media release until the show had featured on CBC February 18th, 2015 at 9:00pm (Toronto time).

Well now I can tell you about the two amazing people who are the brains behind this Canadian operation: Stephanie Morgenstern and Mark Ellis. Both were the creators of Flashpoint, the hit FBI series that ran for four successful seasons. Stephanie and Mark have figured out a way and continue to create top Canadian content without losing the quality of their vision due to budget restraints: a co-production with the US.

Stephanie told us at the premiere that it wasn't as if they presented an idea at its earliest formation - undeveloped and in need of a lot of work. They walked into CBS network with a finished script and Canadian support and said look at what we have, you should be a part of it!

X Company is a historical drama based loosely off of Camp X during WWII. Camp X is North America's first secret services base and is located in Whitby / Oshawa (my ole' stomping ground). Figures such as Roald Dahl, Ian Fleming, and Hamish Pelham Burn entered through these training grounds. Even women served as lethal spies! Most perished at the hands of the Gestapo, but not before they did some serious damage to the Nazi moral.

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I say based loosely because Mark Ellis made it quite clear that no real historical people are going to show up in the show. Only events as they happened historically are going to be retold through a group of 5 fictional characters: Aurora (Quebecois and fluent in German), Alfred (someone with perfect memory due to an intense case of synesthesia), Neil (whole family died in the Blitz in England), Harry (Engineer student who likes explosives), and Tom (Ad man, good at propaganda and deception). All with unique gifts and none formerly a part of any army / secret service. 

I think my favourite comment that Stephanie and Mark made that evening was that they were proud to be Canadian. Canada is not a "stepping stone to L.A. There is a pool of world class talent that exists at [our] fingertips" - said a passionate Stephanie. This made me so proud to be Canadian at that moment and witness a new CBC show that is sure to be a success.

The pilot is packed with action, adventure, heart pumping thriller moments, romance, and a unique look at different personalities who have to work together. There are twists at every corner and at times when we want to hate the antagonists (Nazis - DUH) Mark and Stephanie humanize them with little comments here and there, "I wanted to go to Med-school but I had to serve in the army first." 

Mark and Stephanie closed the evening off with some inspiring words. They said write what interests you. Don't follow market fads because by the time your show comes to fruition, that trend has long since passed. Their idea was an ongoing interest for ten years before it became a reality. This really put my own goals and aspirations into perspective.

To Mark and Stephanie and all the production / post production / distribution / broadcasters involved in X Company, I am "happy to learn to know you" over the next few months.

- Jenn

NEXT WEEK'S BLOG: Other Canadian Co-Productions

"... The hit Canada show, Vikings, is also a co-production: Canada - Take 5 Productions - and Ireland ... This also happened a few years back with another CBC show, Titanic: Blood and Steel. Take 5 Productions and Temple Street are leading the production world in Canadian ..."

Nick Price and Wander Lost

I distinctly remember having a talk about sensuality and art in school. It centered around how we as human beings experience art. Do we see it? Do we touch it? Do we taste it? Do we hear it? How can we define "art as experience" as a code of conduct. Must we always be able to see or is it how we feel. If you are trapped in a lonely dark space and all you have are your thoughts to keep you company, is that art?

Perhaps we can broaden this idea of experience and art to the feeling that resonates in us. Whether immediately after or as it brews and settles over a long period of time after.

Nick Price "Naked Souls"

I think the most interesting way of experiencing art is hearing it. Music cannot be seen, it cannot be touched. It is a concept. The wavelengths bounding off the wall and through the loudspeakers can only be understood on a scientific spectrum. We do not see, and we do not feel touch. Only bass can resound deeply within us but how do we even begin to describe that? 

We do hear. And it is the most intense of all things. Hearing how sounds are mixed together draws us to a different space. Something rooted deep within us. 

For me, music evokes visual iconography. I SEE things when I HEAR things. A classical symphony calls to mind a graceful ballet. A thumping bass hit makes me feel energized and ready to dance. A peaceful melody has me at a cottage or meditating in yoga class.

On Tuesday February 17, 2015, Nick Price released his EP album Wander Lost. He hosted the event at a cool venue in Toronto that was once a place of worship for buddhists. While I was hearing the sweetly tuned melody of the electro keyboard, the thick and heavy electric guitar and Nick's vast array of vocal octaves, I was taken elsewhere, outside the room. The songs made me escape in those moment and enter into others.

When I heard "Cabin Built for Two" I found myself first in an empty loft apartment in the great city of Toronto. I saw a couple, young and vibrant, looking at the space hungrily, soaking in every detail, dust particle, and crease that their home had to offer. I saw them rip open a box and string a king-sized white sheet across rope. They threw in pillows and blankets and a flashlight. As the light outside faded, their tree-fort haven lit up brilliantly. They built a space for two. 

I was violently taken away from the safety of this image and thrust into the great outdoors, surrounded by intense forest noises and perhaps the rushings of a close by brook. A small log cabin stood amidst nature's encroaching branches. Two people lay outside by a dim camp fire, in sleeping bags and gazing at the stars. Their eyes shining brightly with reflections of constellations. 

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Nick Price - accompanied by guitar and keyboard

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Nick Price on the keys

It was like this all night: mesmerizing and purely hypnotizing. I was taken on a guided journey. I let myself relax into the sounds and my imagination took over. All sense of time and reality stood fleetingly aside. 

As Shakespeare wisely put it, "if music be the food of love,  then play on. Give me excess of it" - (Twelfth Night). Music inspires those who listen.

Thank you for sharing with us your beautiful talents Nick. If you haven't heard any of these songs you are severely missing out. Just click and enjoy...

- Jenn