True Patriot Love - June 25, 2026


The State of Film & Television in 2026 ft Joel Stewart

Hosted by
Shara Micucci Mike Wixson
Guests
Joel Stewart
Mentioned
David Fincher Paul Thomas Anderson Marty Supreme David Chase Sault Ste Marie Crave
[Sneak Peek] TPL Crime Update： Gun-for-Hire Networks & Canada's Bail Reform Canada's Oil Power： Economic Rebound Secret Revealed! #TPLMedia

Episode Stats


Length

47 minutes

Words per minute

185.42

Word count

8,868

Sentence count

—


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, we sit down with Joel Stewart to talk about what's happening in the film industry in Canada. From tax credits, to tax incentives, to infrastructure, to crews and equipment, there's a lot going on in the industry in our home province of Canada.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 canada's doing okay i think in a larger sense i mean as an industry the movie industry is just
00:00:08.160 very interesting i mean all the industries anyone who tells you this is where it's going
00:00:12.960 doesn't know what they're talking about
00:00:18.960 thanks for joining us tpl media and by the way we might be there locally in your hometown go to
00:00:24.080 at tplmedia.ca slash local and you'll find us in Brandon and Regina and Sault Ste. Marie and
00:00:30.740 Montreal and Ottawa. We're coming to your town too and that means that we might even be there
00:00:35.720 in person. Stay with us and subscribe to our newsletter on our website at tplmedia.ca. Don't
00:00:42.640 forget you can even support the network. Wouldn't hurt one little bit and we would certainly
00:00:47.380 appreciate it. All right let's get on with what's happening today. An opportunity I have once in a
00:00:53.800 while to sit down with joel stewart to talk a little bit about film in canada among other things
00:00:59.660 joel stewart joins us thanks so much buddy well i am the least qualified person you could have
00:01:04.280 rounded up from the streets of toronto i want to see you be here let me test you on that joel
00:01:09.240 because let's see uh network television producer correct oh yes for many years uh stage performing
00:01:15.960 uh rock star still yes uh recent movie in theaters actually you know the more you bring this up the
00:01:23.780 more you're right yeah i hate to be your promo guy but you're perfectly qualified for this and
00:01:28.660 i do appreciate you taking the time uh here we are in the throes of summer and coast to coast in
00:01:33.860 canada that means something from a production standpoint generally speaking it means we're
00:01:38.900 usually pretty busy yep what do you feel is going on out there now how's your gauge on how busy the
00:01:44.980 studios the producers and the tech teams are doing out there you know what i think the tech teams are
00:01:51.060 are doing great uh there there is still the the uh you know we're known for having great crews in
00:01:57.700 very interesting places not just toronto and vancouver but winnipeg has become a film hub
00:02:02.600 okay dot dot dot you know all those uh great bob odenkirk movies the nobody movies they filmed
00:02:07.700 there right the new little house on the prairie that is coming out on netflix which is set in
00:02:13.200 california is filming in you know in winnipeg uh but you know winnipeg really rallied around
00:02:20.200 you know the government said hey we have to turn this into something and then they created a tax
00:02:24.400 credit environment that attracted american producers so in addition to the exchange rate
00:02:29.360 and all those incentives that were there but what happened was back a bunch of years ago
00:02:34.960 when the opposite was happening in alberta a bunch of the alberta people moved to winnipeg
00:02:40.460 and and made that their home and if these are i'm talking about grips and hours and so now there's
00:02:45.480 this hub there is a scene i mean they should maybe change it to hub manitoba because it's now a hub
00:02:52.300 for uh in in many ways for all of the logistics that go on in many parts of canada yeah it's a
00:02:58.620 huge hub uh there's a lot of space there for studios i would imagine yeah and then you've got
00:03:03.740 dramatic seasons there and you have the incredible buildings in winnipeg proper it often doubles for
00:03:09.620 chicago or new york and all that kind of stuff as well so they they've you know so as far as
00:03:15.100 crews go crews are working uh i think crews are thriving here in canada um there was an article
00:03:22.680 in variety today what is today june 16th but again it was about the uh people escaping the
00:03:28.460 scene in la too expensive to shoot in la there's there's the entertainment capital of the world
00:03:33.760 los angeles where else are they going do you think because i've heard this i've heard texas is a big
00:03:38.820 one now yes uh georgia is massive right everything's happening in georgia uh massachusetts
00:03:45.000 massachusetts say it five times fast joel i can't say it even once every time i say it i offend
00:03:52.840 somebody uh he was i was reading this thing and somebody said well the tax credits are better here
00:03:57.740 than they are in california and you know dot dot dot what is that let's talk about that for a minute
00:04:02.420 Now, I've participated in tax credits a couple of times in my life with various television shows, but let's explain to people how that operates because I think that there's a misconception that a huge amount of money from our government is put into film when really what it is in many cases and this kind of production, many cases, it's just a tax relief.
00:04:27.960 It's just a tax arrangement that makes the budget go further.
00:04:31.280 i don't know if that's true i think there is cash involved no no you get the cash yeah you get cash
00:04:37.140 but i don't think that comes from the federal government so essentially what happens is it
00:04:41.840 offsets the cost of production based on where you yes okay so in manitoba for instance uh i don't
00:04:50.760 know why i'm bringing up manitoba all the time no but what are you the king of manitoba i didn't
00:04:54.220 know this but as an example uh just because it's recent in my head i believe it's 30 percent of all
00:05:01.820 of the labor costs you would have would be subsidized by the tax credit and northern
00:05:07.240 ontario has a similar they have yes people might not know there you get a tax credit in ontario
00:05:12.600 just for doing something in ontario okay if you go to northern ontario which is why a lot of things
00:05:17.560 are filmed in sudbury you know sudbury wow film capital of canada capital of canada there's a
00:05:25.900 northern ontario tax threshold so if you were able to move your production out there uh you get a
00:05:32.920 bump to the existing ontario tax credit and you know you think about it this is significant these
00:05:39.900 are significant dollars because oh let's go there and we'll get a tax credit well to go there you
00:05:45.000 have to kind of go there a bunch of people have to be in hotels you need to have the cruise or
00:05:50.200 you need a localized crew which i think is hopefully the net result of this that in in
00:05:56.680 for example winnipeg you get a film community and and a resource community there that can continue
00:06:02.840 to make films that continues to be a destination no matter who's coming in i mean the creative keys
00:06:07.400 will come in like you know when they made fargo in those five seasons of fargo in calgary
00:06:11.720 a lot of the crew were the same crew
00:06:14.360 but a lot of the keys
00:06:16.480 the writers they were all from Hollywood and stuff
00:06:18.660 and they would come up and do that sort of thing
00:06:20.340 so there is a cost to it
00:06:22.040 but you know Canada's doing okay
00:06:24.240 I think in a larger sense
00:06:26.880 I mean as an industry
00:06:29.960 the movie industry is just very interesting
00:06:31.860 I mean all the industries
00:06:32.920 anyone who tells you this is where it's going
00:06:36.020 doesn't know what they're talking about
00:06:37.500 because they don't know and nobody knows
00:06:39.840 no it's changed so dramatically really yeah but here's the thing that's stressing me out now
00:06:45.420 uh as an older guy who made a movie wants to make another movie well there's this great thing
00:06:51.360 happening now people are flocking to the theaters right now the young people are
00:06:55.560 flocking to theaters to see backrooms and obsession both of which you know backrooms
00:07:01.440 was based on a fellow's web series dot dot dot yeah he's in his early 20s he got a budget and
00:07:07.480 he's making he's making bank now yeah and then this movie obsession same story so it being a
00:07:13.920 copycat industry you know that every every head of every whatever company is like let's find another
00:07:19.820 20 year old i can see that what i think is interesting about that is while that's truth
00:07:25.180 cinema is i mean it's changing uh i think i've got tickets upcoming to a symphony for goodness sake
00:07:30.720 uh you can see live events and things like that and there's a huge uh ethnic element now uh to
00:07:36.760 the forum film uh showing going depending on where you are in the country you know a number of
00:07:42.220 theaters are showing punjabi or uh other ethnic related to that community uh and there's less
00:07:49.320 theaters for just straight away film when you add a back rooms for example which by the way freaks
00:07:56.360 me out the whole idea of it freaks me out and so good for that kid alongside those there needs to
00:08:01.860 be this epic series of movies or epic element of movies i think that keeps people uh within the
00:08:08.800 magic there has to be genre of film that has impact to people's emotions and then there has to
00:08:15.440 be these throwaways that are what i like to call viral fascinations in film and i don't think the
00:08:22.060 industry can survive very long on just viral uh fascinations i don't think i don't i think it'll
00:08:28.800 be a fad you know i think it'll be but it'll be a fad for a while you know and it'll be there
00:08:34.760 will be somebody who gets a new job at a new place who said this is what we're going to do
00:08:38.800 and they will forget about experience and all these sorts of things joe let me see how many
00:08:43.080 followers do you have right right like i get it oh my gosh you know we were just talking before
00:08:48.880 we went to camera about about these things that happen now and and the way things are done now
00:08:54.740 and it's like you don't look for the best actor for the part you you wonder you you have a person
00:08:59.500 going how many followers do they have on instagram and it's like well but can they act it doesn't
00:09:03.780 matter how many followers do they have on instagram yeah this becomes a thing what's their viral
00:09:08.080 pattern online are they tiktok or instagram yes oh my lord these things matter these things are
00:09:13.600 discussed and come up and how about i'm gonna make a fantastic movie and they'll be viral the rest of
00:09:18.500 their lives well you know exactly uh when paul thomas anderson won the golden globe for one
00:09:25.260 battle after another he said something very specific in his speech and he pointed to one
00:09:29.900 studio person in the audience and said that person is responsible for this movie weapons and sinners
00:09:37.680 now sinners in one battle after another i think you could just redo the top 10 greatest movies
00:09:43.320 of all time they really did nail it and you could you could make an argument that those movies should
00:09:48.020 be on it those movies made me want to go to theaters again yes yes and marty supreme as
00:09:53.460 well like marty supreme another great example of that a singular vision right and it was like okay
00:09:59.000 some people didn't like marty supreme it was too intense some people didn't like kevin o'leary but
00:10:02.540 i get it that's right that's very funny that's right i probably can't touch that yes i thought
00:10:07.380 he was really good at that movie i did too but i think he was playing the real him did you there
00:10:11.660 was a story i i saw kevin o'leary get interviewed and they were on him for a close-up at one point
00:10:17.480 they did it like 20 times and he said i think you got it and uh safety the director said oh no you
00:10:24.600 don't say i got it that's hilarious you may be in charge where you are but on my set i will decide
00:10:30.760 if we got it or yeah he's a certain arrogance i think it'd be tough to direct but he pulled it
00:10:34.800 off well he was playing himself yeah you know a version a heightened version of himself and
00:10:39.900 congratulations to him because he was excellent but you're right those but those movies they were
00:10:45.300 they were high watermarks that really still have an impact on me looking for the next thing in the
00:10:51.680 theater yeah i'm not sure backrooms is going to do that well we're a little we're a little old for
00:10:56.600 the target audience for that but the good news is that okay kids are going to the theater if it's
00:11:01.180 becoming an event there and because i think x being an exhibitor of of films you were talking
00:11:09.020 about some of the towns that have very specific programming for for certain populations that's
00:11:14.760 how you're going to get butts in your seats yeah and that's how you're going to get loyalty with
00:11:17.880 your neighborhood cinema and all that kind of stuff so that kind of innovation is fantastic
00:11:23.040 where you go to a movie and there's a band playing afterwards like why not we're all in this space
00:11:27.480 like get people in there and celebrate stuff a little bit totally i do think that's a great
00:11:32.560 that's a great perspective on okay and also for investors kids are coming to the theaters what
00:11:37.180 can we do we need the we need the investment yeah yeah and you know i think there will be
00:11:41.340 there are fewer movies being made in general right so you look at uh and why uh i was gonna say like
00:11:51.440 it just seems it's so expensive for a guaranteed return you kind of have to have a superhero a
00:11:57.860 justice league a cartoon you know a comic book character something with a built-in thing they
00:12:03.220 know those things will make money and they're really expensive to make and then if you want
00:12:07.240 a star now it used to be you'd give the star a lot of money and then the star would get a lot
00:12:14.260 more money when the dvd came out well you don't have dvds anymore and and they don't necessarily
00:12:20.240 have a trigger deal for streaming so now they need all their money up front so your budget is
00:12:24.620 just that much higher joel can you explain this to me on that note what does streaming at what's
00:12:31.360 the business of streaming all about i mean do they how do you get a streaming movie deal is it
00:12:38.540 something that's already cut then they go into production because it feels to me that the
00:12:42.660 streamers are taking from the theaters some pretty good projects that would really be suited for
00:12:47.480 theaters they're required i think what the streamers are doing like okay i'm i'm shifting
00:12:53.880 gears a little bit and please stick with sorry because i ask a million questions no no no but
00:12:58.060 but the way i'm answering it is very circuitous but i was thinking the other day about bill simmons
00:13:03.340 now is airing his podcast live on netflix and you go well why why is that of value to netflix
00:13:11.740 you know people don't okay we won't watch it on youtube we'll watch it on netflix okay
00:13:16.220 i get that i think what they're doing is not programming their website they're acquiring
00:13:25.500 talent oh this person is doing that we need them what do they do it doesn't matter we need them
00:13:31.500 we need them we need them i think but getting back to your question about what do streamers do
00:13:37.040 streamers taking things out of theaters by having them on their thing netflix had a lot of years of
00:13:43.900 david fincher type movies and and and his property the great director david fincher so he had stuff
00:13:49.320 that wasn't in theaters it would bank would be on netflix you're right there was a distinguished
00:13:53.740 difference between the director the kind of script and the kind of production that you got on the
00:13:57.740 stream as opposed to in theaters seems to have flipped positions to some degree they will
00:14:03.120 commission a property a movie if there is a big star attached who has a bazillion followers and
00:14:08.600 all these sorts of things if you've made a movie and you want to get it on a streamer in canada
00:14:13.980 we had this with souls road my understanding is they will not accept or consider a film unless
00:14:21.400 it's been in 10 theaters in 10 cities on the same night okay so wow that's quite the criteria yeah
00:14:27.280 and and you know i i love it i love it in the sense of are you serious about this movie no that
00:14:32.960 makes good sense actually joel like okay yeah anybody can make a movie and it can be beautiful
00:14:36.900 but how does it test you know put it in 10 theaters and let's see what the response is
00:14:42.100 from the critics from the audiences it is a test bed uh i would imagine and also there's something
00:14:48.520 about actually delivering it on the screen in 10 cities that adds this credibility and actual
00:14:56.360 out of theaters tangibility that they can use on the stream you know and i it's a it's a criteria
00:15:03.800 that i didn't expect to hear and frankly when we were making the movie i thought maybe this would
00:15:08.520 end up on a streamer one day and i didn't think i'd ever get to see it in a theater across the
00:15:13.240 country i mean i went right i went to seven cities it was pretty cool saw my movie on the big screen
00:15:17.640 and saw different reactions by different people for how you guys did interviews on stage and
00:15:22.180 interacted with the audience oh yeah we did all that stuff and that's fantastic and and you know
00:15:26.400 and people are smart right you know that we would open up a thing for questions and there would be
00:15:30.640 somebody who would say hey you know in that part of the movie oh my gosh they were paying attention
00:15:35.240 and they noticed the thing that i thought they wouldn't notice right and for instance the main
00:15:40.100 character in my movie is left-handed there's a shot of him writing down but then there's a flashback
00:15:43.900 to him playing catch with his buddy and he's got his baseball glove on the left hand and so somebody
00:15:49.480 caught that somebody caught that no pun intended but somebody caught that yeah wow and i was like
00:15:54.280 wow okay good and i didn't notice that or even think about it till about you know 10 minutes
00:15:58.920 uh before we finish the movie in the edit suite i'm like ah no one's gonna nobody's gonna see
00:16:03.620 that that's fine sure how did you feel when that came up and were you like i would immediately
00:16:09.720 starts sweating like i let that one go oh i that was my i mean i i'm full of self-loathing all the
00:16:15.580 time is oh my i've been uncovered as the fraud that i am you know it's kind of my thing so joel
00:16:21.500 you i i think what you're saying is that there's like a criteria a couple of criteria for for the
00:16:27.340 streamers right now that might affect what's going on in canada ongoing from now on one is
00:16:33.320 yeah they commission stuff and two is that they'll commission stuff at a theater based on certain
00:16:39.620 criteria uh that they or they will buy stuff that had certain success in theater they will commission
00:16:45.700 or acquire wow and i i don't you know i don't know the business model of these streamers i don't know
00:16:52.020 how it used to be so straightforward i don't know how they make money and i know netflix has all the
00:16:56.980 money in the world but i i don't know you know i it seems to me that their job is to acquire market
00:17:03.940 share destroy conventional network programming uh and then and then they're doing and do what
00:17:11.140 they do now which is add in commercials right all the disruptors come in and they say well you don't
00:17:16.180 we don't need commercials if you watch it on our thing and then they raise the rates of what you're
00:17:19.860 paying for it now that you're hooked and now they're adding in commercials it's it has been
00:17:23.780 it's quite a journey they've been on i mean if you think about it i mean they used to mail me
00:17:28.660 vhs tapes that's right yeah that's right that's right they were and blockbuster had the opportunity
00:17:35.220 to buy netflix for 50 million dollars and did not and they just let it go i recall that yeah yeah
00:17:40.180 uh just like many things out there the the traditional guys seem to just want to uh
00:17:46.020 squeeze the sponge until it's dry and then go home yeah and leave all that water on the floor
00:17:53.140 for somebody else to mop up i i was listening to some podcasts and they were like and after the
00:17:57.220 game we're gonna do a live podcast and there's this live unprecedented live podcast and i was
00:18:03.060 thinking to myself like it's called radio that's true you know that industry you destroyed yeah
00:18:10.020 you know well here's another thing like let's talk about that a little bit about how
00:18:14.420 the industry is somewhat shrinking technology is getting in the way a little bit or in some
00:18:20.500 cases advancing things yeah uh certain jobs are changing in the industry yeah i mean i would
00:18:27.060 imagine that the executive producer there's always going to be somebody that has to ask
00:18:33.300 usually the foreign market for money to make their film yeah and anybody who has invested
00:18:39.060 in film or television in this country hats off to you because that's the kind of content that
00:18:45.300 is actually pure and wonderful and supporting canadian artists but somebody's always going to
00:18:49.780 have to do that somebody's always going to have to write it so although chat gpt anyway somebody's
00:18:55.620 always going to have to write it not the same why is it not the same it's it it's it's the difference
00:19:00.180 between wood paneling and and a log cabin i think it can look like it it can kind of move like it
00:19:08.260 there's there's there's still something about handmade it within within all this technology
00:19:16.660 this thing that we look for this heart this beating heart you can really only get from an
00:19:22.500 actor and you can really only get from a writer you know things can be written you can you can
00:19:28.020 pump in your story and say make it a script prove me wrong good good good luck proving me wrong i
00:19:36.100 hope you do but there is just something that will never replace the sound of a human voice
00:19:42.580 or anything like that i i i think you know you can do these things if you're writing if you're
00:19:49.020 writing a corporate event you know and you want i need to write a host script for the the the
00:19:53.720 mechanic awards you know at the chat gpt awesome i need mechanic jokes you know right great right
00:20:01.320 how about this one you know um all that stuff i mean i i've i find those those current tools
00:20:09.220 on the on the internet to be kind of helpful actually an enhanced version of google for
00:20:14.460 researching and for fact checking and all that kind of stuff you know double fact check but
00:20:19.180 uh i think those things are great and they can be tools i was very afraid of those things
00:20:23.640 it's interesting that you say that because uh you are and and often in in in concert with other
00:20:31.940 people an incredible writer i will say that i mean i've i've read scripts that nobody's read
00:20:37.620 that you've written that are quite remarkable thank you and the script that you brought to life
00:20:43.700 um for soul's road uh quite incredible johnny's script i just kind of led it in a certain direction
00:20:50.760 and uh happily so so on that note i mean i i kind of feel like i baited you a little bit there
00:20:57.480 but the one thing that i will say is that i don't think anybody is willing to put their money behind
00:21:04.360 their acting career or their directing career even behind an AI-generated project.
00:21:14.120 The other thing is, I think that we're tired of how fast the generation,
00:21:21.400 how we have to auto correct in our mind for all the imagery that doesn't work,
00:21:25.560 all the hallucination that falls into place. I think we have to start to give credit to humans
00:21:31.640 that this era was a little bubble i i think we're starting to see it unfurl a little bit
00:21:39.960 with the big tech companies going oh you know these were the ai has kind of ruined this and
00:21:45.480 this so we're bringing people back right we're starting to see that just the cost of making a
00:21:49.880 movie and generating ai to do it the the the electricity and data power yes yes there is
00:21:57.640 there is a cost to that not only just uh environmentally and all those kind of things
00:22:03.000 coke made their big christmas commercial last year via ai right you know they i didn't even
00:22:08.600 know that and and everyone's like oh it's a yeah coke did ai oh well screwed you know
00:22:14.440 1200 people worked on the coke ai company that's way more than anybody would work on a normal
00:22:20.680 commercial 1200 people had their mitts in this thing wow you know doing all the things you got
00:22:27.480 to do to then finally give it to ai you know and then you do the ai thing and you're like ah that's
00:22:32.600 not what i had in mind so you redo the ai thing and then you get fired and then somebody else
00:22:37.080 1200 different people i don't know what jobs they did but this was um and then of course the data
00:22:44.360 yeah they you know uh that data thing really blows my mind when i started to understand what it takes
00:22:49.560 uh you know somebody pointed out how many how many glasses of water do you think it takes
00:22:54.320 to ask uh chat gpt to check a calendar for something right and i i pushed across a glass
00:23:01.560 of water no two no a jug no two jugs right and so and just the the actual generating of that power
00:23:12.740 like do we know what we're doing no apparently not i've i'm old enough sorry i cut you off
00:23:17.980 your show but no no i'm old enough to have lived through a bunch of technological advancements
00:23:24.020 right you know in the in the 90s uh place i was working at like okay linear story president of
00:23:30.580 our company was in the newspaper and he said linear storytelling is dead oh really yeah and
00:23:35.760 we were we were trying to sell cd roms where you could you could jump to this part that where the
00:23:40.480 viewer could navigate their own experience right then we discovered people don't want to interact
00:23:45.640 with their tv at all we want a story we want to be we as humans i think at the end of the day we
00:23:52.120 want we want to enjoy a story we want to be moved by a story we don't want to tell the story all the
00:23:58.420 time i like telling the story but but if you're one of the poor victim people want to people want
00:24:03.720 to just be told a story it's from when we were kids we were told a story when we went to bed
00:24:08.020 we weren't uh going you know dad can the uh can the wolf be nicer yeah i'll take choice b yeah
00:24:16.280 yeah yeah right you know no i think that you're right that that element of storytelling and and
00:24:21.800 really can canadians can be very proud of this we've got a great history of well-written well
00:24:28.900 directed and really well acted movies here in canada um and you know i'm glad to hear that
00:24:34.440 that it's busy here in canada at the moment i film and and and and let's get excited about
00:24:39.240 something that nirvana the band the movie yeah that that piece of work uh again you know they're
00:24:45.980 using footage that they had on youtube the actors from 20 years ago but it's a fine fine fine piece
00:24:53.480 of work that people went to and people loved and it was appropriately awarded at the screen awards
00:25:02.080 and uh that director matt johnson i think it should be an inspiration to people a lot younger
00:25:07.840 than me but then again you look at his work that movie is very much its own thing he also made the
00:25:15.740 blackberry movie which i enjoyed a great deal which has a lot of the same style i was going to
00:25:19.500 say that's a style yeah now he found a style a cutting style even an audio style yes that's
00:25:26.460 really unique yes and the camera motion and all that stuff and it's like you feel like you're
00:25:30.860 you feel like you're eavesdropping on something which makes you as the listener as the viewer
00:25:34.840 more engaged we are nosy and uh and and so more of that but my point in all that is like someone
00:25:41.960 along the line said you go be you here's here's here's a real problem we have in life and it
00:25:51.100 really pertains to the creation of art mike you make the best lattes in the world and i'm opening
00:25:56.040 a coffee shop come and make your lattes at my coffee shop what can i do to get you to come and
00:26:01.560 make your lattes at my car then you get the job and they're like we want you to make them like
00:26:05.580 this but you wanted me to make my lot right oh yes well i i had that experience in television
00:26:12.100 for many years oh yeah we like the show you're the guy for the job yeah now be somebody else
00:26:18.000 exactly yeah this show concept is fantastic we're in for 26 episodes
00:26:24.080 one quick change yeah everybody needs to be penguins
00:26:29.600 i don't really i'm budget for paint but our tendency in the business is to stay employed
00:26:37.360 and so penguins often it is i was thinking the same thing you know like i too was thinking they
00:26:44.000 should be penguins that's our first instinct yeah exactly of course you know what genius penguins
00:26:49.360 penguins it is yeah i was in a meeting i'll tell you a little story i was in a meeting about a tv
00:26:54.400 series uh one of the gentlemen that developed the show is sitting in the room with us now
00:26:59.120 and in a meeting one of the uh supporting production company people creative person asked
00:27:05.760 uh well what nationality are the animals in this series and i said they're animals
00:27:15.540 they couldn't get their head around it because we don't want to offend anybody
00:27:20.620 any of the animals so once you've got an idea and somebody buys it it isn't even it's still
00:27:29.540 good for the killing at that point yeah yeah no you know and and you know you pays your dollar
00:27:35.100 gets to holler all those things but what happens is uh the product just becomes so
00:27:43.100 diluted the original vision becomes so diluted uh that you end up with something mediocre i mean i
00:27:49.580 i did i did a show called mississippi snake grabbers this was back when duck dynasty how
00:27:56.060 did i miss that oh well you were not the only one my friend uh but duck dynasty was the massive show
00:28:03.340 on a oh yeah and so everyone in the world was like well we need our own duck dynasty
00:28:08.140 need our own duck dynasty and uh i was in mississippi one night i was shooting a travel show
00:28:17.260 um and we were in duke's steakhouse in pilahatchee mississippi and our host was going to eat the 72
00:28:23.020 ounce steak because if you do you get it for free and uh and because there was a camera crew coming
00:28:28.860 from cmt the restaurant was packed the mayor was there knox ross all these families were there it
00:28:34.140 was very congested and these good old boys showing up and they're handing me dvds and
00:28:39.340 grab you one outfitters and and i'm like wow hey really nice and i couldn't make out a word these
00:28:43.580 guys were saying well it's that's it fantastic yeah really nice to meet you well you know i'll
00:28:51.100 check this out and uh so i and we're wrapping out and i said to the lady judy who owned the place
00:28:56.780 oh you know sorry i didn't get a chance to talk to those guys what's the deal with them he said
00:29:00.620 well they're they're like rock stars around here and i said what do they do again well instead of
00:29:05.100 fishing they they go out and they grab snakes with their hands and i'm like and they they they eat
00:29:10.940 this they no no they put them back at the end i'm like oh okay all right and and then i'm like okay
00:29:16.700 well i'm about to and she says well they only do it to relieve stress from their day job because
00:29:21.340 they all work for the mississippi bureau of narcotics and i'm like okay what yes now i'm
00:29:27.660 very interested i got a show i'm very interested yeah they have okay so so anyway we we did a bunch
00:29:34.860 of development down there for one summer and then the next summer we made what is basically a
00:29:40.460 a genius reality sitcom where in every episode they take out people on the on the water and
00:29:47.260 they would grab snakes which is all real and it all happened and it was really quite something
00:29:52.220 and it got so polluted at the network level that i was just like all the joy all the nuance all the
00:30:00.620 stuff all the humor all the act it was just like everything just got notched down 85 percent what
00:30:07.900 and i remember getting one note from one of these network executives uh who were on the floor above
00:30:13.900 me you know uh why does this happen in this episode i said well that's planting a seed for
00:30:20.220 what happens in episode six and then because of this and also in the context of this i wrote a
00:30:24.860 doctoral thesis on why this minor thing happens in episode four well just change it anyway oh
00:30:31.180 so you were you really didn't want to know you just wanted to change it and you don't care what
00:30:35.660 happens down the road in this arc you know and then i think that was my first nervous breakdown
00:30:40.460 was that show it's interesting to note that i'm just going to close the loop on this one
00:30:44.540 it it ultimately didn't get a second season um i was going to say it's interesting to know that i
00:30:50.940 it did it did it go it went into production yeah no it aired okay and it was it was it did well
00:30:57.500 by our standards but it didn't get a second season but so i kind of view it as a failure that's not
00:31:03.660 true but i wish it was my failure and i don't feel i put my failure on the screen i felt it was
00:31:13.340 a homogenized version of something that was totally awesome and we had characters and
00:31:18.780 and it was anyway yeah heartbreaking well you know what joel to that end i think that that is
00:31:23.580 a note that you can hear from many creative people along the way uh that that that dilution of
00:31:32.220 creativity at the network level leaves producers and directors dissatisfied with their own work
00:31:39.340 and not just not just precious egos or massive egos like myself it was like there were a crew
00:31:45.980 of 20 of us doing this thing and living in in that's right happy hotels in mississippi for
00:31:51.820 lovely places lovely hotels in mississippi we accredited them on the tv series we ate so well
00:31:57.660 um a lot of snake a lot of steak i said to one of the guys we had a new crew member down i said
00:32:02.940 he said what's it like i said wow when you get there just so you know you'll have to drink
00:32:06.780 something they made themselves and you'll have to eat something that you don't know what it is
00:32:11.180 and we had a little laugh and then he was literally there on the first day and he's
00:32:14.620 like both of those things have just happened but but anyway of the large crew they were also
00:32:21.980 incredibly disappointed it wasn't just me it was like it's not the show we shot why did they why
00:32:26.620 Why did they do that?
00:32:27.300 That's not the show we shot.
00:32:28.400 That's not the show we shot.
00:32:30.100 And, you know, if it had turned into a big hit, I would have said,
00:32:35.200 those people are geniuses and stuff.
00:32:36.580 Right, right.
00:32:37.360 But the things, it just, it didn't.
00:32:40.480 So, well, if we're going to go this far,
00:32:43.700 trust the person you have down in the trenches doing it.
00:32:46.460 Say, no, I think this is the best solution to this.
00:32:48.620 I think this is the best way to tell this.
00:32:50.060 I think that's a consistent industry standard.
00:32:54.360 Yeah.
00:32:54.740 You know?
00:32:55.080 i mean it is it is uh bambi versus godzilla the david mammoth book about you know film is a
00:33:00.440 collaborative business bend over it used to be based on research now it's based on a moving
00:33:04.700 target of how many follows how many likes what's trending yeah you know how can i get this out fast
00:33:10.140 enough to meet the trend to hit the algorithm i think that those days uh of actual research
00:33:16.120 are just intensifying and the the capacity at which they expect the produce the producers the
00:33:23.120 production companies and the creative people to change on a dime is going to be more in demand
00:33:29.300 it i i yes i think you're i think you're spot on we don't we just don't know what's going to happen
00:33:37.100 and then and then this level of executives and there's lots of them there's way too many than
00:33:44.360 there need to be on certain things i think yeah um but they're going to preserve their jobs and
00:33:49.460 going to preserve their jobs by giving opinion they're not going to say go away for a while let
00:33:53.940 me know uh when it's done i want to see it you know but if you look at the the the the prestige
00:34:00.180 tv show soprano the shield all those shows csi csi of course which one is csi new york right you
00:34:11.300 know but a lot of those shows um really they didn't get any network interference you always
00:34:18.580 hear about the sopranos they the network had an issue with episode four of season one the episode
00:34:23.140 called college and and then david chase put his foot down and and they didn't like the title of
00:34:30.180 the show either but those are the two main notes they had but they left the people who were in the
00:34:35.300 world of the show to create the show and they know their audience those people know their audience
00:34:40.740 too you know or they know how to create one by creating a driving series by getting the right
00:34:47.540 actors by getting the right directors i think uh that's the other thing in television there's
00:34:51.700 several directors you know you'll do an episode i'll do an episode you'll do another episode
00:34:56.580 and to keep that consistency among that creative group of people uh throughout a series is a real
00:35:03.620 circus it's a real skill set well i i i'm of the belief that the director of photography on those
00:35:10.660 series that have revolving directors are really the stars pretty pretty clutch yeah you know
00:35:16.900 they'll be the ones who at least will retain the the signature visual identity of the piece
00:35:23.860 and quite often they are the people that the lead actors are most familiar with because they work
00:35:28.740 with them every day so right how is that yeah another one of those right oh yeah a problem
00:35:34.260 with my camera and then they'll get another one exactly without defending the director who might
00:35:38.900 be like oh we just got the greatest shot yes there are some really great directors making television
00:35:43.620 canada well good directors and dops uh they pick each other often i've noticed like they'll
00:35:48.980 recommend one another they'll feel comfortable to work with one another it is an emotional
00:35:53.540 it's an it's it's it's emotional art and so you need people who will ride with you the people you
00:35:59.540 trust people you've made mistakes with before and people you've emerged from those mistakes with
00:36:04.340 before and it's really quite something okay give me some scuttlebutt what's in production out there
00:36:08.660 what are you hearing about oh gosh what am i hearing about oh my gosh that little house on
00:36:14.980 the prairie is done now i think little house on the prairie will be debuting soon uh calgary's very
00:36:21.220 busy with all kinds of stuff there's uh an hbo's reality series filming outside of calgary a couple
00:36:28.580 more scripted things in town there too again another example of uh really world-class crew
00:36:35.940 members all across the board in alberta um you know you look at the fargo the tin star
00:36:43.780 all those things that they repeatable series that were shot in calgary that are all excellent
00:36:48.660 um and so those people are busy all the time you have the obligatory western is shooting out there
00:36:55.540 this time you know and and i think netflix is also doing a a coming of age romance set on the uh
00:37:04.260 the railway line oh fantastic that sounds out there as well now uh the hockey series
00:37:13.040 uh i can't remember the name of it though oh heated rival heated rivalries that's back for
00:37:17.980 a second and uh in production now there's a very interesting story about that i'm going to get in
00:37:23.380 trouble for this i'm not telling you that it's true i'm only telling you it's what i heard okay
00:37:28.640 jacob tierney we were getting back to net network interference okay
00:37:34.840 network interference jacob tierney apparently took that to netflix and started it with netflix
00:37:43.280 and i went oh i think we're losing the plot but he had still the ability to withdraw
00:37:47.420 the show and shop it elsewhere which is how it ended up at crave here in canada and then of
00:37:54.520 course hbo picked it up right away um and then it turned into this vanity fair thing so that's
00:38:02.200 incredible for everybody involved there was one of the actors was involved in a as a recent it
00:38:10.220 might have been an issue social media posts from his youth so that'll be interesting to see what
00:38:14.540 happens yeah but the world is kind of waiting for that uh but there's been an interesting thing that
00:38:20.180 happened again allegedly i am hearing it third hand the the talk at bell crave is like well we
00:38:30.100 didn't really we really didn't have too much to do with it he came in and had it all sorted out and
00:38:35.020 he did the show and maybe we should just let people do the shows we approve and kind of stay
00:38:41.140 out of their way a little bit is my understanding wow of what their philosophy is going to be
00:38:47.600 because they've had a lot of shows in there that, of course,
00:38:50.200 if your job is a television executive, you will micromanage
00:38:53.880 because you'll think that's what you need to do.
00:38:56.600 And I'm not fighting with you.
00:38:58.000 I'm not saying you shouldn't have a job.
00:38:59.920 But sometimes, like if you're a basketball player,
00:39:03.540 sometimes the best thing to do is to get out of the way.
00:39:06.740 And I don't think this is any different.
00:39:09.520 But I have heard that Crave is like, okay, we're looking for ideas, dot, dot, dot.
00:39:13.500 and internally they're saying let's get the right people again because you make the best lattes
00:39:22.240 let's let you make the latte when you get the gig you know so i think there wouldn't it be nice if
00:39:29.140 we got to that point boy wouldn't it have been nice if that crew was a crave the last time i
00:39:33.900 sat at the table am i right nick can i get an amen oh i i can pretty much there is a high turnover
00:39:40.580 you know you could book a new pitch meeting for the same project oh yeah maybe we'll get back in
00:39:44.780 there that's true uh look before we wrap yeah do you mind uh just sharing with uh the audience
00:39:50.940 because I think I could do this but I could do it for television not so much for film
00:39:55.100 how do you get a film made just the quickly the the the beats in the process between I've got a
00:40:03.940 script and release in theaters or on a streamer oh boy uh oh boy right how i mean hey man uh when
00:40:16.920 i made the movie i made i was very lucky to to have been asked to do that at my advanced age
00:40:23.940 so 45 years this year yes uh i drink three quarts of my own urine daily to ward off infection oh
00:40:31.840 duly noted yes save some of that for me if you're wondering what if this is on youtube they'll be
00:40:36.240 like what's his secret in the in the chat yeah i just told you what the secret is uh well i mean
00:40:42.960 you you need uh you need an idea you need an idea you know i i mean i i mean and and then i'll come
00:40:51.120 around to a lesson you need an idea these days you need a script it used to be give us a paragraph
00:40:58.560 and we'll give you money to write the script now you'll write the script and then if it gets to a
00:41:03.920 certain point you may get development money to rewrite the script if it involves uh real life
00:41:09.840 real stories you would need a lawyer to acquire the life rights um and then so let's just say
00:41:17.840 you work four or five years on a script and you get it going and you have a a producing body a
00:41:24.720 production company or a studio or a streamer or a network um and then you get to that point
00:41:32.400 and you're going to have the casting discussion the cash flow discussion or you know all that
00:41:39.920 stuff that has to happen um and uh well then you just do what you always do the production part's
00:41:46.560 easy it's the getting to production part that's really hard how do you get the money
00:41:51.520 got to get the right person on the right day and you got to have the right idea
00:41:58.160 generally speaking it's investor money in movies in canada
00:42:01.600 uh no i don't see a lot of private investment going on i see a lot of broadcaster money
00:42:07.760 uh and distributor money but i don't see the movie i made was was uh be a
00:42:13.680 private investment but that was kind of rare um these days it used to be they got a big tax
00:42:20.640 write off if they they would just give you a check not that i ever was the beneficiary of this is a
00:42:25.440 little before my time but someone would cut a check for a million bucks and they could write
00:42:29.440 off a million bucks and then the government kind of changed that loophole thanks government yeah
00:42:33.760 yeah but i would say this if someone's listening there and they say well you know i i have a script
00:42:41.120 in the my shelf that i've been on okay somebody said this to me recently
00:42:47.280 tell a story that only you can tell
00:42:52.080 you know something i have the benefit of having experienced that with you directly um
00:43:03.940 man can i yeah so one day joel and i sat down first time we met and i told him a story yeah
00:43:12.800 and last week i believe you acquired the life rights to the people i told you the story about
00:43:19.340 and i think that was in 2018 so look at that process right there yeah so so yes you told me
00:43:26.020 this great story about some people you grew up with and and you you said tell me if this would
00:43:32.160 make an interesting movie and i went oh that's it you're making this up because it was kind of
00:43:37.660 interesting yeah you did say that and is this true and then i i went home and then you know a couple
00:43:46.380 months later i kept thinking about that i wonder if it well i wonder what it would be like and then
00:43:50.700 i i just went through what i remembered from your conversation and then i made up a bunch of stuff
00:43:56.580 to get us from point a to point b and i wrote a script which if if we're lucky enough to ever make
00:44:03.340 this movie um by the way if you are a private investor um yeah i believe this movie can win
00:44:12.880 best picture not at the canadian screen awards not at the bafta i believe it can win best picture
00:44:19.500 at the academy award please investors reach out i'll make sure that you're connected i think it's
00:44:26.660 that good i really do it's a fantastic story but to your point it was a story only now you could
00:44:34.960 tell because you know the individuals you have a linkage to the yes now that i've met the actual
00:44:42.220 couple in you know and realized they're as lovely as you said they were uh and they have more to
00:44:48.900 contribute to the story uh so our next phase is going to be uh i'm going to start cracking a
00:44:55.080 rewrite on it uh now that there's a chance now that i have the life rights that it could actually
00:45:01.660 turn into something so now you get the investor on board the next thing that happens is you've
00:45:06.520 got to make a sale of this or do you get the investor and fly this production with the hopes
00:45:14.820 of selling it i think you do those things concurrently yeah i think you i think in i think
00:45:21.680 distributors they're going to want to see it if they're not paying for it they're going to want
00:45:27.600 to see it if they're paying for it they're going to want to be there every day and make sure it's
00:45:30.980 fun you know so there's a real nice aspect of a little bit of freedom why are you in my trailer
00:45:37.460 we're the network yes yeah we're the archery we're the studio yeah we were going to ask you
00:45:42.820 the same thing so gosh that's a 2016 now so that's an eight-year process not every day of my life
00:45:50.520 you know but every so often we would circle back on it and now uh a producer involved and um and
00:45:58.640 so we're gonna take a crack at it why not right and you know the odds of this happening
00:46:02.980 are are extremely slim because really hard to you know really hard to get a movie made
00:46:11.020 listen to listen to major stars in hollywood talking about they couldn't get this made it
00:46:17.420 never happened i was going to do this thing but it never happened they couldn't even get at me so
00:46:22.020 it's hard to you you know even even major franchise movies you think that would be a no-brainer okay
00:46:28.360 we're back into production with this no no you know decades and decades before they they can
00:46:34.340 make a run back at it by the way i i refuse to admit that diehard four and five actually happened
00:46:40.460 okay so we could remake those why don't we start with that at least the networks know what they're
00:46:45.260 going to get yeah right or the streamers we'll just refresh it a little bit joel thanks for the
00:46:49.740 insight on stuff and uh is that helpful in any way i feel like i avoided all of your questions
00:46:54.620 i think in production i think that your answers to my non-questions were wonderful i really
00:47:00.620 appreciate this uh i'm going to put a link down so people can uh check out the website for souls
00:47:05.560 road because when it comes out and it will be out at some point on one of the uh streaming networks
00:47:10.400 i really encourage you to see it it's a beautiful film and uh you're a beautiful guy joel thanks
00:47:15.240 Thank you very much. Pleasure, as always.
00:47:45.240 Because your safety is our top priority. Shop now at lesslethal.ca.