S1 E7: Volume, Vision & Viability - Bruce Harvey on Building a Sustainable Production Career

We get a number of producers that they can do one, two, maybe three films. It's volume. They can't do 10. And what happens a lot of times is people come and they ask, they get favors from friends and people to do stuff to get that film together on the budget we have to do in a time frame. But you can't be getting favors from people as a career. I know people have to, unless they're independently wealthy and they just want to hang out with you. The Alberta Screen Impact Podcast, a behind the scenes look at the people, productions, and stories shaping Alberta's screen industry. Presented by Ampia and Metamorphosis Media Group, each episode features conversations with creators, producers, and change makers driving film and television forward. Whether you're an industry pro or an emerging talent, we're here to spotlight the heartbeat of Alberta's screen scene and the stories that move it. Today we're sitting down with Bruce Harvey, an experienced production executive and the head of production at Champlain Media West. Bruce has had an extensive career in film and television from his time as a film commissioner in Ottawa to his leadership roles in entertainment law and production. He's worked in nearly every aspect of the industry, giving him a unique perspective on how filmmakers can navigate the business side of production. We'll be talking about the challenges and opportunities facing indie filmmakers, how to finance and sustain a career in this industry, and what production companies and commissioners are really looking for in a project. Bruce, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for having me here. It's good to be back in Alberta. Oh, we're glad to have you back. With so much experience, producer, commissioner, so many great projects you've done, you used to scare the crap out of me. Still do a little bit because it's impressive, but that body of work, how does that set you apart as a producer and perspective to how you approach things in this business? Oh, wow. That's a good question. I don't know what's asked me apart. The difficulty is that I don't work with other producers very much, and I don't evaluate other producers, and I don't study their careers. The only producing track I know is my producing track. I just know how I got here, and I know how I was able to keep going, and I'm not sure it's going to work for everybody. I just know it worked for me, and I'm still here, and it's been bumpy. It's been really bumpy at some points, but yeah, it's just – I always had the mantra that I didn't get private investors. That's one thing I never did, and I always try to sell product, pre-sell it to people who needed it because I think it's really, really hard to sell something after it's made when you don't know – you haven't talked to the people beforehand to make sure they want it, to understand what it is they want about it, and so that always worked well for me. They're having distributors in the early days, and broadcasters. Now, everything we do is for our – the two streams we have with lifetime in the U.S., the A&E subsidiary, and with TF1 in France, and so we have specific needs that they have for their daytime programming, which is the majority of what we do, and then we do some originals that we do for their evening programming, which is a different format to some extent, and better budgets and a little bit more time. Not much. It's very – the industry's changed so much. I started the first films – sort of main films, not the very first ones, but like the third or fourth film I did was when I started working with Lifetime back in the '90s, and in those days, I got to the point where I had a 25 days to shoot a film, my budgets were around $2.5 million. It was great, and those were acquisitions. They weren't lifetime originals. Now, it's like for the acquisitions, your budgets are way less, and now I'm shooting in 11 days when I do the acquisitions, and up until – if you had asked me five years ago, maybe a bit longer than that before, because in Ottawa, I got to see how some went. But back in the early 2010, 2012, I would have thought this is totally impossible to do this, and I would have told you that, so I think there's no way you can make films for that much money. You can't make them any good, and now I know that's not true. You can, actually. It's amazing what you can do, and the quality you can end up with. It really is a story that makes a difference. If you have a bad story, it's going to be a bad film. If you have a good story, you can put the other elements together to make it interesting for the audience, and you can get good ratings. People keep coming back. So – Before we get into making the impossible possible, can you tell us a little bit about Champlain and your role there, just so we get a sense of – It's changing. It's changing a lot. Champlain's going through a big transition. The emphasis, when I first started – when I first went to Champlain in – what was that – 2022, I was head of three production centers – Kamloops, Kelowna, and Burnaby in BC, and had effectively four production teams that were across there, two in the Vancouver area, one in each of the other two in the Okanagan. Now we have just Kelowna, and we've reached out to a bunch of other independent producers, and we do more with third parties than we do in-house, and that's probably going to change even more. I think even myself, I'll probably transition to just be third party, not be an in-house producer anymore. So I'll just have my own company, and doing a lot of the same things, but just doing it in a different mode. And it's not surprising. I think every company that gets into distribution finds it's better than production, and everyone that gets into finance finds it's better than distribution. Everyone that gets into streaming finds it's better than finance. You know, it's like – it's always – you go down the chain, and it gets – it's easier to reach around the world and find product, and to go – like we have producers now that are independent that are in Georgia, Florida, California, in Canada. We have a team up at Northern Gateway up in Ebbinton. We've got a group in Manitoba in – new ones starting up again in the Toronto area in Hamilton to in Ottawa. So the third party producers – you know, it works a lot better as a company. So all we have to do is give license fee, and they're responsible for the rest. And it's really up to them as to how they make it work, and that – as a company that's working better for us now. Well, I really love that you mentioned that every producer's journey is their own. So you can only speak about your journey, and it's so fascinating because in this day and age, every filmmaker's journey is different. And so that's why we're very thankful to have you in the seat today to share your journey, recognizing that every filmmaker has a different experience in how they approach things, one of which is you mentioned you never do private invest – or private financing. So – and that's a big challenge for a lot of filmmakers today, the financial aspect of filmmaking. So what do you think is one of the biggest financial challenges indie filmmakers are facing today? This is a contraction of the industry. It's a big thing. They're – you know, we went through a big explosion, and there was so much that was getting made, and now it was too much, and there were too many streamers, there were too many – the broadcasters were producing a lot, trying to compete, and now the broadcasters are all pulling back. The streamers are consolidating into less streamers. And you look right now at the – in productions reports that you get from each of the centers in Canada, mainly Toronto and Vancouver in particular, and look at how many crews are working right now, and it's so small compared to what it was, you know, right after we came back from COVID, and things started ramping up again, and then we had the strike. And so I think before the strike, everyone produced a ton, just getting stuff in the bag so they could, you know, weather out a strike. But then after the strike, everyone thought, "Oh, we'll just ramp right up exactly the same as we were right before the strikes happened," and that has not been the case at all. And you have – when we look at what's out there, there used to be, you know, that nice area of five to $20 million films. There were some great films in that area. Those don't exist anymore. And that was really – that was the sweet spot for independent filmmakers. You know, that's where you could go. You can get a good cast. You could, you know, make some money on the distribution side, and you could have, you know, investors would invest in that type of film, distributors would. You could get money around the world if you had a good cast, and those don't exist. All those people have gone to TV now, so it's all the streamers that are doing it. So I think the biggest challenge for someone new is I think getting to know who the market is, and I don't mean who the mom and pop at home or the group of kids that are watching it. I mean, the streamers, the broadcasters, the distributors, that's your audience. That's who you make films for as a producer. So it's getting to know those people, getting to know those people that, you know, want the product you want to make. So there's, you know, when I was back in early in my producing career, when I was working, I had a lot of success with the company out of Italy, and we would get together twice a year, once at MiFed and once at the American film market, and they were the only people I met with. I would just go into them. We'd have a discussion about where they saw the need for films. I would leave, go back, talk to my good friend Dave Schultz, and we would come up with some story ideas over the phone that, you know, that night. I'd go back and meet with them the next day and say, "What about these type of stories?" And they would say, "Yes, no, yes, no." And then we'd get the screenplay written up, and they'd buy for foreign rights, and I'd get the Canadian broadcasters to buy, and back in those days, the CMF was still good for money and for independent films, and yeah, it was really good. Shout out to Dave Schultz, who is also an Ampia board member, so we're pleased to share a position on the Ampia board of directors with Dave. Thanks, Dave. And without Dave here, it's a shorter podcast. Yes. I can say that to you because you're friends, as am I, and love you, Dave. The thing that you said about getting in front of our audience as producers, how has that changed? I mean, we used to go to markets. We used to have access. They would make the rounds. There would be regional people that you could reach out to. It seems like it's changed, and the access isn't the same. So does an independent producer try to crack through that? Do they come to a Champlain? What is the route these days? Probably more go to our distributor, Real One, and make the contact with them. It's looking for... It's tough when you don't have a track record at all. So if you have a track record of producing drama, even if you've done your own indie films, that's good, and you can have a time frame that you can see, then it's just giving us the confidence that you could deliver the product that we need because we have so many slots to fill. We do... The distribution company, they're a distant cousin to us, really. Real One, they need around 120 films a year. So if you're looking to fill those, you can't be just going out to random people and hoping each one's going to make one. You want to have someone that can make ten, someone that has the ability, that they have the infrastructure in place, they have the crew that they can get crew all the time. I think Cologne is kind of a strange place to be producing because it's definitely the smallest population base that has a steady stream of production. A lovely place to live though. Lovely place to live, absolutely. But when you look at the advantages that some places, like Calgary and Evan, have, you got film schools here, which is really, really key. You want to have new people coming in, and for a couple of reasons. One, if you're getting into the industry, you should be prepared to be doing the bread and butter, lower budget acquisition type of projects, and to do those, you're not going to go and get the same crew that, in order to head for his Academy of Winning Films here. You have to have people that are greener, that are keener, that you can get for less money, but working like dogs. But that's what we all, I work like a dog too, so it's okay. But you have, having film schools is really critical. Looking for what you have here. You've got great film programs. You have a good population base, so you can draw on a lot of people. Just coming from the airport today, and I was looking at the city of Calgary. Man, it changes, every couple of years this city changes, it grows bigger, but I can just see so many places that I could base as Calgary, base as Calgary itself, but also doing things from Colorado here. There's so many looks, you can just go outside the city for a little bit, and you're in Utah. It's a lot of great stories you can make here, so that's good. So yeah, I think make friendships so you have people you can call on early in your career to work together. That's a really key thing. If you don't know anybody, you're in big trouble. So if you go to film school and you have all your friends from film school and you all work together, I remember when Grant and John Fawcett and that whole group, and Nancy McDonald, who's now working for me, has a script continuity person, which is so funny, that's 30 years ago to today. Those connections that you make in film school are the ones that are going to help get you through your career. I think you're absolutely right. There's an energy here in Alberta, but even across the country in terms of filmmaking and the passion that you have for this industry, all of us at one point have hustled and worked away like dogs to get to the point where we're at now. So for some of those emerging filmmakers, then maybe who are thinking about their first short film or their first feature film, what advice could you give them in terms of how to build a sustainable career as opposed to just being more short-term and thinking, "Oh, I just want to make this one short film or one feature film," or is there anything that you would advise them? Yeah. Well, I'd ask them, "What do you mean by having a career?" That's the first thing I would ask. So if you're looking at independent film, I would say there's very few people that make a career as an independent filmmaker. And we can all probably point out to those that have. And it's not that many. Around the world, it's not that many. And when you look traditionally in Canada, when people think about how they're going to make their indie films, they're going to get telefilm, they're going to get all these other bodies, how many films can telefilm do a year in that budget range? So you think, "Well, if I'm really good, I could probably get one film from telefilm, money every five years, maybe." So is that a career? No, I don't think so. That is something. It's a passion project and it's really good. But if you're going to work in TV or streaming or in that world where there's a big demand for product, then that's someplace you can actually get out and have a really good career, I think. And if that's what you're looking for, is that a career that has longevity? Well, I think that what you've pointed out is quite interesting. Obviously, through this series, we're showcasing the different approaches in that you're creating content that is requested by the distributor, so they're telling you by your broadcaster. So they're telling you, "This is what our audience wants. We're looking for content to fulfill this." And then you create that, whereas a lot of filmmakers these days are doing it the opposite. They're focusing in on a topic, an idea, whether it's narrative, documentary, perhaps going through the development phase, post-production, and then looking to broadcasters to acquire it, which in these days is actually quite difficult, because there's so much content out there. Yeah. It's really tough. There's tons of content. And broadcasters in particular, they can just pick and choose whatever they want. It's really easy. And for them, it's the same thing. If you're an independent filmmaker and you're going to say, "Okay, well, we'll make it very specific." Like, you're going to Lifetime, and you have a project that is going to be suitable for their audience. The amount of time that they have to go through to get the structure to understand who you are and everything, versus, "We go to Lifetime and we say we're going to give 40 films, 60 films." It's the same amount of work for them, just to do the business side of it. And they know that it's just going to be slotting in. So when you look at – let's pick Taylor Sheridan. You look at Taylor Sheridan, he makes everything. And so obviously he doesn't do everything himself, but he has a lot of people that work with him. They do a lot. But the buyers, Paramount in particular, obviously, they know that he's going to deliver. They know that the projects that are coming from him are going to deliver to the audience. They're going to meet exactly that niche that they're looking to meet. And so that's where they're going to go. If you're someone out of the blue and you have an idea for a show and you're going to go pitch the Linus, and you're going to go into Paramount and try and pitch that on your own without any track record, good luck. It's going to be impossible. But if you can go to – if you're – pick what's his name, Hugh Dylan, worked on Yellowstone, got to know Taylor Sheridan, got Taylor Sheridan interested in doing Mayor of Kingstown, and ended up going on and producing that together. And it got on the air, it's done really well, good cast. So it's getting to find people, get to know people that can get into the doors. That's always – that's the big deal. I have a question about lifetime. Yeah. You're producing a slate of projects for lifetime. They've got a brand, they've got an identity. There's projects that are going to be not lifetime enough, and some projects that are too lifetime in a way. Is there – how do you choose what is really best for your client, essentially? We work with them. We work with them all the time, all the way through. From the pitches we work together with them to when the development stage, all through the script development. We work with them. We work with them right up to when we're – right now we're casting for one, and we're talking about what we're casting. We know the locations where we're going to place it, what city we're going to put the film in. You know, we're doing – I have a film coming up that's based mainly in Utah, so that makes sense to shoot in Kelowna. Kelowna can pass as Utah really well. When we have ones that are really – especially if it's a true story and it's set in Chicago or New York. We're not doing that in Kelowna. You know, that's going to be something you're going to shoot on the East Coast somewhere. You're going to shoot it in Ottawa or Toronto, someplace that you know you can match that. So yeah, we work with them like all the way through. So we don't usually get to the point where it's too lifetime or it's not enough lifetime because it's not like we go away and do it in our little shell and then go back to them with the finished film. Well, and this is quite common for established filmmakers. To establish that relationship or, I don't know, I wouldn't call it like a first look deal, but like a package or a slate package wherein you're working with them. I know when I was at Warner Brothers, we had our slate of producers just pumping out films for us. It took a number of years to develop those films, but what about some of these emerging filmmakers? Like is there a way for them to get their foot in the door? Is it through partnerships with these established filmmakers? Is it, you know, trying to work with some of these production? When you say film maker, I'll back you up a little bit. Producers, directors, creators? Very different. Yeah, of course they're different. It's a very different story if you're trying to get in as a director or as a writer or you really are a producer. Yeah. Because you really are a producer. You can work with other people in production support roles as an associate producer. You can learn the ropes, make the contacts, understand how the relationships work, and people spin off and do that all the time. And I would say the industry, especially the TV movie world that I know now, that I'm working in now, there's all the guys that are there and the women that are there, we're all with someone else before. Yes, that's right. And they just, you know, they learn what to do and then they get off and start either producing with that group again as a sister or a cousin type of relationship, or they go right to the broadcaster and start doing their own stuff there. Well, it's interesting though, because when we meet a lot of students these days, when they say they want to work in the industry, it's not, "Oh, I want to be a producer." It's always, "Oh, I want to be a director or a screenwriter," or, "Right." But no, you raise a very good point there in terms of how important these partnerships are, particularly at the producer level, to be able to get your foot in the door. Yeah, I think it's all the relationships, it's always that way. Always, always. So writers, it's the best because you can just write. You know, if you, you can write things, whenever you want to write, you can just sit down and write. As a producer, you can't just sit down and produce a film. That's exactly. You need 65 people to do that, or if you're doing a small 120, but it's, you need a lot of people to come with a lot of equipment. Different game. Well, you talked about relationships and connections, I mean, you are that for so many. In some ways, yes. But for me, it's more directors, and writers, mainly directors, it's probably the group I have the most relationships with now, finding ones that, when I first started at Champlain, in my first year, I did 34 films. That's a lot of films. That's a lot of directors. There was a lot of opportunities. We were doing a lot of rom-coms at that time that were going in a different way, that we're looking for a different market, and we could break a lot of directors. So people that had done a short film, a couple of short films that showed that they had an eye and had passion and can work with the crew, we tried a lot of those. They didn't all work. Some worked fantastically, though. And now that we've paired down, now I'm doing 12 to 15 films a year, and the directors we have for those are great. Well, the producer/director relationship is important. Less opportunities, though. Yes. But I mean, what is the dance like into bringing directors along to be where you can depend on them again for future projects and lead them there? How does that happen? Well, if they deliver a good product and they do it on time and on budget, then they can get a chance to come back. If they – it doesn't matter how visually stunning they are, if it's not on time and on budget for these type of projects, you know, thanks, I'll support your indie career, but you can't come back and produce and work with us. Yeah, I think it's just trying to – the ones that are open, the ones that are collaborators, that are collaborators not just with the producer, but with our production designers, your location managers and your – like the whole set department, our department in particular, but the ADs. If you're collaborative with all of them, then you're going to do much better. You're going to succeed, I think, in this world, in the TV movie world. You're going to succeed much better than you are if you think it's just going to be your vision and you're going to pound it through. And so what is that creative relationship then? How does that happen? How does that evolve? I mean, obviously, you've worked with – in 2022, you came on 34 films in one year. How do those introductions with the directors, screenwriters, how does that come into fruition? Well, we have executive producers that work mainly with the development team. So we have that entity – I'm more physical production, so, you know, the – when time comes, I usually pick the scripts that we're going to do, but they've already been developed by our teams, so then we pick which ones we're going to do, how we're going to put them into our stream. But the directors and the on-site creative team, that's the team that I work with the most. How does that develop? I don't know. It just does. You know, if you've been doing it for a while, then it just becomes second nature. I don't think it's – it's not rocket science. It's just hard work. It's really hard work. That's one thing that I think a lot of people don't understand. It's hard work. It's long hours. Like, I work, you know, 12, 14-hour days. Work weekends. You know, I get called by our HR department all the time because I haven't taken any holidays. And they're always screaming at me, like, "I haven't – you haven't taken my – your holidays from last year, let alone this year." And you have to be prepared to work really, really hard. And I think a lot of people would like to be a director or would like to be a writer, but they don't want to write. And they don't want to do what it takes to be a director. You know, if you show up, you know, the ones that come into me and they show up with a binder and they have – it doesn't matter how good an artist they are, they have sketches they've drawn, they know what their shot list is and they're prepared, I want them back. Those are the people I know that because they're so well-prepared, our machine is going to run. Like our crew, they go back to back to back to back to film. So we do, on average, a little bit more than one – in Kelowna, more than one film a month. Just a little over a film a month. So they work all the time together. They know each other. You know, the grips all work together the same and then the electrics and everybody on sets all – always working together. So when the director comes in, if they're prepared with what they're doing, that team's going to – they're going to achieve it for them. If you're not prepared though, if you're going to sit there and start thinking about what shot you want to do, you know, that's not the way to succeed. 11 days is a very short time for you to shoot. Very short. Very extremely short. Just a break from our episode to share that this episode of the Alberta Screen Impact podcast is brought to you by Ampia, the Alberta Media Production Industries Association. For over 40 years, Ampia has been the voice of Alberta's screen industry championing creators, producers, and storytellers behind the province's thriving film, television, and digital media landscape. Through advocacy, professional development, networking, and industry events, Ampia supports a strong, connected, and sustainable production community. Whether you're creating your first short film or producing a major series, Ampia is here to support your work and strengthen Alberta's screen ecosystem. Learn more and become a member at ampia.org. And now back to our guests. How you've produced here in Alberta, you said, coming back to Calgary, how much has changed and everything? What? That's a great place. But the spirit of Alberta has been a bit of a thing of hard, working hard, rolling up your sleeves and getting it done in this business. What do you remember about being in Alberta and you're working with Northern Gateway? I mean, can you talk about what it is like for Champlain to work with Alberta producers? I wish we'd worked more with Northern Gateway. They do a lot of things though. So it's there. I keep trying to talk our team into getting someone on the ground in Calgary. One of the curses of Calgary, though, is you have such big productions here, too. So you're looking at doing the type of productions we're doing where you have a much smaller budget, 11 days, the crew doesn't get paid the same as they do on the big films. So it's trying to build that up. It's a little bit tougher. But I still think Calgary would be a great place. But those projects are important. I mean, it builds capacity and training. It builds experience, too, for the crew as well. So important. Shout out to Northern Gateway. Dylan Pierce is also on the AMPIA Board of Directors. Yeah. Dylan's doing great for us and we like him a lot. But yeah, I think that Calgary is a place that we should have a production team. Okay. Brent's putting you on the spot, Bruce, about more work in Calgary in Alberta and the spirit of how work is happening here. Yeah, it's just seeing him. The big thing that we find is that we get a lot of, not a lot, we get a number of producers that they can do one, two, maybe three films. It's volume. They can't do 10. And what happens a lot of times is people come and they ask, they get favors from friends and people to do stuff, to get that film together on the budget we have to do in a time frame. But you can't be getting favors from people as a career. People have to, unless they're independently wealthy and they just want to hang out with you. But you have to, structuring, I spend a lot of time going through our budgets and going through our production schedules and optimizing. It's hard. And it takes a lot to do that and trying to find a production team that can do that consistently. And they don't need to take time off ever. Well, in fairness, Bruce, I think that what you're doing is extremely unique because there certainly are not a lot of producers that can struggle 10 films, 12 films at one time versus maybe one or two at a time. So what you're doing is very commendable and it's hard work. So thank you for sharing that. Oh, thank you. With Ampia and our membership and likely most of the people listening to this podcast, it's a whole range of filmmakers. And I say filmmakers very generally because I know you were like, oh, very different producer, director, screenwriter, but we have filmmakers who are emerging just starting out to our experienced filmmakers like Dylan Pierce, like a number of Alberta producers who are bringing their projects abroad where all of this information is so valuable to them. But for those emerging filmmakers, it's important to do as much research as possible because there's so many different possibilities in this industry, so many different positions as well. And so to approach someone like you, Brent, even myself, it's what do you want to do in this industry? Do you want to make films? Do you want to write films? Do you want to direct films? Do you want to be a gaffer? Do you want to work in the crew? Like there are so many opportunities to get your foot in the door in this industry. Yeah, I think that in the TV movie world, I would say there's probably more directors that have come through a huge variety of paths. The director I'm working with right now in prep on a film, Wendy Ord, was the first female first AD in Canada. She didn't start directing until she was in, I think, well, her later years, I don't want to say how old she is. So Wendy, and now she's directing and she's doing very well. Paula L, who I work with a lot, was an actress. She actually was a stand-in for a long time and just started taking some training and directing and worked. I've had casting director that's come and done some directing for us. I've had other actors for sure, first ADs, a lot of first ADs move into directing editors. In that path, it's probably harder to become a director in the TV movie world by doing independent film. That's probably the hardest path to get there because you don't get paid much for doing it. But if you come through the other ones, you can have a career and still get in and direct as well. That's what's actually really exciting, I feel, about our Alberta film industry is we have service productions that are coming in from studios wherein you have hundreds of people on a set. Of the line positions, below the line, so many different possibilities, and then you have productions such as the ones you're working on as well, leaner, tighter, shorter, where you can get this fast experience, maybe it's on a PA level, or just working and refining your skills. There's so many possibilities here in Alberta. I think 724, Nomadic, guys that have been producing for a long time, done a ton of product. Very high-end stuff, some as service, some as original. There's a lot of good producers in this province, for sure, and there's so many places you can go. I do want to bring it back to you, though. We do have some hard-hitting questions here in terms of what are the key elements to securing production funding, potentially if you're not taking the route that you do by securing these deals with broadcasters beforehand. Man, you have to have rich friends. No, you do. That really is what it is. There's so many people I know that are having successful indie production careers because they have rich people they've met, and that's really what they do. They circle in that group, they look for people that have money, that have made it in whatever crazy way they've made their money, and just get them to put money into a film. I remember when they did – what was the second World War – First World War, when they were in Passchendaele here, and they just went out to a bunch of people in Calgary and raised money from them to make that film. It was a big, big group of Calgarians that helped fund that. When they talk about dentists and other people, there were different investing structures. Canadian film, you can write off 100% of your investment if investing in a Canadian film, so that helps. There are – yeah, that's really the route to go is no rich people. I know that kind of sucks, but that's how you get to be a producer. I love that, because as you yourself mentioned, that you don't take the private investment route or the private financing route. I'm too blue-collar as a kid. I don't know any rich people. All my rich friends, I tell them not to go into film – All these different possibilities in terms of financing, knowing that it is one of the biggest challenges of filmmaking. That's what they say, right? How do you make a million dollars in film? Start with 10. You have 10 million, you can make a million at the end of the day. No, but it's a hard business, and if you're not going to go through the end user route, so you're not going to go to streamers or broadcasters or distributors, people that need your product, they have an income stream that they can use to fund it. If you're not going to them, you can go to Canada Council and get a little bit of money. You can go to telefilm and get a bit of money, but you're going to have to have some private money to top that up. You can't just do it all. The government's not going to give you everything. Maybe they can do it for one at this low level, but you're not going to make very many films that way. That's the other way. People get a lot of – a lot of individuals make their first film with friends volunteering their time, and then they volunteer their time on their friend's film. Coming out of school, if you can go – belong to something like CSIF where you can get equipment, and then you all just help each other make your films and hope that one of them's going to hit it big. I think we did have one of those in Edmonton. Was it Skinner Merink, right, wherein it was very – such a tremendous success story from one of our independent filmmakers, where it was just rallying up the community, friends, family, and to become a hit. That's Robert Rodriguez's story, right, his first film was this bunch of friends putting stuff together. Yeah, it happens. So there we go. So at the end of every single episode, we ask a series of questions. So this is a little off topic than what we've been talking about, but what's the last film TV show or piece of media that has really inspired you, and why? You seem like inspired by a lot of different things. I watch a ton of stuff, so I try to watch like a variety of things all the time. There's a lot of – I do like theater shirt and stuff. I think there's some good – some great, some good. I like a lot of things. I really do, and I find inspiration a lot of different ways, too. Just some very small things I can see where a filmmaker does something really unique. Watch Severance. I mean, that's such a – So good. Maybe it's got a little bit of a throwback to Cube, and just in some of the concepts behind it, so – which is kind of a nice throwback to a Canadian film. But it – that's pretty clever. All right. Well, Bruce, thank you very much. You know, some great stories about making the impossible possible, and I still hear that in you, and it's so great to talk to you. Yeah, it's still working. Thank you. I get asked, you know, are you ever going to retire, and it's like, yeah, I have a – my bellwether for when I'm going to leave the industry is a guy named Pierre David. And Pierre David, he was – on the very first film I did with David winning, he was the American distributor. He's from Quebec, his family is very well known in Quebec. But he was based in Los Angeles, and his company, Yamaj, distributed our film for us. And now I – you know, Pierre is one of the producers, independence in Ottawa, but he does a lot in Ottawa, does a lot in the States, too, that – for us and for lifetime. And I always tell people, okay, when Pierre retires, that age – come and ask me when I reach that age, and I'll tell you if I'm going to retire, too, at that time. Pierre is 82 years old now, he still makes, you know, 10, 12 films a year. He's an amazing guy, just keeps cranking them out. And he's the guy that inspires me. Well, we certainly hope that you continue on for however long it's possible, because you're such a great value to this industry across Canada, so we really appreciate your time today. Too kind. Thanks, Bruce. Thank you guys. Thank you. That's a wrap on this episode of the Alberta Screen Impact Podcast. We hope you gained valuable insight into Alberta's film and television industry, and the people driving it forward. A huge thank you to our guests, our production team at Metamorphosis Media Group, and the amazing Mount Royal University student interns who helped make this episode happen. We're also incredibly grateful to Mount Royal University's broadcast media studies team for their generous support, providing access to their cutting edge podcast studio. Ampia is dedicated to fostering growth, collaboration, and professional development in Alberta's screen industry, and this podcast is part of that mission. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast, and follow Ampia on social media to stay connected. [Music]