Source: Montreal Gazette

Hans Fraikin has spent much of his adult life in the film business. He's been involved in production, promotion and distribution. He's seen thousands of films, but his current favourite is one whose creation he oversaw.

A mere five minutes long, it is stylishly shot, but short on suspense. That's precisely the point. Fraikin is looking for dramatic impact right off the bat, and he has succeeded with this short extolling the virtues of shooting films and TV in these parts.

Fraikin is the Quebec film commissioner, whose job entails selling the city and environs to producers. And while other businesses have been singing the blues over the last year, Fraikin reports that the situation on the film and TV front here has been far rosier. More encouraging still, it bodes even better for 2010.

While domestic production has remained constant over the last few years - Fraikin estimates that Quebec film production accounts for between $800 and $900 million annually - it's the foreign production that has really taken off again. Last year, foreign production amounted to a paltry $65 million. That figure has more than doubled this year, somewhere in the vicinity of $140 million. And with confirmation of three large-scale films in the coming winter months alone, not to mention a few others in the spring and summer, Fraikin is hopeful that 2010 will more than double the 2009 total.

"Since I've been commissioner, I've never had so many confirmations of productions so early in the year," says Fraikin, who has been commish the last three years. His staging ground is a modest office in an Old Montreal edifice that has been the backdrop for many a production.

But it's been a battle. When he arrived on the job, Montreal not only had to compete with Canadian and U.S. cities for shooting, but also upstarts in Eastern Europe and Africa, destinations that were trying to seduce with all manner of incentives.

"No question, it was bottom of the barrel for Montreal in 2008," allows Fraikin, 48, who prior to taking this position managed Telefilm Canada's European office for three years and, prior to that, worked in distribution for 20th Century Fox for 10 years. "It was Montreal's last chance to redeem itself as a viable production centre. We had to mend our reputation abroad. And it was mission accomplished." Which brings us back to the five-minute flick about the joys of making movies here.

The short begins with an exterior night scene of a majestic river, then cuts to an impressive exterior day scene of a glorious cityscape - in the summer. It's Montreal.

The film's narrator jumps in: "Why film here?" But before one can summon up the necessary brain cells to respond, he answers: "Two words: tax credits." No beating about the bush. Quebec offers among the most enticing tax credits anywhere, up to 41.2 per cent direct cash rebates on admissible production expenses. With our dollar almost at par with the U.S. one, this has been a much-needed shot in the arm for the industry. Long gone are those halcyon days when our dollar allowed flocking U.S. producers a 40- per-cent discount when they landed.

Still, tax credits can only go so far. It doesn't hurt that Montreal can also double for every place from New York to New Delhi. Or, lest we forget, outer space, as was the case with the most lamentable Eddie Murphy vehicle, The Adventures of Pluto Nash. And time settings aren't a factor, either. Montreal has been the backdrop for pre-civilized cavemen epics to Victorian dramas to post-apocalyptic sci-fi thrillers.

As the ever-genial narrator says: "Montreal will give your production designer reason to get up in the morning." Provided that our vaunted nightlife hasn't rendered him/her comatose.

Even more alluring to producers is Mel's Cinema City, the only major production studio on the continent that is five minutes from downtown. It is also the largest such facility in Canada. Add visual effects labs and dubbing studios and labs and skilled technical labour - that costs 17-per-cent less than the equivalent in the U.S., and the city presents a pretty complete package.

"We're a nearly complete production centre," Fraikin says. "What we were looking for is a motion-capture studio, and there is one opening within a year. Then we'll be a one-stop shop." Fraikin refuses to rest on past laurels. Yes, the city has played host to films like Martin Scorsese's The Aviator and David Fincher's Curious Case of Benjamin Button. And, yes, James Cameron got his other-worldly special effects in Avatar in town.

But the future is: Upside Down, a $50 million adventure about two parallel universes, starring Kirsten Dunst; Dawn of War, a $110 million mythological epic set in Ancient Greece, starring Henry Cavill; and Source Code, an estimated $60 million sci-fi mystery, starring Jake Gyllenhaal. Production on all three is slated for the next few months.

"Big names are less the cachet in the business these days," Fraikin notes. "With the recession, the whole film-financing mechanisms have been turned upside down. It's a new game. Gone are the days with stars getting $20 million plus points. It's more about effects and locations these days. And for visual effects, Montreal is now among the top five centres in the world." And as for locations? "I can not lie," he says. "It's dog eat dog out there. Our real competition now comes from Vancouver, Louisiana, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and London. That's why I have to spend more than half the year on the road selling the industry." An industry, Fraikin claims, that is as big as the aerospace business here, employing 35,000 directly and another 10,000 indirectly.

"The local film industry - which is largely subsidized - is about job preservation. But foreign production is about job creation. That's the gravy and that has to be our focus."

© Montreal Gazette