The industry is still struggling to hire staff and crews that reflect the population at large

Source: Vancouver Sun

American network executives gathered in Toronto last week to discuss the need for ethnic diversity in their casts. NBC, CBS, ABC and Fox all have executives with titles such as "vice-president of diversity and communications" whose job it is to ensure their shows reflect, and appeal to, a range of audience populations: East Asian, South Asian, first nations, Hispanic, black, physically challenged, gay.

But Karen King, CEO of Productions Without Borders (PWB) -- the Toronto-based organization that organized the event -- says diversity shouldn't be limited to the visible side of productions. It needs to be everywhere.

"Casting is kind of the window dressing. What PWB wants to see is people do diversity from the inside out," said King, who is also production executive of drama content for Canwest Broadcasting, but wanted to speak as the head of PWB.

"If you're going to create a [production] team, create a diverse team," King said. "If your team is diverse and a Korean producer calls and says, 'I want Koreans in the crew,' and you have a Korean, you're in."

North American cities have increasingly diverse populations, and industries such as banking reflect that diversity, providing tellers who, say, speak Mandarin or Punjabi. The film and television industry is not there yet.

"We need to do the same thing -- address the needs of our diverse audience," King said.

At the Toronto event, an NBC Universal executive said her studio became aware of the problem when Vancouver-shot shows Eureka and Psych did not have many non-Caucasian faces.

Stuart Aikins, of Vancouver-based Aikins/Cossey Casting, says his office has concentrated on diverse casting for years.

"We've been dealing with minority casting as long as I've been in the business," Aikins said. "If you're dealing with Warner Brothers or Fox, they literally tell us, in our conference calls about casting, 'This part must be black,' or, 'This part must be Hispanic.'

"Whenever we sit down with the producer of a pilot or a project, we're always talking about, 'Where will we find our minority cast in this because [if we don't] we're going to have a fight with the network.'"

The networks, Aikins says, want to see minority actors not just in menial roles, but in co-star and supporting roles.

King believes the diversity element needs to be there from the outset with a production team, so that its members know and reflect "the nuances of being a person of colour, an aboriginal person or a person with disabilities living in Canada." That means specific jobs, such as production design, have to reflect this diversity.

"What if we enhance the storytelling by making this character from one of these communities, and giving them a backstory that informs their character?" says King.

"It could be a locations manager breaking down the script and saying, 'We need an apartment, so what if that apartment is in Chinatown or Indiatown?'"

Writing teams, crews and cast should be diverse, and so should marketing teams so they know how to make the show reach this diverse audience, King says.

As for casting, Aikins believes that for diversity to work, directors also need to be on board. It's all very well for networks to demand a mixed cast, and for casting agents to find the players, but the director often has the final say.

"Directors know they have to produce the best piece of work, or they're not going to get hired back," Aikins said. "Directors will inordinately choose the best actor and, exponentially, the best actors in Canada are going to be Caucasian because we've never given diverse talent much opportunity to tackle larger roles."

Aikins suggests that if diversity is such a network priority, the networks should help fund training programs for minority actors.

Neither Greg Chambers, business manager for the Association of Canadian Film Craftspeople Local 2020, nor Paul Klassen, business representative for the International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees Local 891, was available for comment.

© Vancouver Sun