Telling Our Stories: Screenwriters and the Production of Screen-Based Culture in English-Speaking Canada

Abstract

Screenwriters are a vital part of the production of cultural products in the Canadian screen industry, but little has been written about how they perceive the environment in which they practice their craft. Situating our methodology within the general production culture framework, particularly in regards to industrial reflexivity, we present an analysis of 50 in-depth interviews with English-language Canadian screenwriters. As our subjects reflect on their experiences, a portrait emerges of the factors affecting the screenwriter’s role in the production of screen culture in English-speaking Canada. Their stories reveal a complex plot: one in which screenwriters, much like the characters they create, manoeuver through a landscape with its own boundaries, pitfalls, rewards, and consequences in their quest to attract elusive homegrown audiences.Les scénaristes jouent un rôle vital dans la création de produits culturels pour l’industrie de l’écran canadienne, mais on a peu écrit sur comment ils perçoivent le milieu dans lequel ils pratiquent leur métier. En situant notre méthodologie dans le cadre général de la culture de production, particulièrement en ce qui a trait à la réflexivité industrielle, nous présentons l’analyse de cinquante entretiens en profondeur avec des scénaristes anglo-canadiens. À mesure que ceux-ci racontent leurs expériences, un portrait se dessine des facteurs influant sur le rôle du scénariste dans la production d’une culture de l’écran au Canada anglophone. Leurs histoires révèlent une trame complexe, où les scénaristes, à la manière des personnages qu’ils inventent, traversent un environnement avec ses propres frontières, obstacles, récompenses et conséquences, à la quête d’un public d’ici-même qui s’avère passablement élusif.

Rated M for misogyny: reimagining gender assessments for film

“…Research on labour reveals that many on-screen biases are reflective of imbalanced and homogenous media workplaces. Women remain concentrated in entry level and administrative roles in the film and TV industry in Canada and the U.S., where work is often project-based and non-standard contracts are the norm (Coles, 2013;Coutanche, Davis, & Zboralska, 2015;Neff, 2012). The project-based nature of the film and TV industry has created precarious arrangements for workers, who are frequently contractors and experience "bulimic" patterns, alternating between working long hours for weeks or months and then struggling to find contracts (Wing Fai, Gill, & Randle, 2015;McRobbie, 2015).…”

Rated M for misogyny: reimagining gender assessments for film

“…Research on labour reveals that many on-screen biases are reflective of imbalanced and homogenous media workplaces. Women remain concentrated in entry level and administrative roles in the film and TV industry in Canada and the U.S., where work is often project-based and non-standard contracts are the norm (Coles, 2013;Coutanche, Davis, & Zboralska, 2015;Neff, 2012). The project-based nature of the film and TV industry has created precarious arrangements for workers, who are frequently contractors and experience "bulimic" patterns, alternating between working long hours for weeks or months and then struggling to find contracts (Wing Fai, Gill, & Randle, 2015;McRobbie, 2015).…”

Transnational over-the-top media distribution as a business and policy disruptor: The case of Netflix in Canada

“…When English-speaking Canadians watch drama or comedy on television, it is imported content four times out of five (CRTC, 2013). Meanwhile, Canadian consumers and critics lament the mediocrity of English-language Canadian television content, especially drama, which generally has underperformed among Englishspeaking Canadian audiences (Coutanche, Davis & Zboralska, 2015).…”