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EVP BANFF Television Festival
Interview with Pat Ferns

Day One Review

June 10, 1996

Wendy Jane Carrel's quick run through of the Banff TV Festival's Opening Day.

8:00 a.m. Registration. Banff Springs Hotel Convention Center.

Pick up badge and complimentary black Festival Delegate Bag, a back pack with Schedule of Events and Delegate list + promotional material from sponsors, producers and distributors. (For $1000, if you choose, you can access every festival registrant with your message - Warner Bros. TV International, whose show ER is entered in the festival competition, provides a blue band-aid box with ER's logo on the box and band aids inside. A Canadian documentary distributor includes a book of available films, etc.

8:15 a.m. Delegates lounge and message center. Collect messages and more literature, mostly from producers with projects seeking broadcaster and co-producing partners. Coffee, tea, fruit juice and pastries included as part of the Banff hospitality. Greet colleagues, old acquaintances, smile at the new faces. Canadian comedian Fred Keating's Guide to Festival seminar is being conducted across the corridor, the audience laughs sound healthy. Off to a friendly start.

9:00 a.m. CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Company) sponsored Key Note Address. Speaker Melvyn Bragg, British novelist and highly regarded personality in television arts programming, Controller of Arts at London Weekend Television, editor/presenter of THE SOUTH BANK SHOW (one of most successful arts showcases in history of TV), and screenwriter of ISADORA, THE MUSIC LOVERS and JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR, talks about... The Responsibility of TV. Mentions - "in the past, art was a private, elitist, fastidious experience where you could only enjoy theater in the theater and opera in the opera house. Television has opened it all up." The history of culture has gone from control of princes and churches to your TV, how multichannel TV can offer liberation or addiction, how TV displaces reading, how Big Brother is on your couch and the control room, the irony of how some say TV crushes the morals of society when TV is the moral agent which rushes to relief in areas of the world which are graphically distressed. Bragg says his cause is the arts and their preservation. TV offers to preserve art and artist's work, through for example, interviews of and teaching of the cultural icons of our time - Lawrence Olivier, David Lean, Steven Spielberg, Toni Morrison, Kiri Te Kanawa. (Past subjects of Bragg programs).

Bragg's concluding remarks: "the key word is sovereign. If the public is truly to be sovereign then it must be given power. That power is knowledge. If television can become the bringer of knowledge then the world will be a safer place for intelligence and a place which recognizes and explores the boundless variety of human experience. Television can do that . All it needs is the will."

10:00 a.m. Governor's Seminar, Responsibility, V-Chips and Television, sponsored and introduced by Jon Slan, Chairman of Paragon Entertainment (Canada/USA). Moderator Canadian Laurier L. LaPierre. David Asper VP Programming CanWest Global Broadcasting, Jeff Cole of UCLA's Center of Communication Policy, Canadian columnist William Gold, Keith Spicer Chairman CRTC Canada. A lively and interesting discussion about the disadvantages and merits of the V-Chip, a Canadian invention which allows parents to program television for their children. Canada's regulatory agency, the CRTC, is leading the way it says, for parents to determine the amount of sex and violence their children should watch, or in short, take charge of family values. This makes some Canadian broadcasters nervous because it will empower parents, toy manufacturers and other advertisers will not have a hand in determining content. Programmer David Asper did say, however, that the introduction of the V-Chip," could be a good thing, it depends on" how it actually functions. U.S. broadcasters seemed opposed to the technology until they met with President Clinton. V-Chips must be installed in all U.S. TV sets of 11" or more by February 1998, field trials are being conducted now. Jack Valenti, Chairman of the MPCA, is working on an age based ratings system for the U.S. European authorities are interested in the V-Chip, but the UK seems to be turning its back on this new new aid. Perrier's question, What is the Solution if Not the V-Chip, had no conclusive answers.

11:15 a.m. Comedian Fred Keating delivers entertaining introduction of U.S. TV producer Steven Bochco and his interviewer Richard Zoglin, Senior TV Critic of Time magazine. Bochco, whose original TV series included HILL STREET BLUES, LA LAW, NYPD BLUE and MURDER ONE (episodes of later two nominated for Banff Rocky Awards) is the recipient of the Banff TV Fest's Award of Excellence, one of the most prestigious honors in international television. Widely regarded as one of the most innovative and creative producers in TV history, Bochco has received more Banff Rocky awards over the Fest's 17-year history than another producer. Clips from Bochco shows were viewed. Bochco said that cop shows and lawyer shows are the same - they both focus on issues of law, although "lawyer shows are more fun to write." MURDER ONE, which followed a single story line all season, explored legal ethics. Bochco commented that this challenging approach turned out to be a good idea. "Making a show which engages my interest as a storyteller is all I care about now." He said he "tries to take a familiar genre, framing it in a way that gives a fresh perspective."

2:00 p.m. TWO IN A ROOM, also known as the "pitching Olympics," where real money, up to $300,000, will be tendered to one of six finalists on Friday for a documentary program.

Banff TV Fest's EVP Pat Ferns, hosted Jacquie Lawrence, Commissioning Editor of Channel Four, UK, and Don Richardson, Commissioning Editor Documentaries for the Canadian Broadcasting System. (Lawrence was a documentary filmmaker, Richardson has been with the CBC 23 years). After an extremely challenging "private discussion" between these two editors, they finally agreed on parameters for a documentary program which could be of potential interest to both broadcasters, a program which they could co-produce. All attendees at the fest were invited to submit a one page proposal for a documentary, 50 minutes in length, with culturally challenging subject matter, good characters, and a story with a beginning, middle and end that links today with the sensibilities of the 1950's and 1960's. Lawrence, who several times during the session, made it clear her preference was for gay and lesbian subjects and alternative lifestyle programming with edge, offered a unique challenge to Richardson, who represents a strand of programming geared more for the mass audience. Lawrence and Richardson will read the submissions over the next two days and Friday morning announce the six finalists, listen to their pitches, and make a decision.

Two In a Room Room was first launched in November of 1995 at the Sharing Stories session of Scotland's TV Conference. Pat Ferns, renowned for his skills of diplomacy and his ability to quickly distill the essence of the these Market Simulations and Pitch Sessions, which he created and produced for MIP-TV, MIPCOM and Berlin, also moderated in Scotland.

3:15 p.m. Documentary Report.

David Lloyd, Channel 4 UK Senior Commissioning Editor News and Current Affairs, and October Films (UK) producer Tom Roberts examine the art of making $150,000 documentaries for prime-time TV.

After viewing clips from Roberts' remarkable MOTHER RUSSIA'S CHILDREN, a film about the 4,000+ children who live on the streets of St. Petersburg for Channel Four's, the two talked about how quality must and can be delivered for TV, and that it can be delivered for a reasonable price. CHILDREN was produced for 83,956 pounds and 3 weeks of reseach, 2 weeks of shooting, and 3 weeks of post production.


BANFF Program
Awards
Day One - June 10th
Day Two - June 11th
Day Three - June 12th
Day Four - June 13th
Day Five - June 14th
Day Six - June 15th
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Wendy Jane Carrel


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