Since the 2008-09 recession, Vancouver-based film and television production houses have struggled to keep the cameras rolling. Some, like Insight, did not survive.
But one Vancouver production company has flourished. Paperny Entertainment, which began 20 years ago as a two-person shop operating out of a family home, now has a staff of 30, another 350 employees on contract and offices in Toronto and New York. Last year, it produced six television series and two one-off TV productions, amounting to 60 hours of television. That is double what it produced in 2012.
So how has the company, which specializes in reality documentary series, thrived when others have not?
“We have always been nimble and adaptive,” said David Paperny, who founded the company in 1994 with wife Audrey Mehler. Paperny’s third partner is Cal Shumiatcher.
“The first several years of this company were built on the back of one-off documentaries. But at the turn of the 21st century, it was clear that the one-off documentary wasn’t popular anymore. So we slowly got into series production.”
In 2000, Paperny produced Kink, a series about the non-traditional sexual habits of Canadians. It was a hit and ran for five seasons (2001 to 2006) on Showcase.
When the recession hit in late 2008, network buyers bought less, sometimes not ordering shows for up to 18 months. But instead of stepping back, the company surged forward.
“We took a hard look at the marketplace and took on an aggressive strategy, doubling our investment in development,” Paperny said.
The Vancouver office’s four full-time development employees “scoured the world for content, looked at the marketplace and talked to buyers to see where the industry will be a year from now.
“We kept developing and pitching.”
This came as the buyer market consolidated to the point where there are only three left in Canada: Rogers (TSX:RCI), Shaw (TSX:SJR) and Bell (TSX:BCE). Knowing the vulnerability of Canadian producers and seeking an international market, Paperny opened a New York office in 2011. Two years later, the company opened a Toronto office.
One idea that caught on south of the border is Eat St., a four-year-old series about street food carts that originally focused on Vancouver outlets but expanded to cover the industry throughout North America.
Watchers can download a mobile app to help them find food carts throughout the continent, and Paperny teamed with Penguin Canada for a book on the subject.
“This 360 approach responds to the needs of both audiences and broadcasters,” said Christine Larsen, business analyst at Creative BC. “Paperny has earned a reputation as a global player and is regularly represented at key factual programming markets around the world. Success in this business is based on relationships, innovation and content. Paperny excels at all three.”
Last week, Paperny premiered two series. New show Cold Water Cowboys, which documents fishing crews off the coast of Newfoundland, debuted Tuesday on Canada’s Discovery Channel, attracting 569,000 viewers, the network’s third largest audience of all time. Yukon Gold, which follows four gold mining crews in the Yukon, began season 2 Wednesday on the History Channel in Canada. It will be on National Geographic in the U.S. According to History Canada, Yukon Gold’s first season was History’s No. 1 unscripted series of 2013.
