alternatehistory.com

JOURNAL OF DAVID BURTON

As it turns out, I came to miss the old days with Millennium. That had been straightforward. We’d gotten together, did a demo, made a pitch, and if it sold, that was that. It had been straightforward.

This was anything but straightforward. It was a roller coaster, and I kept rushing through screaming highs and lows, and occasional full loops. Nothing ever went as predicted, and even the things I took for granted as fixed, suddenly they’d be up in the air.

I thought I had finally had a lucky break, running into Paul Saltzman. And it had been a lucky break, because I don’t mind saying I was at the end of my tether - couldn’t pay the rent, couldn’t pay the bills, I was only eating because I was cadging meals on the convention circuit, and I could see the end of that.

One chance meeting, and suddenly, I was back on top of the world.

Then on the bottom, when the project was completely rewritten into something I didn’t recognize, and I was even out as the Doctor. A role that I thought was guaranteed, and I was going to have to fight for it every step of the way.

At least I had Terry Nation in my corner, backing me.

Then we peaked again, when Moses Znaimer set it all back, and signed a purchase. I thought... “finally!”

And once again, a plunge of the roller coaster, when I find that the deal we all worked so hard for wouldn’t even pay for catering? What the hell were we going to do? Was this some kind of joke?

As it turns out, it’s the way they do things out, away from the sheltering bosom of the BBC.

What was important about Moses commitmen, it turns out, was not the money, but the commitment. It was a marker of good faith, proof that someone believed in it and would pay for it.

Once you’ve got that key commitment, it’s like a tent pole. Then you take the project around to other funders, other buyers, and you go “we’ve got this commitment, it’s a real project and it’s happening. Who else wants to buy in?”

And someone else does. Telefilm Canada, and the Canadian Film and Television Fund, they’re government funds whose job is to just throw money at things. Well, now they’ve got an assurance that something might get made, so they contribute money. There’s provincial funds.

The price though, for the Canadian science fiction channel, and for federal and provincial funding, was that we had to throw them our business. We had to reserve a certain number of acting roles for Canadian talent, a certain number writers, directors, designers, crew. A proportion of the shooting had to be done here. There were different ways of making up your numbers, but it all had to add up to a minimum commitment. And we had to divide it up between two or three provinces, so we had to spread it a bit.

Which was one reason Paul wanted a Canadian Doctor. That and he was a backstabber.

We make international sales. A little sale to Greek Television, a little sale to Nigeria. Estonia. All these small markets. Netherlands and Belgium. Argentina. It adds up.

If you can get a syndication sale to the United States, that’s a big market. You’re in. We didn’t get in there, not right away, but you keep trying.

And in the meantime you add up all your pennies, a bit here, a bit there, and it adds up. It adds up until you have the financing. Or most of it.

But you have to be careful. It’s like building a house of cards, or sticks. Or that game, jenga. You have to keep all of the pledges balanced. Lose one, the whole thing can come toppling down.

Looking at it, it’s the wonder anything ever manages to get produced at all.

And it was all on Paul, who had become my nemesis, because he kept wanting to replace me as the Doctor. I distrusted him, how can you not, and I’ll confess, there were times I hated him. It’s hard to avoid that, when you realize your partner considers you disposable.

But the truth was that I couldn’t do what he was doing, and neither could Terry. So it was up to Paul.

But even he couldn’t put it all together, not completely. We couldn’t get past 60% or 70%.

We needed a partner to get us all past that last leg. Terry’s contacts couldn’t help. The BBC wouldn’t help.

The whole thing was looking like it was going to fall apart once again, this time after a lot of hard work and no lack of infighting. The roller coaster, having climbed slowly and painfully to the peak, was now perching on the precipice, about to head into the great plunge that might well be the end.

But at the last minute, we found a partner.

The Australians.

And there began a new set of troubles....