At the last Gémeaux Awards gala there were two finalists for best daytime series. Next year there will only be one.
Published at 8:31 p.m.
Producer Fabienne Larouche confirmed it on Tuesday: She will not take part in STAT at the 2024 Gémeaux race. Consequence? With just one entry, Indefensible, the daily newspaper category will disappear, good evening, and the competing TVA series will join the “weekly” broadcast soap operas such as Alerts, Sorcières or 5e Rank.
“I very well understand those who no longer want to participate in Gémini because of the inconvenience of the exercise, the significant costs associated with each nomination and the politics behind it. The twin formula, which comes from another time, has had its day. Which in no way diminishes the achievements of the winners of this year and previous years. We have to rethink all of this,” emphasizes Fabienne Larouche, head of the company Aetios with her husband Michel Trudeau.
PHOTO DENIS GERMAIN, LA PRESSE ARCHIVE
Michel Trudeau and Fabienne Larouche from Aetios
Fabienne Larouche expresses similar complaints to the couple Sophie Lorain and Alexis Durand-Brault from the company ALSO (Mégantic, Désobéir: Le Choix de Chantale Daigle), who also sharply criticized the list of winners of the 2023 edition.
Scattered trophies, lack of logic in the distribution of statuettes, excessive registration fees, criticism rains down on this controversial gala and its non-gender categories that have been imposed and do not please the public or the people in the industry.
An important nuance: the withdrawal of Aetios and ALSO does not mean that their shows will not appear somewhere in the 2024 Gémeaux rankings. For example, if Suzanne Clément or Geneviève Schmidt from STAT want to compete, Fabienne Larouche will not stop them. The same goes for producer and director Alexis Durand-Brault: “If the actors or directors want to sign up, I won’t say no, I don’t want to bully anyone,” he notes. But honestly, I don’t think I have many desires. »
In “gradual withdrawal” mode, Fabienne Larouche did not register À coeur cœur, Le Bonheur, Sans-rend-rend, Les yeux Closes and Doute Reasonable at the last gala. The screenwriters Danielle Trottier (A Coeur Battant) and François Avard (Le Bonheur) also missed their train, notes Fabienne Larouche in an interview.
On the other hand, the headliners of these shows (Roy Dupuis, Ève Landry or Magalie Lépine-Blondeau) were all submitted to the jury for a vote.
Now let’s talk about money, as this is a huge source of annoyance. Participation in Gemini is very, very expensive for producers. You must first pay the annual membership to the Academy (normal price: $180), then you must pay to participate in each program in the competition (between $180 and $1,390 for a single entry), you must pay the tickets to participate You have to pay for the three galas (between $400 and $600 per ticket) and sometimes you have to pay for the trophy itself, yes.
If a team – like the cast of Bye Bye – triumphs, it is the show’s producer who covers the cost of making the additional Geminis, which sell for $460 each. That’s a lot of money.
And the bill goes up very quickly. Alexis Durand-Brault and his company ALSO spent $30,000 To for the latest Gemini party. “I don’t want to invest in that anymore,” says Alexis Durand-Brault, whose work “Mégantic” was forgotten during the ceremony conducted by Pierre-Yves Lord.
PHOTO ROBERT SKINNER, LA PRESSE ARCHIVE
Sophie Lorain and Alexis Durand Brault
At KOTV, which produces Between Two Sheets, Plan B and Virage: Double Fault, the 2023 Gémeaux cost around $60,000. “I think. The manager in me would like to cut and use the money differently. The creator in me doesn’t want to disrespect his colleagues,” says KOTV’s Louis Morissette.
Richard Speer, president of Attraction (Live from the Universe, The Chefs!), also pays tens of thousands of dollars each year to attend the Gemini. “It costs a fortune and what’s in it? “In the current difficult television context, we will think about where we want to invest this money,” explains Richard Speer.
Producer Guillaume Lspérance from the company A Média, which particularly oversees Tout le monde en parole and Les mecs, also finds the final note too salty. “It is very expensive and complicated to manage. It creates a lot of dissatisfaction. Also, there are too many prizes. What makes a prize so prestigious is its rarity,” recalls Guillaume Lspérance, who did not take part in the discussions with the parents or Bonsoir. Good evening! for the 2023 Gemini edition to avoid disappointment and unnecessary costs.
In 2022, 143 twins were awarded. That number has dropped to 94 this year. The emergence of mixed or non-gender interpretive categories has significantly helped tightening efforts.
It is the 1,289 members of the Academy – and not the public – who award the Gémeaux Prizes in Quebec. And who are these members? Researchers, writers, directors, producers, animators or technicians, it casts a wide net.
To summarize a complex voting system that varies from category to category: Grand juries, consisting of six people from the audiovisual industry, play a large role in the development of the Honor Roll.
In the “Best Daily Series” category, for example, the opinion of this grand jury counts for 50% of the final grade. A 30% share comes from a vote open to all Academy members, and the final 20% is adjusted according to ratings measured on traditional television.
If a TV series is shown on a digital platform (Crave, Extra de Tou.tv or Club illico), it automatically loses these 20 points. It’s still stupid. “The producer has the choice to wait for his series to air on television, as was the case with the fourth season of Plan B. The rules are clear and well explained, but without being perfect,” notes the director general of the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television in Quebec, Chantal Côté.
The same academy reminds that twinning is a competition. “And in a competition there are winners, losers, surprises and disappointments,” says its general director.
Like his host Guy A. Lepage on Tout le monde en parole, producer Guillaume Lspérance asks the crucial question: What are twins ultimately for? “No one gave me a job because I won a Gemini, and I have never negotiated a raise for an actor because he won a Gemini,” says Guillaume Lspérance.
Aside from the retail price of $460, how much is a Gemini really worth?