Mitch, left, and Andrea Gabourie, co-founders of Forté Entertainment. Their successful sales strategy includes irresistible sizzle reels that are developed with an all-hands-on-deck approach.Forté Entertainment/Supplied
Ten years ago, Andrea and Mitch Gabourie sat in a rented office space, planning their next move. The Gabouries, working at the time as independent showrunners and directors for other companies, were ready to take control of the stories they told. In that moment, Forté Entertainment was born.
Fast forward to today, and the husband-and-wife duo preside over a bustling downtown Toronto office and an award-winning unscripted series slate that includes shows on Disney+, Netflix, NatGeo, Paramount+, Hulu and Crave. In a television landscape where many production companies are merging or folding into global media conglomerates, Forté remains proudly and profitably independent with no corporate backing or shareholders.
“We make our own decisions, move fast and invest in ideas we believe in,” Andrea said.
Developing and selling original formats in a business that historically plays it safe with known intellectual property (IP) and formats is one of those risks. “Everyone loves a sure thing,” she said. “But we’ve made our name on shows that didn’t exist before.”
Opinion: How Survivor changed television – and our culture – forever
Opinion: Why we’re blowing a generational moment for Canadian culture
Forté’s Emmy-winning Snapshots began as an adult photography competition that no one wanted to buy until Andrea spontaneously reframed it as a kids’ show during a chat with a CBC executive. “I literally said, ‘This photography show is for kids,’ even though it wasn’t,” she laughs. “We reworked it, sold it and it went on to win an International Emmy.”
Then there’s How I Got Here, a heartwarming docuseries about immigrant parents taking their adult children back to their country of origin. The show was rejected by nearly every major network before finally finding a home on BYUtv, where it’s now entering its third season and streaming on Hulu. It was recently nominated for a Daytime Emmy.
“The industry told us it would never sell,” Andrea said. “But we stuck to our vision. We’ve learned that relentless optimism is as essential as talent.”
Mitch’s advertising and directorial background doesn’t hurt. Part of Forté’s sales strategy includes irresistible sizzle reels – short promo videos that showcase work – that are mostly built internally and developed with an all-hands-on-deck approach. Creativity – with a reel as well as a budget – is necessary to polish a project to its maximum potential. “We take a dollar and make it look like we had three,” Andrea said.
Their recent Crave and History Channel docuseries The Death Coast, about a Cape Breton shipwreck diver and his crew of military veterans, looks like a big-budget U.S. production, but it’s unmistakably local.
“It’s as Canadian as it gets,” Andrea said. “You don’t see the five boats we lost in the first week of filming. The audience doesn’t know what happened. All they see is the finished show and that’s the motivating factor.”
From that empty office a decade ago, Forté has grown into a thriving mid-sized production house with a development team and multiple shows in production. “In the beginning, we were doing one show a year,” Andrea said. “Now we can handle five or six at a time.”
Blue Ant Media plans to go public through reverse takeover with Boat Rocker Media
That growth hasn’t come easily. “When you start a company, even with years of experience, you’re starting fresh,” she said. “You’re reintroducing yourself to the world.”
Forté’s international credentials are bolstered by Andrea’s and Mitch’s stints in American television, which helped the company initially break through. Andrea said they always wanted to bring an American sensibility to their work, but with Canadian stories at the heart of it. That approach has earned them word-of-mouth buzz far beyond Canada’s borders.
Another secret to Forté’s success is investing heavily in development and owning their IP, something many other indies dream of doing. “We put a tremendous amount of money and time into development,” Andrea said. “That allows us to walk into a pitch with a fully realized vision rather than waiting for a network’s $10,000 to trickle in.”
Owning their IP gives Forté the freedom to take bigger risks and enjoy the rewards when a project lands. “We’re not waiting for permission,” Mitch said. “We can greenlight our own ideas, partner globally and retain ownership.”
That freedom also allows them to be selective. “We only do shows we care about,” Andrea said. “We’re still hands-on showrunners at heart, so if we’re spending that much time on a project, it has to mean something.”
As Forté marks its 10th anniversary, it’s business as usual. The duo spent much of the fall on the road at industry events like the Access Canada Summit, MIPCOM and the Daytime Emmys. The company’s latest project, My Nightmare Stalker: The Eva LaRue Story, drops on Paramount+ in mid-November. Now, with multiple new commissions the Gabouries are looking at getting into a genre that most Canadian companies currently avoid: scripted dramas.
It’s a world Mitch came from, having directed episodic television for a decade before getting into commercials.
“We’re investing a lot of time and energy into the scripted side, and it’s like a marathon where you need a number of partners,” he said. “But the difference between 10 years ago and now is we’re on the map and we’re getting the meetings with the big players. Back in the day we were just trying to sell a good idea.”
“Our biggest successes have never been safe,” Andrea said. “Anything we put money into underscores our belief in it, and those risks almost always pay off. Maybe not at first, but you’ve always got it on the shelf to bring back.”