Double Happiness examines a

life torn between two cultures

Vancouver: Vancouver director Mina Shum put the finishing touches on her first feature film Double Happiness this month. Produced by Rose Lam Waddell and Stephen Hegyes, the dramatic comedy is about an irreverent Chinese-Canadian woman who is trying to live up to the expectations of her Old World parents without compromising her Western ideals.

Shum’s semi-autobiographical screenplay was selected from over 50 scripts in the New Views iii competition, a program underwritten by British Columbia Film, Telefilm Canada and the National Film Board that finances first-time feature films from promising new directors.

Three weeks into production, Shum had to contend with a somewhat surprising request for last-minute rewrites – no not from the creative department of Telefilm but from her father who showed up on set one day with a few ‘suggestions’ for revisions.

Apparently the script called for a scene in which 22-year-old star Jade Li sneaks out of the house one night to sleep with her white boyfriend and then tries to get back home before her parents wake up. But her car breaks down and the gig’s up. Shum’s father, however, thought the Double Happiness script would be ‘better’ if his 28-year-old daughter had Li out all night performing ‘good deeds’ instead having a good romp. While the director was touched by his concern, the script remained untouched.

Long haul

it’s been six long years and has probably gone through just as many incarnations, but it looks like Vancouver producer Walter Daroshin’s film is finally going to be made.

Coproduced by Daroshin and Gary Harvey’s Vancouver company Troika Films and Atlantis Films of Toronto, the two-hour tv movie, budgeted at $3 million, is 75% financed and slated for fall production in the interior of b.c., according to Daroshin.

Hakujin, written by Sharon Gibbon, is a true story set in the early 1940s about the Japanese internment during wwii and its impact on the community as seen through the eyes of two central female characters, one Japanese and one Canadian.

Anne Wheeler (Bye Bye Blues, The Diviners) is now signed to the project as director, with Atlantis’ Bill Gray coming on as executive producer along with Daroshin. Atlantis’ Valerie Gray will also produce.

‘Ironically,’ says Daroshin, ‘in 1988 when I first decided to become a producer and form my own production company, this was the first script I read and I’ve been trying passionately to make it ever since.’

During the intervening years, Hakujin has gone from being a $7.5 million theatrical feature to a tv movie to a low-budget feature then back to a two-hour made-for-tv-movie for cbc.

‘We just couldn’t get it done as a feature, it was going to cost too much. And after all, who’s going to give me $7 million to do my first feature about the Japanese internment?’ says Daroshin. ‘This way, it’s finally going to be seen by people, and that was my main goal anyhow.’

Down but not out

‘who, me pissed?’ responds producer Nick Orchard when asked about cbc’s decision not to order another season of his teen dramatic series Northwood.

Ever the optimist, Orchard says ‘naturally we’re disappointed with this news, but there’s still lots of potential for the series…so we’ll begin to speak with other broadcasters about finding Northwood a new home.’

Orchard says he’s been particularly proud of the fact that in this era of shrinking funds available for drama production, Northwood had the lowest budget of any Canadian drama series on any of the major networks.

Orchard was also miffed that cbc rescheduled Northwood last fall to make way for more American sitcoms, a move which he claims caused the series to lose many of its 18-35 audience.

Orchard and Rick Drew, his partner in Zeitgeist Productions, are currently in script development with Universal and Ivan Reitman Productions on a new half-hour comedy series entitled Lifeguards and another comedy series entitled Drawn Together, created in conjunction with cartoonist Lynn Johnston.

Neon goes down in 65

neon Rider also took its final wrap last month after reaching the magic 65 episodes necessary for syndication. The series, produced by Virtue/Rekert Productions in association with Atlantis Films, had to jump through countless funding hoops to finally get sufficient financing to finish the nine new episodes of the one-hour teen dramatic series, but in the end they got it done.

Executive producer Winston Rekert, who also starred in the series and directed numerous episodes, says ‘this was our best season ever. We had outstanding scripts to work with and to top it off one of our regular guest stars, Philip Granger, won a Gemini for his role as Walt.’

After completing five seasons, no doubt the cast and crew will be ready to move on to new opportunities. But word has it producer Danny Virtue won’t be sitting around for long. Aside from numerous film projects in development, he’s trying to reconstruct parts of the Bordertown set, which burnt down earlier this winter. Apparently he wants to establish a permanent structure there for filming.

Still waiting

even though Vancouver is a buzz of production activity with two series, eight features and six mow/pilots on the boards this month, Don Ramsden, president of IATSE Local 891, says the expected shift in production to b.c. following the l.a. earthquake hasn’t materialized. ‘Producers should be fighting over crew and studio space, but so far we haven’t really seen that. And with the 72-cent dollar up here, how much better can it get?’

Journey to a new director

the official word on the status of Disney’s mondo-budget feature Journey To The Centre Of The Earth is that it’s back in ‘script rewrites’ – the catch-all phrase used by studio execs when they’re not 100% pleased with the package. In this case, rumor has it they’re out hunting for a new director.

Shoot the messenger

after spending several months working with the producers of the feature Little Women, to be directed by Australia’s Gillian Armstrong (My Brilliant Career), local production manager Grace Gilroy was bumped off the production one month before principal photography was scheduled to begin and pm Warren Carr was hired to take over.

Gilroy is well-respected in local film circles and in the past has been called in to save such major productions as Hoffa starring Jack Nicholson. Word from inside the ranks has it the producers got tired of Gilroy telling them the budget just wasn’t big enough to create an entire New England town when the bulk of the money is going above the line to star power the likes of Susan Sarandon and Winona Ryder.

Carr, who oversaw the creation of another town under difficult circumstances for We’re No Angels starring Sean Penn and Robert De Niro, hopefully will keep the project in check.

Not to be left waiting for the next dance for long, Gilroy is now helping out director/producer Penny Marshall’s l.a.-based company Parkway Productions, which has been up scouting around Nelson, b.c. for its next feature, Gold Diggers, to be directed by Ted Bessell.