Pantygate! It could only happen in Lotusland

Vancouver: Gosh, the industry hasn’t had such a good scandal since the Jak King embezzlement of union funds affair. But he’s being given a run for his money, so to speak, by B.C. Trade Corporation president Oksana Exell. (B.C. Trade oversees the B.C. Film Commission, the Export Loan Guarantee Program and The Bridge Studios.)

Exell made the front pages of local papers earlier this month after a former B.C. Trade manager, who was fired over a g-string panty incident, filed a wrongful dismissal suit and won.

According to news reports, Exell and two other women in the corporation were sent skimpy skivvies through interoffice mail as a joke on Valentine’s Day. Exell wasn’t amused, and launched a two-week ‘undercover’ investigation at nearby lingerie stores to find out who dunnit. When the culprits were found, she pushed to have them fired on the grounds of sexual harassment and inappropriate corporate conduct.

Last week, a provincial supreme court judge ruled one of the panty perpetrators was indeed wrongfully dismissed for his role in the caper, and awarded him a year’s salary and costs amounting to a whopping $90,000. Now B.C. Trade says it is considering an appeal, which could jack costs up to $150,000.

Meanwhile, back at the office, Exell is catching further flak because she signed a ‘Male Sex Object Of The Month Award’ – circulated by the corporation’s female employees – which showed the heads of male employees superimposed on beefcake calendar shots.

What a collosal waste of time and taxpayers’ money! While true sexual harassment is always a serious concern, aren’t we becoming just a tad overzealous here in our quest to be politically correct?

Max put to the test

hats off to Astral Films of Montreal. Earlier this year, Astral antied up the big bucks to hire National Research Group out of l.a. to do a thorough audience testing of Vancouver-based director Charles Wilkinson’s soon-to-be-released feature film Max.

The study, which cost somewhere in the five figures, utilized an unpaid, unbiased audience who watched the film in a full-size theater, completed a four-page questionnaire, and then participated in focus groups to analyze what they did and didn’t like about the film.

Max, described by Wilkinson as a cross between Mosquito Coast and Green Acres, is the story of an urban couple who discover their infant son is fatally ill and escape the city in the hope that a rural existence will change their lives.

Although listening to an audience’s candid vivisection of a film is probably a brutal trial no director really wants to sit through, Wilkinson says it was a fascinating experience. ‘I can’t recommend it highly enough. I learned some very important things in the process – who my audience is and where the strengths and weakness of my film lie.’

But there can be a downside to audience testing, warns Wilkinson. If the test audience doesn’t like your film, ‘the studios can use it against you by employing it as an excuse for not releasing a film widely.’

In fact, British Columbia Film was so impressed with National Research’s report, it threw in some more cash to allow Wilkinson to recut his film and make several ‘adjustments.’

Wayne Sterloff, president and ceo of the provincial film funding agency, says this is the first b.c.-produced film to benefit from such an extensive audience testing procedure. Hopefully, he says, more films here will get this kind of market testing prior to release.

A new and improved Max is now scheduled to be delivered to Astral by mid-May.

Disney backs out

there are a lot of hangdog faces in the Vancouver film industry these days – from set designers to hotel and restaurant staffers. Word came down from Disney Studios that its mega-budget epic feature Journey to the Centre of the Earth is being canceled for the time being.

According to Mark DesRochers, manager of production/location services for the B.C. Film Commission, ‘The script needed reworking, there were casting problems, and I think ultimately it came down to the budget. They realized the picture was just getting too expensive to do it the way they wanted in the time they had available.’

For The Bridge Studios, the cancellation means heavy hustling to fill the facility for summer. Disney had booked the entire Bridge facility, Vancouver’s largest studio complex, in anticipation of a summer shoot.

Meanwhile, Disney spokesperson Howard Green says the company’s plans for an animation studio in Vancouver are still ‘progressing, but don’t expect any major announcements until June.’

Other films coming into town to pick up the slack include Universal Studios’ feature Billy Madision starring Saturday Night Live’s ‘Operaman’ Adam Sandler as a filthy rich dilettante who must complete his high school diploma in order to inherit his father’s empire. But that means starting all the way back at grade one because papa had always bribed his son’s way through school.

Also on the boards is Under Seige II for Warner Bros. and Rumble In The Bronx, another Asian action-adventure pic with a heavy body count for Hong Kong’s largest studio, Golden Harvest.

My omission

my apologies to writer Gerald Wexler whose scriptwriting credit was omitted from a piece in an earlier column on Glace Bay Miner’s Museum, a feature cowritten and produced by Mort Ranson. The film is based on the short stories of Sheldon Curry.

They will be missed

it’s been a sad month for Vancouver’s film community. We’ve lost some of our brightest and finest. Earlier this month, production co-ordinator Heather Boyd and makeup artist Kevin Meyers died of aids. Then special effects guru John Thomas passed away suddenly from a brain tumor. Frank Griffiths Sr., chairman of WIC Western International Communications, died after a lengthy illness. And most recently, Teamster Local 155 president Norm Wilkinson died of a heart attack. My heartfelt condolences to the families and friends of all.