Production torrent: can there

be too much of a good thing?

Vancouver: It’s summer in the city. A cool mist floats over Howe Sound, sails flap in the breeze and bathers bask in the warm sun. No wonder everyone is flocking to film in Vancouver.

However, with 23 productions currently shooting – seven features, five mows and 11 series – many people in the industry are worried that maybe there are a few too many here all at one time. Crews and service companies are almost completely tapped out, and some union leaders are fretting that Vancouver has become overly saturated this summer.

‘While I’m delighted that we’re so busy,’ says Don Ramsden, president of the 1,400-member union IATSE Local 891, ‘we are getting awfully concerned about location issues. We certainly don’t want to turn productions away, but I would rather see a few productions decide to go shoot elsewhere than come here and shoot under less than perfect conditions and then go away dissatisfied. That’s not how we like to treat our customers.’

Ramsden says this torrent of production activity also comes amidst a very busy season of collective bargaining for the unions. ‘The Canadian dollar is still in a slump and shows every indication of staying that way, so there’s a lot of studios and film companies wanting to lock in for extended terms.’

Those currently in negotiations include Columbia TriStar, Universal, Cannell Films, Paramount and Warner Bros.

Mark DesRochers, manager of production/location services for the B.C. Film Commission, says he’s never seen the city this crowded with productions, and indications are it won’t subside before late fall. He agrees with Ramsden that all the activity is putting pressure on locations. ‘Thank heavens for Lindsay Moffit (co-ordinator with the special events office with the City of Vancouver) who puts out a Hot List on possible location burnout sites,’ he says.

DesRochers says the list of overused neighborhoods and streets is currently running its longest on record at three pages.

Needless to say the commission was delighted when Disney decided it would not be adding to the congestion by shooting the West Coast segment of its big-budget pic, The Scarlet Letter, in Vancouver, but rather in Campbell River on Vancouver Island. The film, starring Demi Moore, Robert Duvall and Gary Oldman, will be in b.c. for three weeks this month before returning to Nova Scotia for 14 weeks of production.

Among the productions that are slated to come to town later this summer are:

– Service and Silence, an mow for TriStar TV based on the true story of the highest-ranking female officer in the u.s. military, a colonel, who admitted she was a lesbian and was then forced to resign her commission. The film will star Glenn Close, fresh from her success on Broadway in Andrew Lloyd Weber’s musical Sunset Boulevard. Warren Carr, who just completed work on Little Women, has signed on as production manager.

– RHI Entertainment and Hallmark have confirmed they will be making their way into town to shoot the feature, The Cook, The Ranger and a Hole In The Sky, based on the Norman Maclean (A River Runs Through It) short story of the same name. The film will be produced by l.a.-based Andy Gottlieb and directed by John Kent Harrison.

– l.a. producer Ric Kidney was in town recently to scout for the feature No Fear, a story about a 16-year-old girl whose life spins out of control when she gets tangled up with a wild guy and a posse of his friends. James Foley, the brilliant director of Glengarry Glen Ross and After Dark My Sweet, will direct. If the production opts for Vancouver, filming will begin this fall.

Odd couple

In the strange bedfellows department, producer John Curtis, formerly with Vancouver’s commercial king of the b movie actioneers, North American Pictures, has linked up with producer Chris Bruyere, former sweetheart of government funding agencies, who will line produce and production manage Curtis’ next film, Cyberjack, under the Catalyst Films International banner. Quips Curtis: ‘It’s not such an odd combo, he (Bruyere) just got tired of lining up at the Telefilm trough.’

The action/sci-fi feature starring Michael Dudikoff (Cobra) and Brian James (The Player, Blade Runner) will be coproduced by Rob Straight. Cyberjack will also give local director Robert Lee a chance to helm his first feature.

Production begins in Vancouver at the end of August.

In September, Curtis will also be executive producing the feature A Man With A Gun, produced by Rob McLean (Digger). The film stars Michael Madsen, Dennis Hopper and Jennifer Tilly and will be directed by David Wyles, who wrote the script.

The Far Side of Newland

Local animation whiz Marv Newland of International Rocketship is finishing up the animation on a half-hour tv special he directed for Seattle-based cartoonist Gary Larson (The Far Side). Entitled Tales from From The Far Side, the special is composed of segments ranging from three to 15 minutes in length, all interwoven with a deliciously morbid dark sense of humor. It is scheduled for delivery in October.

Rocketship has handled everything on the special, from storyboards, direction, ink and paint to sound and post-production. Several American networks are currently bidding on the project.

A long time coming

After wrapping production on the mow Firefrost in the high Arctic, producer Harold Tichenor of Crescent Entertainment is spending a warm leisurely summer polishing off a script he started nearly 20 years ago.

Entitled The Bamboo Prince, the family drama is set in Western China during the 1930s when the feudal empire was coming to an end.

Tichenor says he began development on the project with his partner Howard Bass back in the ’60s when the two were living in Alaska.

Originally intended as a documentary, the project came to an abrupt halt in the 1970s when Bass vanished in the wilderness while researching a documentary on black bears and was never seen again. ‘I sort of lost the taste for it, and there was no way at that time to get into China to research it, so I just left it,’ says Tichenor.

Now, two decades later, Tichenor has resumed his research in China and made the commitment to finish the project as a drama. ‘There’s almost enough here for two films,’ he jokes, ‘the story itself and the story behind the story.’ Hmmm, maybe that script’s not finished yet after all?