Ed Wood’s widow featured

in Pyramid’s bisexual love story

Vancouver: the Marshall is back. Last year Paramount threatened to pull the dramatic western series out of production in Vancouver and move it to Alberta where the unions appeared to be more hospitable.

According to iatse, the unions didn’t change their tune, but Paramount decided the music wasn’t so bad after all and is back in town to shoot another season of 13 episodes.

‘We’re delighted they’ve come back,’ says Local 891 president Don Ramsden. ‘Evidently they recognize that there are few areas that provide the same level of production services available in b.c.’

Rumor has it the union contract signed with Paramount features a ‘small’ pay raise and that some previously ‘irreconcilable’ differences have been ironed out.

Apart from Paramount, Ramsden says service production activity in the province is heading back to normal summer levels, albeit minus the ‘craziness’ experienced during last year’s peak.

One down, more to go

Richard Davis wrapped producer-for-hire duties in Alberta last month and is now finishing up post in Vancouver on Brothers of the Frontier, an mow for abc.

Next on the development agenda at Davis’ production company, Once and Future Films, is Widdershins, a low-budget ($1.5 million) feature about an elderly woman who reflects back on her life and a love affair she had many years ago in Mexico. Now turning 80, she decides to return to the country where she experienced her one true passion.

Lodi Butler will produce with Davis stepping behind the camera to direct his first feature.

Production in Vancouver and Mexico is slated for early 1996.

It’s Showtime for PMP

Pacific Motion Pictures will explore The Limbic Region this month when it begins production on the psychological thriller for Showtime in the u.s.

Written by Todd Johnson and Patrick Ranahan of l.a., the tv movie is about a cop nearing retirement who becomes obsessed with a serial killer. The dark, dark film noir takes place entirely over one evening, which no doubt will create some scheduling nightmares for pmp producer George Horie due to the long hours of summer daylight.

Negotiations for the director and cast have yet to be finalized. Production begins late July.

Casting for final funds

A new Vancouver-based production company, Pyramid Productions, has come up with a clever promotional ploy for its first feature film, Horsey – it has cast the widow of infamous cross-dressing Hollywood director Ed Wood, who was originally from Vancouver.

Producers Kirsten Clarkson and Michele Sands say the idea was spawned on a business trip to l.a. when they discovered Wood’s widow, Kathleen O’Hara Wood, was a client of their longtime friend, entertainment lawyer Robert Weinberg.

Wood was apparently ecstatic about taking a small role as a Jehovah Witness neighbor in the film, Horsey, about a messed up bisexual artist who falls in love with a junkie singer for an underground punk band.

Clarkson, who plans to direct the film, also wrote the script which is loosely based on her own life.

Pyramid has secured partial financing for the $3 million budgeted feature from private sources. Third Pyramid partner Andrew Ooi, a former director of Singapore’s Accredited Capital Pte. and president of Echelon Talent and Management, a Vancouver talent agency specializing in Asian performers, is now in Singapore scouting for the balance of funding through his Asian contacts.

They hope to begin production in Vancouver Sept. 15. Christian Bruyere has been signed on as a producer and Barb Snelgrove as associate producer.

The Force is with them

Vancouver-based producer Hugh Beard is coming full circle. Beard spent 10 years as an executive producer of cbc’s Beachcombers series before starting up one of the city’s largest and most successful corporate/documentary production companies, Force Four Productions. Now, after 12 years of dealing with reality – well kind of – Beard is returning to his roots with Force Four’s first dramatic project, Mr. Sewer Rat’s Christmas, a feature-length animated Christmas special currently in development with Superchannel.

Described as a cross between How the Grinch Stole Christmas and Miracle On 34th Street, Vancouver writer Scott Renyard is scripting, with Al Sens handling the cel animation and Griffiths Gibson and Ramsay Productions producing six original songs. John Ritchie is associate producer.

Mr. Sewer Rat is the tale of a bumbling con artist and his half-mouse brother Shyster, who enlist the talents of a magical troll to swindle money from the delivery of Santa’s toys.

Earlier this year at mip-tv, Force Four’s first visit paid off big when after only one day at the market they signed an agreement with D’Ocon Films of Barcelona, Spain, which will finance up to 30% of the us$3.2 million budget for the Christmas special. It just goes to show what venturing into the international markets can achieve.

‘It was a big step for us to start marketing internationally,’ says Beard. ‘We began by attending mipcom in the fall with a script we really believed in. That led us to an initial meeting with D’Ocon. They’ve been producing quality animation series and wanted to expand into a theatrical-length animation project, so it was a good fit right from the beginning.’