Halifax: There’s a buzz in the air in Halifax, and it’s only partially due to the fact that there are seemingly more bars per capita here than perhaps anywhere in the world. It’s a Tuesday night and downtown hangout The Economy Shoe Shop is jammed and crawling with all manner of film types, whose cups, by all accounts, have been quite full in the production sense.

Roman Bittman, president of the Nova Scotia Film Development Corporation, says the industry here is growing and that a greater proportion of the spending is being done by indigenous producers.

In 1992, says Bittman, there was about $7.5 million spent in the Nova Scotia production industry, topped by $13.3 million the following year and $40.5 million last year.

Bittman estimates spending to be about the same this year, but in contrast to last year when the majority of production spending came from Hollywood productions, this year, the bulk of dollars are flying out of Nova Scotian pockets.

‘For me, that’s the sign of an industry that’s going in the right direction,’ says Bittman. ‘It means decisions are being made in the province, not by others.’

Reflecting, or perhaps leading the trend, is the Electropolis studio complex, being constructed in the next year in a decommissioned power plant on waterfront Water Street. It will feature a 130-by-80-foot soundstage with a 65-foot ceiling, and associated structures like dressing and makeup rooms and offices.

The troika of Salter Street Films, Citadel Communications and Cochran Entertainment, which comprises Electropolis, will sublease the building from the nsfdc and will be responsible for building and operating the facility.

According to Electropolitan Paul Donovan of Salter Street, ‘It will be the coolest soundstage in Canada. Therefore people will enjoy shooting there, therefore people will shoot there.’

Donovan also says the studio will be had at the ‘lowest prices in Canada.’

According to Emanuel Jannasch (whose job description of ‘bauherr’ on the project translates roughly as the client representative to the architects and engineers), $1.6 million is being put into the project. Roughly half a million each will come from the provincial Department of Economic Renewal and from the federal government, $100,000 each from Heritage Canada and from the City of Halifax, and the remainder from the nsfdc and private sources.

Jannasch says Electropolis has been advanced money to develop a preliminary design to be given final approval and support by the involved entities. Construction is expected to start early in the new year, with completion projected for next summer.

There was, reportedly, heated competition for the huge waterfront space, desolate and quiet now except for roosting pigeons. Issues were made of the fact that the building once featured asbestos-wrapped pipes, and of the possibility that the facility would take funds away from film investment.

Bittman says money for the construction of the studio is not coming from the investment portfolio. Electropolis will be contractually responsible for its operation, and in the event of violation of that contract, the nsfdc will find an operator with the capital to run it.

‘We want to make sure it won’t become a drain on the province or on the corporation,’ says Bittman. ‘In fact, it’s a needed infrastructure. It’s a new industry and it was considered important that the corporation take a leadership role, and the film producer’s association is behind us 100%.’

Ontario exodus?

Marilyn Belec, producer at the National Film Board’s Atlantic office on Halifax’s Spring Garden Street, reports widespread excitement about the growth of the industry over the past three years that may be partially due to funding cuts in Ontario.

‘I don’t know if it’s a fallout from the ofdc (Ontario Film Development Corporation) that so many people got caught in that,’ says Belec. ‘But there are certainly people looking around wondering if this wouldn’t be a good place to set up shop. There are opportunities here that there never were before.’

Belec says the province is in need of more bodies, including crew and editors, and opines that there will be a major emphasis on training and professional development in the near future.

The nfb in Halifax is currently working on Gathering Voices, a one-hour documentary for cbc’s Witness about the demise of the culture of the Inuit population transplanted to Davis Inlet. The film, a coproduction with Triad Films of Halifax and Toronto’s John Walker Productions, and funded by CBC Witness, NFB Atlantic and the nsfdc, looks at the much-publicized conditions on the island.

Walker, in Halifax working on the film, says nsfdc funding was critical to the completion of the film.

‘The province is benefiting from nsfdc investment in projects,’ says Walker. ‘Unfortunately, Ontario under Harris is sending filmmakers out of the province. There is a need to let the government know this. On the other hand, this is a wonderful place to work; maybe I’ll end up moving.’

NFB Atlantic is also working on Bronwen and Yaffa, a documentary about two 20-something street kids and their efforts to make people aware of racism and white supremacist groups in Halifax.

nfb producer Mike Mahoney says shooting is almost completed, and adds: ‘We became interested because it was two people with no resources trying to make a difference.’

Zooming Zimmer

In addition to calmly overseeing shooting for the Canada/u.k. coproduction Sweet Angel Mine (see story, p. 1), Chris Zimmer, president of Halifax-based Imagex Films, is preparing for the release of Atlantic Film Festival favorite, Margaret’s Museum.

His coproduction with Skyline Films, Love and Death on Long Island, a $5 million ‘comic melodrama,’ is scheduled to begin shooting in April in Halifax and London.

Zimmer says Imagex is also developing a script for The Divine Ryans based on a story by Wayne Johnston. The feature, a dark comedy about a Newfoundland family as told by a 10-year-old boy, will be set on The Rock and will begin production in late ’96/early ’97.

The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be will bein Saskatchewan

Citadel Communications’ Kelly Lyons reports that The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be will be shooting near Regina beginning in the next three weeks as per the original plan, after Saskatchewan crew availability concerns nearly rerouted the shoot to Halifax.

The film, a coproduction of Citadel, Regina-based Heartland Motion Pictures and Toronto-based Atlantis Films, is budgeted at about $2.5 million and will star Ed Begley Jr. (St. Elsewhere). The dog stars, real mutts reportedly, will come from Animals of Distinction in l.a.

Minority coproduction partner Atlantis will distribute the film.

Cochran eastand west

Andrew Cochran, president of Halifax’s Cochran Entertainment, has set up a Vancouver office run by Rae Hull, formerly head of programming at the cbc in Vangroovy. The West Coast office primarily handles production of Cochran’s Life on the Internet series, in its first month on Discovery Channel.

Back home, Cochran is in the midst of producing the fourth cycle of the children’s series Theodore Tugboat, wrapping Nov. 9, and is currently developing Chromach (Gaelic for ‘stick’), the story of two young people who leave Scotland for Cape Breton during the Highlands clearances. The miniseries is a coproduction with Scotland’s Edinburgh Films and the bbc.

Cochrane is also developing an mow for cbc called Pit Pony, based on Joyce Barkhouse’s book about a young boy and a Sable Island pony working in the mines of Cape Breton.

The company has also completed an Internet site called Cable in the Classroom, detailing a program whereby cable networks have made copyright-free programming available to schools.

Darwin goes digital

Digital entertainment company pixelMotion is working on the evolution of a new children’s series called Darwin about the adventures of the eponymous simian character and his animal friends.

Together with Owl Communications, Family Channel, the National Film Board and the Nova Scotia Development Corporation, pixel is developing the six-pilot series for a younger-than-ReBoot audience and expects the initial episodes to be completed by next spring.