Vancouver: James Shavick is one of Vancouver’s best-kept secrets. While most local producers spend years laboring to get just one feature into production, this month Shavick begins rolling the cameras on his 18th feature film shoot in Vancouver in just two-and-a-half years.

So what makes his company, Shavick Entertainment, so different?

‘We’re an integrated company. We have the studio, rolling stock, costumes, props, trucks, as well as supervising and line producers on staff and a long-term agreement with the acfc. This allows us to be more economical so we can bid on a project whether the rest of the town is busy or not. We have the ability to shoot several films at once,’ says Shavick.

‘We also take risks,’ he adds. ‘We buy territories in a film and we have well-established deals with banks – three in the States and one in Canada – so it gives us a lot of reach. We’re not just a pm company that is spending another producer’s or network’s money.’

Shavick specializes in both mows and direct-to-video feature releases budgeted in the $1.3 million to $3 million range.

When it comes to casting, Shavick is convinced of the merits of spending the bucks on talent with marquee value.

‘You cannot sell a movie based on who produced or directed it,’ says Shavick. ‘The big mistake many people make in this town is not taking the $130,000 to buy a name for two weeks. That one decision makes all the difference when it comes to selling the film.’

Distribution, he says, is handled on a project-by-project basis. However, Shavick does have a long-standing relationship with Libra Pictures for foreign sales, several Canadian distributors for domestic sales, and good pay-tv contacts.

His latest feature, The Heist, is a psychological crime drama starring Andrew McCarthy (The Joy Luck Club), Cynthia Geary (Northern Exposure), Hannes Jaenicke (Silence Like Glass) and Wolf Larsen (Tarzan). Shavick is producing in association with Jeff Sackman of cfp in Toronto. Michael Kennedy is directing from a screenplay written by Michael January.

U.S. sale for Madison?

those party poodles from Forefront Productions were kicking up their heels again down at natpe in Las Vegas last month. Despite all the dancing, producer Helena Cynamon reports they took time out for business and are now near to closing a u.s. sale on their teen drama series Madison.

On the development roster, Forefront has optioned the rights to A Little Bit Of Heaven, to be developed as a tv movie. The script, based on a true story about two lovers who struggle to save their community in the face of the challenges of ‘progress,’ is being written by Donald Martin. The film will be coproduced by HBW Film Productions of Calgary.

And for producers out there anxious to get an inside track on how to get their first tv series off the ground, on Saturday, March 2, Forefront will be presenting a one-day, intensive workshop on putting the package together and getting it sold at Praxis, the screenwriters’ resource center at Simon Fraser University’s downtown campus.

Man’s best friend?

i’m so hungry I could eata dog? Apparently that’s precisely how hungry the real-life characters got during their ordeal on which Pacific Motion Pictures’ latest mow, Braving Alaska, is based.

The story about a young yuppie couple stranded in the woods and desperate to survive is being produced by Michael Jaffee of l.a.-based Braunstein Films. Last year, Braunstein and pmp produced The Jim and Jennifer Stolpa Story about the young couple in Nevada who survived a snowstorm when their car broke down in the desert.

pmp line producer Lynne Bespflug, pm Lisa Richardson and director Bruce Pittman will head up to the Yukon next month in search of snow, dogs, and maybe vegetarian cuisine.

Meanwhile, pmp’s remake of the James Stewart classic, Harvey, starring Harry Anderson (Night Court), got underway this month with Lisa Towers producing and veteran Hollywood director George Schaefer (The Man Upstairs and Katherine Hepburn’s first choice) calling the shots.

Majors return

now that the long-standing performers dispute in b.c. is shaping into a settlement, with last month’s proposed agreement laid out by mediator Stephen Kelleher, the major Hollywood studios appear to be circling over Vancouver awaiting landing instructions.

Disney’s mega-budget underwater feature Deep Rising has resurfaced under a new title, Tentacles. Earlier this month the studio finally confirmed its booking of The Bridge Studios from June 3 through to December for the tale of a giant squid. Names of the producers, director and cast have yet to be announced.

Although director Jonathan Kaplan (The Accused) has bowed out of the New World series pilot Them, which is due to begin principal photography in Vancouver March 7, he may still be coming back to town after all, this time to direct a feature entitled Traitor for Paramount Studios.

Produced by Harry Ufland, the story, set in the McCarthy era, is about a Korean war hero and the lawyer who defends him on charges of treason.

Apparently Dustin Hoffman passed on the project, and Richard Dreyfuss, hot from his recent Academy Award nomination for Mr. Holland’s Opus, is now in the running.

If the packaging is completed, production will get underway in Vancouver this summer with Warren Carr as line producer/pm.

Producer Art Linson (We’re No Angels, This Boy’s Life) may also be making a return visit to Vancouver this summer with actors Robert De Niro and Alec Baldwin to shoot Bookworm, a David Mamet script about two survivors of a plane crash. Currently the project hinges on cast availability.

The film was slated to come here last year when Hoffman and Michael Douglas were attached to the project, but rumor has it local line producers, remembering the production nightmares on Linson’s We’re No Angels, shot here seven years ago, were less than enthusiastic to be involved in it.

Next month, actress Michele Lee (former Knots Landing vixen) will be in town to star in, direct and executive produce an mow based on a script she cowrote. The Genius is about a shy, mentally challenged woman whose guardian agrees to let scientists use her as a test subject for iq-enhancing drugs.

Production in association with Hearst Entertainment and Power Pictures of Toronto begins March 18 with David Shepherd as line producer.

The X-Files creator Chris Carter has turned off the smoke machines to begin production next month on a new pilot for Fox. Producer John Kousakis will produce the series hopeful about a homicide detective who returns home. He says the plot will have nothing to do with the supernatural realm. David Nutter, X-Files and Cannell Films alumnus, will direct.