If you build it they will come – but don’t expect them to acknowledge being there for all the hard-won incentives.

Alberta and British Columbia have built a vigorous film and television infrastructure. They have developed a permanent skills base. They have cultivated a worldly air.

But these accomplishments are taken for granted and upstaged by their rep as a pair of pretty faces. And curiously, the natural attraction of the destinations, while often dictated by scripts, can be the least scriptable.

Toronto-based Telegenic Programs began shooting the series Two and the feature-length pay-tv movie The Song of Hiawatha out West in May. Rather than the region’s production strengths, it was the Western ambiance of the locations that brought Telegenic to b.c. and Alberta.

Michael Taylor, executive vp and coo at Telegenic, says locations in Vancouver and Banff were chosen for the two projects, whose combined budget is $23 million, because the stories dictated those settings.

In the suspense drama Two, for example, the lead character is a university prof who lives in the Pacific Northwest. Ergo, the production uses Vancouver as a base of operation. In Two’s case, says Taylor, it’s fortunate that b.c. has crews and talent, equipment and stages ready.

In Hiawatha, the story demanded a mountainous setting. Thus, the show’s Ontario crew was carted to Alberta’s national park for a week-long shoot in May. Even still, it was a production choice of mixed blessings: during the Banff shoot in May, it snowed – a problem since Hiawatha is meant to take place in summer.

Two is the new one-hour primetime drama series by Telegenic, which recently wrapped the second and possibly last season of Lonesome Dove (also shot in Alberta, this time in a farmer’s field outside of Calgary).

Production for the first season of Two is expected to wrap in November. The first of 22 episodes airs in the fall on ctv in Canada and on more than 140 syndicated stations in the u.s. Two will also air in other countries including France, Germany, the u.k., Mexico, New Zealand and Indonesia.

Good twin/bad twin

The $20 million series features actor Michael Easton, who plays the role of twins and whose previous credits include vr.5 for Fox and the nbc soap Days of Our Lives. The story, reminiscent of The Fugitive, features a good twin on the lam after being framed by his evil twin for the murder of the good twin’s wife.

The program’s costar is Toronto actor Barbara Tyson, who plays the special agent assigned to track the good twin. Tyson’s previous credits include e.r., The Outer Limits, Murphy Brown and North of 60.

And even though Two will not seek any tax rebates in its first season, says Taylor, the lineup of directors is all-Canadian. Executive producers are Stephen J. Cannell, David Levinson and Taylor. Producer is N. John Smith.

Hiawatha, which shot in Banff the first week in May before moving locations to Ontario for the remaining three weeks, tells the story of a young Ojibwa war chief who rallies his people in the face of European settlement.

The feature film is destined for the pay-tv circuit and will be similar in style and scope to the Telegenic/Lynch Entertainment mow The Pathfinder, a tale inspired by the James Fenimore Cooper story Last of the Mohicans and shot north of Toronto last year. (Pathfinder will air on Showtime and Superchannel, among other pay-tv networks.)

‘These programs are selling well internationally,’ says Taylor. ‘That’s why there was the order for the second one.’

The budget for Hiawatha was $3 million and it stars Graham Greene, who was also in Pathfinder. Greene’s costar in Hiawatha is Litefoot, the lead in Indian in the Cupboard.

Directed by Jeffrey Shore and scripted by Earl W. Wallace, the film is executive produced by Taylor, Tom Lynch and John Lynch, with John Danylkiw producing.

Ownership of Hiawatha is shared with Telegenic (which holds the rights for Canada), l.a.-based Lynch Entertainment (which distributes the program in the u.s.) and Hallmark (which handles international sales).

There is no government money in the project, a reality that has more to do with the pace of production than the problems of prying open government wallets, says Taylor.