Linda Schuyler of Epitome Pictures (Liberty Street) is building a project which she thinks is ‘perfect for cbc at this critical point.’ The cbc is on board with Schuyler and cocreator Yan Moore (who wrote for Liberty Street and Sullivan’s Road To Avonlea) to develop a primetime soap opera.

‘I was trying to come up with a project around stories I wanted to tell which was both cost-effective and would reach a large audience,’ says Schuyler. ‘This is a soap for everyone who’s ever been part of a family, and it’s very Canadian.’

The idea is to produce one hour of original programming per week, having two half-hours airing during the week to be repeated on the weekend as a one-hour. The multi-camera video project, according to Schuyler, would have a turnover time of less than half of what was scheduled for the production of Liberty Street.

At this stage, scripts and stories are being developed in-house at Epitome, but Schuyler says the company is actively looking for a coproducer.

and what by night?

Toronto’s Chesler/Perlmutter Productions is developing a series based on a tv movie it produced for Fox and Citytv in 1993 called Model By Day. Alliance Releasing is on board to distribute, and David Perlmutter says discussions are ongoing with an American broadcaster for 26 one-hour episodes. Canadians Jeph Loeb and Matt Weisman are the scribblers behind the scripts.

Labor of love

‘You can’t make a good film out of a bad script, there’s no way in hell.’

Unfortunately, you can’t make a good film with no cash either. Izidore Musallam (Foreign Nights) had a good script, just ask anyone involved with Heaven Before I Die (stand back while they gush). What he didn’t have was the money.

It was an arty romantic comedy about a Middle Eastern immigrant with a disability which makes him walk like Charlie Chaplin. It was quintessentially Canadian; a story in which Toronto is the promised land. But because of the genre and his status as a relatively unknown quantity, drumming up some money was a problem.

Says Musallam: ‘You have to have someone in the mainstream believe in you, or forget it. You might as well go to Alaska or Afghanistan.’

But the script lived on, and five years later it has come together. And how. On a budget of less than $2 million (the combined revenue from presales of the Canadian rights to cfp and the foreign rights to l.a.’s PM Entertainment), Musallam and Steven Cole, the duo making up Brothers In Arms Productions, have assembled a top-notch crew and a cast which includes Italian actor Giancarlo Giannini, Omar Sharif and Joanna Pacula.

‘Most of the guys on this crew would never work for what we can pay them, and Giancarlo Giannini usually makes about $500,000 a picture, in American dollars,’ says Musallam. ‘There’s only one reason why they’re all here, and that’s the script.’

The picture, set to be delivered in November, will be heading to Sundance and Musallam hopes it will be in competition at Cannes.

‘This is a unique Canadian story with universal themes,’ he says. ‘It’s what the big companies were supposed to do, and none of them are making anything.’

Buddy, can you spare a politician?

Power, a film from director Magnus Isacsson and independent producer Glen Salzman about the long-fought environmental battle between the Cree and Hydro-Quebec’s Great Whale project, may be drawing some interesting attendees when it has its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival next month.

The making of Power literally took over the lives of Isacsson and Salzman as they chronicled the battle over five long years, constantly on standby to grab the camera and take off as the campaign progressed. In the process, even though the film was produced in association with the nfb, they took on considerable personal debt.

But, as word has it, Bobbie Kennedy Jr., who’s featured in the film and is a stalwart supporter of the Quebec Cree, may be attending the premiere in hopes of raising the film’s profile and, in the process, raising some cash for the beleaguered filmmakers.

As well, the Grand Council of the Cree is planning to sail an odiac (a combination of a kayak and a canoe) into Toronto harbor during the festival as a consciousness-raising tool for their cause. No word on whether they’ll get a chance to catch a few flicks

More about politicians

It was all smiles from Toronto Mayor Barbara Hall as she took a whirlwind tour of happening productions around her fair city. A junket organized by the Toronto Film and Video Office in conjunction with the mayor’s office had Ms. Hall (flanked by a couple councillors and a bevy of media) touring Dan Krech Productions, Disney Canada’s temporary studio in the TD building, the Bubble Factory/Universal set of Fairy Godmother and the newly expanded deluxe toronto facility on Adelaide West.

Her Honor seemed especially impressed with the recent Sheridan grads at Disney – ‘Everyone in your class got a job?’ – and a demonstration of the new imax pse (Personal Sound Environment) technology attached to Toni Myers’ L5: First City In Space, which Myers generously demonstrated for the assembled crowd at deluxe.

Film commissioner David Plant, the gracious host throughout the tour, says the event was organized to bring the mayor together with the ‘behind the scenes’ elements of production in Toronto, particularly in the post sector. Plant says the promotion of Toronto’s post infrastructure is something his office will be making more of a priority, and an informal luncheon at deluxe gave the mayor and the assembly of Metro big cheeses a chance to mix and mingle with suppliers, equipment providers and post facility personnel.

Incidentally, Disney Canada’s director of operations, Greg Lucier, has some beefs with parking, something I’m sure Mayor Hall has heard before.

PNA to get bigger and smaller

Daniel Dior and Philip Jackson, founders of Producers Network Associates, have decided to do some internal restructuring. Jackson says the company is establishing a division dedicated to the development of new talent producing features of $1.5 million or less.

Talisman, a feature directorial debut from Louis Beaunander (who directed Keanu Reeves in that infamous Winnipeg production of Hamlet) is the prototype picture for the new division. Principal photography is set to start Sept. 10.

As for the company’s other end, the plan is to take on bigger budget pictures than pna has taken on previously. The first on that slate is Titan, a $5.5 million to $6 million sci-fi flick from Peter Horton about a hard-core prison colony located on one of Jupiter’s moons. It could be directed by Jackson and pna plans to start production late this November.

Beyond that, Jackson says the goal is to produce six pictures in 1997 from about 18 projects now in various stages of development.

pna is currently in production at Toronto’s Cinevillage on The Cusp, another script from Horton.

Unconfirmed

In response to industry speculation about whether or not Atlantis is discussing a coproduction partnership on a network series version of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s box-office monster Total Recall, no one at the company is confirming or denying. Sources have pinned Atlantis as possible coproducer with Drew Levin of l.a.’s dsl, but Atlantis spokesperson Jeremy Katz had no comment.

Also unconfirmed, but word out of Montreal’s Just For Laughs Festival is that the cbc is planning a joint venture with Showtime to produce a gay-themed special and tv series.

Addendum

‘Cleared for take-off’ in the July 15 column omitted the contributions of The Film Works to the development of the miniseries The Arrow. My apologies.