In This Report

Playback is highlighting some of the film and tv prodcos forging new ground on the Western landscapes of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta.

Partners In Motion, based in Saskatchewan, has moved from its long-time commercial and doc staples into the dramatic genre, as has HBW Productions in Alberta. Manitoba’s Visual Marketing is taking advantage of a generous labor incentive and making the leap from corporate work into docmaking. Blue Hill Productions in Saskatchewan is gearing up for an $8.5 million mini-series, the biggest project in its 10-year history, and Alberta -based Nomadic Pictures, behind recent theatrical and mow successes, has a three-pack of movies on the go and is setting its sights on foreign markets. Missing Link Productions continues to develop an eclectic mix of non-fiction programs and is looking to u.k. partners to overcome the financial obstacles of producing on the Alberta scene.

* * *

Helene White is one of the lucky Alberta producers whose development cycle has leap-frogged the whole Alberta Motion Picture Development Corporation collapse and doomsday scenarios predicted for Alberta film and television production.

A producer in Calgary since 1982, after a career in the theater, White has been in development with two mows for four years, projects which should both go before cameras within the next 12 months. One will shoot in Alberta, taking advantage, she hopes, of the much anticipated provincial tax credit expected in May.

‘There is still a deal to be made in Alberta,’ says White, who began her film career by doing documentaries. ‘I’m just putting one foot in front of the other, looking for avenues of opportunity, and sometimes that pushes you out to the rest of the world.’

A Little Bit of Heaven, a coproduction with Vancouver-based Forefront Entertainment, is an mow scheduled for fall production in the interior of b.c., which will allow it to capitalize on the new regional tax credit bonus in b.c.

A period story set in the 1890s, Heaven is based on the true story of a woman who literally stole a church and moved it to Windermere where it still stands.

wic is the broadcaster on board.

Flying Ghosts is a coproduction with Toronto’s Coolbrook Productions and should film in Alberta next winter. Based on the novel by Alberta writer Shirley Matheson, Ghosts is a family mow that takes place during the building of the Alaska Highway.

Broadcasters cfcn-tv, cfrn-tv and Family Channel have development money in the project already.

White distinguished herself in 1985 by producing the first syndicated show out of Alberta. Produced in Calgary and Toronto, Connecting ran for 76 half-hours and was a Donahue-style talk show for teens. It ran in syndication on wic stations.

Later in the ’80s, she began dabbling in international coproductions, having success with a family feature called The Meeting – a copro between the u.k. and u.s.s.r. – until the Soviet Union fell apart. Gorky Studios, she says, had $4 million promised to the project, which was a story about an Albertan of Ukrainian decent who searches out her roots. White has never tried to resurrect the film project.

And in 1993, White produced a non-theatrical series about Native communities called Gift of Belonging.