Ad Vantage Productions is setting sail on a huge project called Tall Ships 2000.

The Halifax-based company has signed a contract with the International Sailing Training Association (ISTA) for the broadcast and broadband rights to a tall ship race from Europe to North America and back to Europe. The event takes place in the year 2000 and Halifax is one of the stops along with Bermuda, New York and Boston.

Part of the company’s growth strategy is based on taking on projects which involve broadcast as well as other multimedia opportunities. Ad Vantage coo and executive producer Michael Willoughby says they are looking into an imax film, packaged programming, on-line streaming allowing landlubbers to take a look around the ships, virtual games and merchandising.

‘We realized there was a huge opportunity here to actually embark on a complex, multi-faceted undertaking,’ says Willoughby. ‘At the other end, we will be in tremendous shape to replicate and do it again with other world events.’

The business details of the project are still being worked out but Willoughby says he is looking at sponsorship opportunities as well as technology partners.

Ad Vantage is also in development on a one-hour doc for CBC Newsworld called Gander Oceanic, about the Gander Newfoundland trans-oceanic air traffic control centre which they hope to start shooting in the fall or winter.

– Blink joins animation scene

New on the Halifax animation scene is Blink Digital Productions.

Kick-started by Kerri Henneberry, formerly of Pixel Motion, the new company will specialize in cgi, sfx, hybrid computer/classical animation, interaction with new media technologies for intellectual property work and service work.

In business for only a few weeks Blink Digital Productions is doing graphics for Alliance’s Loving Evangeline. In September shooting will begin on a two-hour doc about Prince Henry Sinclair called The Prince and the Grail, produced by Robert Hutt, in addition to some special effects work on Salter Street’s Lexx.

The new shop will be seeking co-production partners.

– Internet TV service launches

Halifax’s Collideascope Digital Productions is developing an Internet-delivered tv service for pc users called Collideascope Broadcasting Network.

cbn is targeted to 20-somethings and will include short films and tv projects gathered by the Collidea-crew over the last few years in addition to content solicited from other young Atlantic filmmakers. Collideascope will be developing the software.

Funding for the test project has been provided by tara, which gave them investment capital and broadband access, the nsdfc and they are still waiting for an answer from Telefilm.

Collideascope is currently working on graphics for cycle 10 of Street Cents and Salter Street’s new Mrs. Greenthumbs, as well as packaging cbc First Edition. Collideascope animator Sean Scott’s animated short Tongue Twister will be running on Teletoon in September.

– Harlequin shoot in NS

Romance is in the air once again as production gets underway on another Alliance and Blue Wave Films Harlequin Romance Loving Evangeline, a $2.7 million mow, is being shot around Halifax and Dartmouth from July 19 to August 13.

Tim Bond is directing, Jennifer Black and Peter Lauterman are executive producers and Gilles Belanger is producing the mow, featuring actress Shari Belafonte.

– Preschool show prepping shoot

For the younger crowd, New Brunswick-based Abrams Media is prepping to shoot 30 episodes of their fourth season of Blue Rainbow, a half-hour series budgeted at roughly $500,000 for preschoolers to nine-year-olds.

Director and co-producer Greg Abrams says the series has been around since the early 80s and was originally a local production of the cbc. Around four years ago, it moved into the private domain and Abrams Media has been on it ever since. Lutia Lausane of Just Peachy Productions, also in New Brunswick, is co-producer.

– Proof Positive

A young woman contracts aids from a man who knowingly passes it to her in Proof Positive, an mow from New Brunswick’s Fundy Communications for ctv.

Shooting for the $3 million project is set to begin in September in Fredericton and will run for 20 days. Nancy Isaak penned the original script, Landed Eagle will distribute internationally, Eleanor Lindo will direct and Roy Krost is executive producer.

Fundy president Doug Sutherland says no lead has been nailed down yet but they are looking at Nancy McKeon (Facts of Life), Melissa Gilbert (Little House on the Prairie) and Tonya Lee Williams (The Young and the Restless).

– Gooey game show

YTV’s game show Uh Oh! has kicked off its Slime Tour and will be dumping their gruesome goo on young kids all across the east coast.

ytv is recruiting youngsters from Halifax, Charlottetown and Fredericton to participate throughout July. In August they will head back to Atlantic Canada to tape the chosen kids playing their games outside in selected locations.

The half-hour show, which targets 11 to 14 year-olds, will package the on-location segments with the studio portion shot in Toronto.