*Brat Pack touches down at C.O.R.E.

Features in-house at C.O.R.E. Digital Pictures include The New Jersey Turnpikes from Universal, The Three Hundred and Ninety First from the Canadian Film Centre and Goldfever from Imax/Science North/Shaftesbury Films.

Other projects in the shop include the kids’ series Brats Of The Lost Nebula (DECODE Entertainment/Jim Henson Entertainment/ Wandering Monkey), Alliance Atlantis series Gene Roddenberry’s Earth: Final Conflict and Psi Factor, and Temple Street/Showtime mows Dead Aviators and Sea People.

On the broadcast design side, c.o.r.e. recently worked on a 30-second master opening and various new animation packages for TMN-The Movie Network, various new animation openings for Moviepix, and a Family Channel broadcast design package.

*Full slate at GFX

Gajdecki Visual Effects (Toronto) is working on Total Recall: 2070, an Alliance Atlantis tv series loosely based on the Arnold Schwarzenegger film of the same title. Jon Campfens is the visual effects supervisor for this project. Total Recall is one of the largest sci-fi series ever to come to Toronto.

John Gajdecki recently finished effects supervising the second season of mgm’s Stargate SG-1. The series is one of the largest special effects jobs to come to Vancouver.

Also in the shop: Mission to Mars, The Roswell Project and A Day in the Life, all from Future Films.

David Axford is the visual effects supervisor and Bruce Turner is the post supervisor for these projects. The projects were shot in Winnipeg and posted last month at gfx Vancouver.

Work is also underway on Singer White’s Beyond The Bermuda Triangle. Beyond the Bermuda Triangle was filmed in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, and posted in Vancouver. The visual effects supervisor for this project was Jean Luc Dinsdale, who is back in Vancouver working as a visual effects coordinator for Stargate SG-1.

On Guard is a large-format action film for the Singapore Discovery Centre. Visual effects supervisor is Tom Turnbull.

gfx is also working on Alliance Atlantis mega miniseries for cbc/cbs, Joan of Arc, currently shooting in Prague, Czechoslovakia. Turnbull is supervising visual effects for this project, which will be posting in April at gfx’s Toronto office.

The shop is also doing effects work for nbc mow The Unicorn’s Secret.

The Unicorn’s Secret is a true story based on controversial ’70s political activist Ira Einhorn, who was nicknamed ‘The Unicorn.’ gfx is creating crowd duplication scenes and Mark Savela is supervising.

*Ladies take Rainmaker on Road Trip

In Vancouver, Rainmaker Digital Pictures is currently doing lab and dailies work on a couple of features: Crack in the Mirror for Prophecy Pictures, which went to camera Jan. 4, and Barenaked Ladies Road Trip, a feature-length documentary on the Canadian band being produced by Nett Films.

The shop is presently posting the mow Day in the Life, the fourth in a series of telefilms being produced by Future Films and Credo Entertainment of Winnipeg, and is doing some post and effects work on the Hallmark/Pacific Motion Pictures miniseries P.T. Barnum, which is moving into the b.c. phase of production after shooting in Quebec.

Visual effects supervisor Marc Varisco is preparing to start work on the Shavick Entertainment project Heaven’s on Fire.

Post and visual effects work continues on several series, including Millennium and Strange World for Twentieth Television and Poltergeist for MGM Worldwide – all of which have recently utilized Rainmaker’s services in both Vancouver and Burbank. Rainmaker is also still in production with Highlander – The Raven (Firecorp Productions) and The Crow – Stairway to Heaven (Crescent Entertainment).

The shop is also finishing up the post and effects on three Sugar Entertainment series: First Wave, Dead Man’s Gun and So Weird.

*Boys go the limit

Vancouver-based Lost Boys Studio has launched the year with a full complement of series work on The Outer Limits. The shop is working on five effects-heavy episodes of the show: ‘Joy Ride,’ ‘Other Side,’ ‘Grell,’ ‘Human Operators’ and ‘Small Friends.’

Lost Boys digital compositing artist Geoff Richardson also just completed a sequence for abc sitcom The Hughleys, produced by Matt Wickline out of l.a. For the episode, ‘Horror Hotel,’ Richardson used Alias|Wavefront Composer to create a hotel exterior, integrating a matte painting created by Vancouver’s Paolo Venturi.

*Anne still at TOYBOX

Toronto’s toybox is working on the four-hour miniseries Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing Story from Sullivan Entertainment. The toybox visual effects team is led by Tony Willis and is working on green screen shots and matte paintings to recreate the story’s historical events.

toybox is also working on mow Happy Face Murders from Paramount/Dufferin Gate as well as the Superstar feature from Viacom (Paramount) and is creating a high-definition logo for an opening sequence of Nova for wgbh-tv.

TOYBOX West is working on the Nightman series from Alliance Atlantis/Crescent/Tribune, for which the team of Dave Robinson and Vic Harnett composited over 80 green screen shots and created other explosive effects.