Heartland Motion Pictures has cracked the u.s. market, landing a development deal with cbs to produce a $10-million tv movie. Minds Eye Pictures has opened a Santa Monica office and will team up with l.a.-based Legend Entertainment on feature film projects. Partners In Motion has launched an international distribution division.

This is just some of the evidence of the maturation of the Saskatchewan production industry, as local companies expand their infrastructure, diversify production slates and seize opportunities in the international market.

The Saskatchewan film and tv sector hit a benchmark in 1998, with production volume more than doubling to $48 million from $20 million a year earlier. With the support of a 35% labor tax rebate securely in place and increased activity in the foreign marketplace, 1999 projections call for total budgets to rise to $70 million.

Eyeing $10M in service

Regina-based Minds Eye is aiming to top its 1998 production volume of $15 million during the upcoming year and increase the volume of work through its new service division, where it’s projecting over $10 million in activity. The company is also pushing to make further inroads into coproduction territory with American and overseas partners. To this end, a Santa Monica office has been opened to give Minds Eye a presence in the u.s. market.

Minds Eye president Kevin DeWalt says he has cemented a relationship with Tom Berry’s l.a. company Legend Entertainment and hopes to announce several projects later this year.

In other Minds Eye expansion news, Regina post-production house Post Master, a Minds Eye affiliate company, has purchased the assets of Calgary’s Post House and will operate the company under the Post Master name.

Minds Eye’s growing feature film production slate includes the fall shoot of War Brides, a $6.5-million film coproduced with Random Harvest in the u.k. and Vandguard Entertainment in Vancouver. War Brides is the story of several British women who marry Canadian servicemen and start a new life in North America while their husbands are at war. Angela Workman is writing the script.

The project has been licensed to the A-Channel Drama Fund and negotiations are underway for a director and Canadian distributor.

Escape From Ragoon, a Canada/Germany coproduction, is a $5-million joint venture with C-Films of Munich. Minds Eye has a 65% stake in the project and financing includes ZDF Enterprises, wic and Forefront Releasing as the Canadian distributor, with Minds Eye International holding foreign rights.

A contemporary Midnight Express, Escape From Ragoon is scripted by Chris Bryant. The story is set in Thailand and will shoot in November 1999. DeWalt is finalizing u.s. distribution with an l.a.-based company.

The Incredible Story Studios, a children’s series coproduced with Verite Films of Regina, has recently inked deals with Discovery Kids in the u.s. and Disney in the u.k., France and Germany. Sales have also been made to Latin and South America, Australia and China. ytv has ordered a third season.

Kids’ programming thrust

Kids’ programming is an expanding area at Minds Eye. Global Television and scn have greenlit production of a 13-part, half-hour preschool variety series titled Prairie Berry Pie. Minds Eye is coproducing with Moosejaw Light and Power and CBC Regina, which has kicked in a facility deal.

The $1-million series about a girl named Brenda who lives in a grain elevator has a Prairies feel and flavor and features children’s entertainer Brenda Baker and a cast of puppets. Production begins in May.

Seven more episodes of Mentors have been ordered by vtv. The educational kids’ show is budgeted at $450,000 per half-hour and coproduced with Alberta’s Anaid Productions.

Minds Eye is in development on a youth series with Yan Moore Productions and Angela Bruce Productions of Toronto. AD2030 is set in a futuristic society where the life span is only 35 years and consequently young people have far more authority and responsibility than they do in today’s world. The CTV Saskatchewan Development Fund and WIC Premium Television have triggered development. The budget is $450,000 per half-hour.

In development with pbs and WIC Premium Television is the one-hour adventure series Myth Quest, in which an archeologist is zapped back to mythological times and his children return to the past to find him. The budget is $1.1 million per hour. Scripting of 13 episodes is underway. The head writer is Morrie Ruvinsky, who has penned scripts for Highlander, The Lost City and Raven.

CBS coup

Heartland’s tv movie for cbs, Flower of the Flock, is the turn-of-the-century story of an English woman who becomes ill with tuberculosis and puts her children in an orphanage. Based on the true story of England’s home children, the kids are sent to Canada to work on farms.

Guy Mullally, a former Street Legal story editor, and American Insley Pearre, cowrote the script, which has passed third draft at the American network.

Heartland president Stephen Onda says he had been showing projects in development to Bonneville Worldwide Entertainment and they hooked him up with Craig Anderson, an executive producer who makes tv movies for cbs. Anderson liked the project and has come on board to exec produce.

Onda anticipates $12 million worth of production in 1999.

Heartland is in the advanced stages of negotiations with cbc to prelicense the feature film Through The Leaves, penned by Albertan Kelly Rebar. Set in the 1950s on a prairie farm, the story looks at the feminist awakenings of a multigenerational family of women. Shooting is scheduled for next fall. It is likely Andre Picard of Montreal’s SDA Productions will coproduce, says Onda.

Borderline Normal, a script form Larry Mollin, one of the coexecutive producers of Beverly Hills 90210, has been licensed to TMN-The Movie Network and Superchannel. In this coming-of-age tale, a 15-year-old boy commutes between Windsor and Detroit to visit his recently divorced parents.

Bill Stampe will direct.

Tyndal takes toon tack

Pebble Beach Interactive, a division of Heartland Motion Pictures, has changed its name to Tyndal Stone Media and entered the animation business. Its first project was animating season two of The Maximum Dimension, a kids’ series coproduced by Heartland and Owl/sda.

Tyndal is now looking to do animation service work for other tv projects, says Leif Storm, who heads up the company.

Tyndal produces cd-roms for the educational and retail market as well as corporate and commercial clients. The company recently set up a distribution arm to sell its own cd-rom projects and down the road will acquire and sell outside projects.

Its productions include Finding The Balance, sold internationally by one of the world’s largest cd-rom distributors, The Learning Company; Ideas and Inspirations, a cd-rom on contemporary Canadian art which Tyndal self-distributes; and Stories In Season, distributed by Prentice Hall Ginn in Canada and Tyndal internationally.

The company’s upcoming new media projects include Media Literacy, a $350,000 cd-rom that gives kids the opportunity to edit newspapers, create music videos and produce tv news segments.

The project is being coproduced with the National Film Board and funded by the Saskfilm New Media Fund, Telefilm’s new media fund, and a prebuy from Saskatchewan Education.

Gabrielle’s Story Adventures uses First Nations stories to teach kids about the art of storytelling and features Cree performer Winston Wttunee.

The Creative Process features interviews with leading innovators in art, music and scientific research, including interviews with the creators of the ReBoot tv series.

Doubling doc output

Partners In Motion’s new distribution and equity investment arm, Harmony Entertainment Management, will distribute reality-based, information and documentary projects. Harmony represents over 32 hours of documentary and tv series programming and anticipates expanding to nearly 60 hours by the end of the year and 150 hours by the year 2000.

The company is looking to distribute high-end docs as well as reality and information-based programming, says Harmony’s ceo Ron Goetz.

Partners In Motion anticipates doubling its 20 hours of documentary production in 1999.

The company’s latest project is a coproduction with Single Spark Productions of Santa Monica. Survivors, a three one-hour series budgeted at $1.3 million, is fully financed outside the Canadian market with a broadcast licence from The Learning Channel and distribution from New York-based Tapestry International.

Survivors profiles the lives of people who have lived through the world’s most devastating natural and manmade disasters.

In post for History Television is the $200,000 feature-length film Mountain of Gold, a historical documentary chronicling a turn-of-the-century gold rush along the b.c. coast.

Also with History and a second window to scn is A Soldier’s Story, a one-hour $110,000 Remembrance Day special featuring interviews with wwi vets; the three-part, $450,000 Disasters of the Century, a Canadian look at historical disasters of the early 20th century; and Wings Of Courage, a coproduction with Laurie Kauffner about a woman who flew planes during wwii.

Partners In Motion is anticipating a move into kids’ programming. CBC Saskatchewan has put development money on its first children’s series, Mr. Airport.

Venturing east

Film Crew Productions of Regina has opened an Ontario development office, helmed by one of the company partners Clark Donnelly; appointed Michael Snook as company ceo; branded its production division under the new name WestWind Pictures; and will move into the feature film business in 1999.

Film Crew created Java Post earlier this year to provide post-production services for its own projects, but due to high demand is now servicing outside productions and commercial clients.

WestWind recently signed a coproduction deal with Newfoundland-based Red Ochre Productions for its first feature, Charlie Wilcox, based on a children’s story written by Sharon McKay. Set during wwi, Charlie Wilcox is based on the true story of a boy who stows away on a ship to avoid his parent’s demand that he go to school and ends up in the heart of a naval battle in France.

The $10-million film will shoot next summer.

The third season of the half-hour architecture and design show This Small Space for the Canadian and American hgtv channel is in post-production.

In development for hgtv Canada and us. is a new series called Designer Guys, in which two very different designers visit homes and review the interior design and architecture.

The Earth’s Garden, a 13-part doc series about people and plants, will shoot in Canada and internationally this summer on an $850,000 budget. The series is licensed to wtn, Access, scn and Knowledge Network.

Film Crew is also developing a series for three- to six-year-olds titled Auntie Glennie’s Garden, in which kids of different ethnic backgrounds meet to work and play in a magical garden. The 26-part, 15-minute series combines live action, puppets and animation. It is currently being shopped to potential Canadian and u.s. broadcasters.