Playback is marking the return of Prairie Scene with this Special Report on Production in the Prairie Provinces and B.C. Following its relaunch, Prairie Scene will appear every second issue in the Film and Television section of Playback.

John N. Smith will direct Regina-based Minds Eye Pictures’ $40-million feature film The Englishman’s Boy, based on the Governor General Award-winning book by Guy Vanderhague, who is also writing the script.

Smith is best known for directing the cbc miniseries The Boys of St. Vincent. He has also helmed several American films, including Dangerous Minds, starring Michelle Pfeiffer.

Development financing has come by way of ctv, which has purchased Canadian broadcast rights, Telefilm Canada and Saskfilm.

The Englishman’s Boy follows drifter Scotty McAdoo, who’s fed canned peaches to coax the story of his life, a tale linking the glory days of 1920s Hollywood with the bloody events of the Cypress Hills Massacre in 19th century Saskatchewan.

Location scouting will begin this summer in southern Saskatchewan and Los Angeles, with principal photography scheduled for the summer of 2000.

*North of 60 sequel

Although In The Blue Ground, the tv movie based on the drama series North of 60, will not air on cbc until March 28, the pubcaster has given the green light to another two-hour mow which will continue the sagas of rcmp corporals set in a northern community.

Production on the next installment will begin this July in Bragg Creek, Alta. Andrew Wreggitt, executive story editor of the North of 60 series and writer of In The Blue Ground, is penning the script.

Tom Dent-Cox and Doug MacLeod of Alberta Filmworks will once again produce and North of 60 favorites Tina Keeper, Tom Jackson and Peter Kelly Gaudreault will lead the cast.

*Dinosaur hunting in Saskatchewan

Set in the 1920s, Dinosaur Hunter is the tale of a young brother and sister and their adventures hunting for dinosaur bones. The tv movie is scripted by Edwina Follows (sister of actress Megan Follows of Anne of Green Gables fame) and is being coproduced by Gail Tilson’s Independent Moving Pictures of Regina and Credo Entertainment of Winnipeg.

Budgeted at $3 million, the project is licensed to wic and Credo International is handling foreign sales.

Production is scheduled for spring in Saskatchewan. No word on cast or director as yet.

*Buffalo Gals team up with Ontario producers

Buffalo Gal Pictures of Winnipeg and Tapestry Films of Toronto are coproducing Children of My Heart, a tv movie based on a Gabrielle Roy’s novel about a teacher’s experiences in a small Prairie town. The project is slated for principal photography this fall and Keith Leckie is directing.

The A-Channel Drama Fund has committed a licence to the $4-million project.

Buffalo Gal is currently wrapping another Manitoba/Ontario coventure, the feature-length doc Guitar Visionary: The Lenny Breau Story, with Toronto’s Sleeping Giant Productions. The biography of the musician’s life will air on Bravo!.

Buffalo Gal and Sleeping Giant are also teaming up on Trouble In Mind, a 13-part, half-hour series for wtn, Vision Television and mtn.

Principal photography has begun on Seventh Sister, the story of Wanda Koop, an internationally renowned Winnipeg artist. The $200,000 doc is produced by Buffalo Gal and licensed to Vision and Bravo!.

*Sparkles follow-up

Jeff Beesley of Moosejaw, Sask. is working on a follow-up to his directorial debut Sparkles, a pseudo-documentary about a woman who grew up dreaming of one day becoming a star. The film premiered at the Montreal World Film Festival and scored eight awards at the Saskatchewan Showcase Awards last November.

Beesley’s latest screenplay also centers on an unusual character. Who Shot Elvis? is about a young guy who has lived a sheltered life with his pill-popping mother and aunt until he finally strikes out on his own at the age of 25 when his aunt dies. Eventually, Elvis finds himself torn between making it on his own or returning to the safe, albeit dysfunctional, surroundings of his family.

Beesley will write, direct and produce the $1.5-million feature through his company Light Over Canvas and is seeking private investment to put the financing together.

*Heartland off to Tansania

How much should you budget for armed guards and ammunition? That’s the question Stephen Onda at Regina’s Heartland Motion Pictures has been asking as he puts together the financing for Wiring The Developing World, an scn documentary that takes a look at a Tansania telecommunications project set in the midst of an impoverished city.

To shoot in Tansania, the rule is you must have an armed guard for every crew member brought in.

Production of Backstage Pass should prove easier to produce, or at least safer. The documentary is based on the footage of a young filmmaker who followed the band The Waltons over a five-year period, from their beginnings pounding out tunes in their parents’ garage to their world tour and Warner Bros. deal, the dissolution of their careers, and their eventual return home.

scn is the only broadcaster who has signed on thus far.

*In production

The excavation of the first full skeleton of the Permian Age protomannal (the Gorgonopsid) is underway in South Africa, and Winnipeg’s Credo Entertainment and Edmonton companies Northern Lights Productions and Clearwater Media are documenting the event.

The footage will be part of End of Evolution, a one-hour, $500,000 doc on mass extinctions based on the book of the same name by paleontologist Dr. Peter Ward (host of the show), who journeys around the world examining past disasters.

Writer and director is Tom Radford of Clearwater. Producers are Michael Scott of Credo and Melissa Ruckmick of Northern Lights; exec producer is Credo’s Andrew Koster.