Vancouver: The biggest miniseries ever to shoot in b.c. went to camera April 19 and will wrap July 7, before heading off for a few days of production in New York City.

Aftershock, a four-hour cbs movie to air during November sweeps, has a budget of $20 million. The average two-hour mow is about $4 million.

Starring Tom Skerritt (Picket Fences), Cicely Tyson, Sharon Lawrence (NYPD Blue) and Lisa Nicole Carson (Ally McBeal), Aftershock weaves together three story lines of people affected by a devastating earthquake in New York.

The project, which is shooting all around Vancouver, is executive produced by David Picker and Robert Halmi of Hallmark Entertainment and Matthew O’Connor of Vancouver’s Pacific Motion Pictures.

Another cbs tv project ramping up is Music From the Heart, a tv movie with singer Amy Grant, DW Moffett (Chicago Sons) and Keith Carradine in the starring roles. Production runs June 7 to July 2 on the love story about a blind concert cellist and a famous, self-centered pianist.

* Scream if it’s ironic

According to the BC Film Commission, the teen horror movie spoof Scream if You Know What I Did Last Halloween by Dimension Films will shoot in Vancouver this summer. Its competitor, I Know What You Screamed Last Summer, wrapped production in Los Angeles May 17, thanks to the financial backing of Vancouver production company Endless Entertainment.

I Know What You Screamed Last Summer, called the first major spoof of the ubiquitous youth genre on film and tv, has a budget of us$4 million.

l.a.-based Rhino Films (Plump Fiction) produced the film with financing arranged by co-executive producer Andrew Ooi of Vancouver.

It stars Tiffani-Amber Thiessen (Beverly Hills 90210) and Tom Arnold (The Stupids) among a slew of cameo performers including Shirley Jones, Jimmy J.J. Walker and Rose Marie. Canadian John Blanchard (sctv, Mad tv) directs.

Endless principal Ooi has been financing the startup of his new production company through his connections in Singapore, where Canada has a new coproduction treaty, and other parts of Asia.

Scream if You Know What I Did Last Halloween, meanwhile, is expected to have three times the production budget of its competitor. Expected to go to camera in June, the film will be directed by Keenen Ivory Wayans, and will star Shawn and Marlon Wayans.

* Glitter, glitter everywhere

Summer in Vancouver brings out the big-ticket celebrities. This year, Sharon Stone will take up residence at the end of June to shoot the feature Beautiful Joe.

Last in Vancouver to shoot the Richard Gere film Intersection, Stone stars this time opposite Brit Billy Connelly (Mrs. Brown). Production on Beautiful Joe, about a jilted man with brain cancer who goes on a spontaneous road trip with a compulsive gambler and her two kids, will wrap by Aug. 17.

The film is written and directed by American Stephen Metcalfe and is backed by London, Eng.-based Capitol Films.

Tim Robbins and Gary Sinise, two other big stars to alight in Vancouver, will star in Disney’s adventure flick Mission to Mars.

Meanwhile, Jeff Goldblum, Salma Hayak and Orlando Jones are set to star in the Warner Bros. feature Shiny New Enemies. The story about a barber goes to camera June 7 and runs to mid-August.

And for those who think celebrity is skin deep, there’s Headover Heels, which will boast the talents of the world’s supermodels. In the comedy, a woman moves into a New York apartment with three uber-models, who were unnamed at press time.

Production on the Universal Pictures project launches June 16 and wraps sometime in August.

* Abracadabra

Forefront Entertainment (in coproduction with Kudos Production of London, Eng.) is in preproduction with the six-episode kids’ series Magician’s House, which will air on ctv and bbc in or around November.

Set for production in Victoria – principally at Royal Rhodes College – Magician’s House is described by producer Helena Cynamon as ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe with attitude’ and is based on the books written by William Corlett. Ian Richardson (Brazil) is in the lead of the half-hour series.

Production begins June 21 and runs to the end of July.

The rest of the Forefront slate in 1999 involves the remaining five episodes of the first season of These Arms of Mine and potentially the long-form production of Concubine’s Children in the fall.

* Take my wives, please

Rodney Dangerfield stars in the Canadian comedy My Five Wives, produced by Toronto’s Gary Howsam (of Greenlight Entertainment) and Vancouver’s John Curtis (former Greenlight colleague, now Prophecy Pictures chief).

Officially the film is produced by Redwood Films and will be handled by distributors including Blue Rider International, Artisan Entertainment and GFT Paquin.

In the $5-million feature, Dangerfield buys a ski resort, but it comes with five wives attached.

Production runs May 31 to June 25 and locations include Fort Langley, Ladner and the Seymour Demonstration Forest.

* Kudos

Jacques Pepin’s Kitchen: Encore with Claudine, made by Vancouver-based producer Brian Murphy of Wabi Sabi Creative, was named best national cooking show in the u.s. by the James Beard Foundation at a gala May 3 in New York.

Often called the Oscars of the food world, the annual event honors chefs, restaurants, journalists, cookbook authors, restaurant designers, and electronic media professionals.

The 26 half-hours were shot at the kqed studios in San Francisco.