Vancouver: The two-year-old Victoria Film Commission has fewer than 60 days to come up with $100,000 or it will have to close its doors, a prospect that would deflate (at least the optimism of) the present and expanding balloon of production business on Vancouver Island. Foundation grants have run their course.

Victoria Film Commissioner Kate Petersen says the Vancouver Island region is on track to handle $12 million or more in production budgets this year. With the standard multiplier effect, the economic impact of the Victoria industry is estimated at $30 million.

The commission, itself, has an annual budget of $250,000 to oversee its location marketing initiatives. Easing the financial burden are the offers of free office space from the province of b.c. and city of Victoria. The Victoria commission will move July 1.

‘The board is working really hard to find the funds,’ says Petersen. ‘We don’t think we will have to close the doors.’

Hopefully not if the current round of production is any indication of the commission’s ability to attract production and stimulate what will be Victoria’s busiest summer.

Forefront Entertainment’s Magician’s House, a six-part series for kids on ctv and bbc, began production earlier this month in Victoria. But new on the horizon is Old Hats, a family feature by Vancouver’s Mulberry Films (Bill Vince) about a group of seniors who escape for a last hurrah vacation.

Poison, meanwhile, is a Canadian feature by producers Ken Gord and Dennis Barry. It stars Rosanna Arquette as a glamorous mother who has a poisonous relationship with her teenage daughter, which is the backdrop for a murder mystery.

Screech is a $4.7-million feature by writer/producer Boon Collins, a resident of Cowichan Bay. In the film, which has u.s. partners and the backing of distributor Medianet International, a musician in a dying mining town seeks revenge with the help of bats with which he can communicate.

Production runs July 26 to Aug. 28 in Campbell River and the special effects will be handled in Vancouver at Reel Elements.

In addition, the Miramax/Disney feature Scream, If You Know What I Did Last Halloween and Disney/Vidatron kids’ series So Weird are both using Victoria for pickup shots.

Beyond that, Petersen says there are 25 other features and 10 other series scouting Victoria. And that doesn’t take into account a robust homegrown industry.

For instance, Asterisk Productions is in preproduction on the one-hour doc The Man Called Juan Carlos. Cygnus Communications has begun shooting four one-hours called Bearing Witness for the National Film Board. Gumboot is in production with a one-hour cbc Roughcuts doc called A Mother’s Son and is in post on a three-part series on youth care. And May Street Group is prepping a second season of romance travel series Best Places to Kiss, is in post with 13 half-hours of Virtues: A Family Affair for Vision tv, and plans to shoot the half-hour pilot for Mood Patrol this August.

* Mandalay eyes Vancouver

Lions Gate Entertainment, through its Mandalay division in l.a., has two more television projects tentatively slated for Vancouver. The Linda McCartney Story will air on cbs as a four-hour miniseries. Right now, the project is 100% owned by Lions Gate, but there are some British coproducers vying for a piece of the show, says a Lions Gate spokesperson.

Final Run, meanwhile, is a two-hour mow sequel to last year’s cbs project Final Descent, starring Robert Urich. This time it’s a problem on a train (rather than a plane) that provokes the terror and suspense.

* More boxes

The seventh and largest soundstage at North Vancouver’s Lions Gate Studios will be up and running Sept. 1, says facility gm Peter Leitch. Under construction since May, the 20,500-square-foot soundstage tucked into the remaining corner of the 14-acre site will feature 42-foot ceilings, 10 feet higher than the other six stages that range from 11,000 to 15,000 square feet. The cost of construction is between $1.5 million and $2 million.

According to Leitch, the new stage will appeal to bigger feature productions, and while no one has yet paid a deposit on the new space, there are two holds.

Meanwhile, Vancouver Studios, run by the McLean Group, is expected to announce a new studio project in July. The announcement will likely relate to an expansion of its property on Vancouver’s Grandview Highway.

* Spies and Angels

Columbia TriStar series Secret Agent Man – which shot its 30-minute pilot in Montreal – is starting up production on 12 hour-long episodes July 20.

The spoofish action adventure series stars Costas Mandylor. The series will air on upn. Production is scheduled to wrap Dec. 13.

And Fishing with John, an mow by Hearst Entertainment for Life Network in the u.s., stars former Charlie’s Angel Jaclyn Smith. It’s based on the true story of a journalist (Smith) who travels to b.c. to do a story on the West Coast fishery and falls in love with a fisherman, played by Tim Matheson. Production wraps July 9.

* Whoops

Cctually, the director assigned to mow Storm in Summer (Dufferin Gate and Showtime) is Robert Wise. An editing glitch shifted director Sam Pillsbury from Christmas in Calico to Storm in Summer.