Shaftesbury Entertainment has acquired the rights to six murder mysteries by Saskatchewan writer Gail Bowen, two of which – Deadly Appearances and Love and Murder – will go before the cameras this summer.

Both mows, budgeted at around $3.5 million, are being shot at Toronto locations from July 19 to Sept. 10 and will air on ctv in the spring.

Deadly Appearances was penned by R.B. Carney, and Carney and Rob Forsyth teamed up on Love and Murder. George Bloomfield (who shot Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang last summer with the production company) is directing and Gerald Packer is behind the camera. Telegenic Programs is handling sales in the u.s. Hamdon Entertainment islooking after the rest of the world.

The stories follow the adventures of Joanne Kilbourn, an ex-cop who teaches at the university. In Deadly Appearances, a young woman is murdered and Kilbourn’s friend, a well-known politician, is the suspect. The setup for this series of murder investigations continuously puts Kilbourne at odds with the police.

Producer Christina Jennings says there is a bit of ‘a cat and mouse’ between the main character and the police force.

Wendy Crewson (The Sue Rodriguez Story) plays Kilbourn and Victor Garber (Titanic) is the inspector, another recurring character. Guest roles in Deadly Appearances include Michael Ontkean, Simon Callow (Shakespeare In Love) and Domini Blyth. The cast of Love and Murder was not confirmed at press time.

Jennings says the plan is to shoot two more mysteries next summer and the final two the summer after that.

Other projects in the final stages of development at Shaftesbury include two coproductions with the u.k.’s Greenpoint Films, Just The Three Of Us and The Boggart.

Just the Three of Us is a period romance set in 1916 about two young girls who come to North America from England. The feature will be shot in Liverpool and in the Okanagan region in b.c. Jennings says the plan is to shoot in the fall.

The Boggart, also a feature, is the story of a Canadian family which inherits a castle in Scotland. They go to check out their new home and put it up for sale, and when they return to Toronto find a creature of old magic has stowed away with them. The children then try to find a way to get the creature back home. Prep will begin in January and the shoot will take place in Scotland and Toronto. John Henderson will direct.

Women in the wilderness

over the last nine years, director/ cameraman Douglas Spencer has made 28 trips to some of the most exotic and remote areas of the world – each time accompanied by a different woman – for the new 13-part wtn series Off The Map.

Producer Felice Gorica describes it as a ‘Lonely Planet for women but instead of looking like a travel show it looks like a doc shot for National Geographic.’

Aside from wtn, where Off The Map will launch in the fall, the series, budgeted at $300,000, will also launch on Travel Channel in the u.s. Filmoption is distributing.

Each half-hour follows a woman roughing it in front of the camera in a remote part of the world as she recounts her experiences.

The women, who are recruited from travel clubs and through word of mouth, have traveled to such places as Africa, Bolivia, the Galapagos Islands and Guyana.

In the coming months, Spencer will take one woman to Oman in the Middle East, will accompany someone else to Ethiopia, and will take another trip to Haiti in search of the origins of voodoo.

The travel cost is low as Spencer has become very good at getting the smaller airlines to give him free tickets to out-of-the-way places. As far as accommodations are concerned, they are not staying in five-star hotels.

Spencer had his mind set on making these tapes into a series right from the start, but it wasn’t until Gorica came on board just over a year ago that things started to happen. She cut a demo from his stacks of tapes, sent it to wtn, and three months later the broadcaster was on board.

Shortly after that, Gorica got a call from Filmoption which was interested in a doc she was producing, Behind Enemy Lines for History Channel, at which point she took the opportunity to pitch Filmoption on the new series.

*Entertainment that Educates

Following the success of the one-hour special Smart Kids, Safe Streets, Big Star Entertainment has set up an in-house video distribution arm and is now in development on a second project, Runaway Dreams.

A documentary-style program, Runaway Dreams will be aimed at kids aged 13-18 and will be shot on a budget of around $150,000 which Big Star hopes to amass through corporate sponsorship. The project will be shot for broadcast and distributed on video for the educational market.

Also in the works at Big Star is a doc plus a tv series which company president Frank Deluca remains tight lipped about and a doc on the history of Customs Canada, based on a book called The Collectors.

Smart Kids is a one-hour special produced as an educational tool for parents and children on street-proofing which aired on Global in the spring and was hosted by Beverly Thomson. The project was shot for $172,000, $50,000 of which came from the Department of Justice as part of its new strategy on crime prevention.

The project covers everything from discussions on why to avoid talking to strangers to safety on the Internet. According to Deluca, following the broadcast the lines at Child Find were jammed with people requesting copies.

Ann Kennard was director and dop Mario Madau shot the special on Sony’s Digital Betacam.

Big Star, based in Richmond Hill, Ont., started off shooting commercials as a way to fund its long-form projects, and, while the company still shoots spots for clients such as Italpasta and Jamieson Laboratories, Deluca says it is now concentrating on long form.

*Man of Silver

Trinity Pictures started rolling July 12 on feature film Silverman, a romantic comedy along the lines of 1995’s Powder about a young man who is silver.

Growing up a circus freak show side act, Silverman becomes a street musician, falls in love for the first time and learns to come to terms with who he is.

Peter Foldy is directing and dop Dylan Macleod is taking his first shot at a feature. Gerald Sanford wrote the original screenplay and John Gillespie is producer.

Silverman is being shot in and around Toronto for about us$1.5 million. Annex Entertainment is distributing.

Paul Popowich (Catwalk) will play the lead and is joined by Eugene Levy, Joe Pantoliano and Daniel Baldwin, who is in town prepping for his directorial debut, Fall, also out of Trinity.

A dialogue-heavy gangster flick, Fall goes in front of the camera Aug. 23 and stars James Coburn and Michael Madsen (Reservoir Dogs).

*On guard

Formerly known as Hollywood Canada Productions, Liquid Pictures is in development on a $150,000 doc We Stand On Guard: 100 years of The Royal Canadian Regiment.

The project, produced and directed by Mark Terry, will be shot in Ottawa and Toronto as well as Bosnia and Kosovo, where a military crew will grant the production access to areas not open to the media. Tina D’Brass is coproducing. No broadcaster is on board.

Another show in the works at Liquid is The Great Canadian House Party, a showcase of 13 unique individuals from across the country. The cbc series will focus on a different person from each province and tell his or her story.

On the feature film end, Terry is in the writing stage of a monster movie set in Montreal called Creature. Described by Terry as ‘a typical creature feature,’ Creature is about a giant monster moving through the city and killing people.

Liquid’s celebrity interview cooking show, Table For Two, currently airs on ontv.

The company recently acquired an 800-tape stock footage library with shots of famous locations around the world.