Vancouver: Following in the footsteps of Madison and Northwood, new West Coast teen soap Edgemont Road (Water Street Productions) went into production Oct. 18. The 13-episode series for cbc explores the varied lives of kids aged 14 to 18.

‘The show is a soap in structure, but in tone, it is not,’ says creator/producer Ian Weir. ‘It’s more of a three-dimensional, character-driven drama, liberally laced with humor.’

Its point of differentiation from its predecessors is that in Edgemont Road there are no adults in the roster of performers. The stories are told solely from the kids’ perspective.

The cast ranges from first-time actors like Kristin Kruek to relative veterans such as Sarah Lind (Mentors). Other cast include Vanessa King and Myles Ferguson. Toronto actor Dominic Zamprogna is the only non-b.c. talent.

In all, 650 were auditioned for the 17 acting jobs.

The production crams the 13 half-hour episodes into six weeks of production, a feat only achievable by block shooting – putting more than one episode in front of the cameras at the same time. The production is housed entirely in a CBC Vancouver soundstage, which also speeds up the production.

Another departure from the soap formula is the single-camera format in a four-wall set instead of the multi-camera format in a three-wall set. Weir says the tired look of a three-camera setup would only alienate his teen audience who demand more inventive visuals.

Michael Chechik, who produced the successful Odyssey series for kids a few years ago, executive produces with Weir.

Christian Bruyere, who is also overseeing the cbc mow Scorn, directed by Sturla Gunnarsson, takes the producer credit.

The show wraps Nov. 30.

*Echo Lake reverbs

A year ago, Echo Lake was going to be one of the first Canadian features shot on digital video. Weather, financing and cast scheduling conspired to throw the show off the rails then, but it has returned and wrapped this week.

Producers Sandra Edmunds, Richard Story and Monique Indra spent the year raising the financing through BC Tel’s New Media Fund and presales to TMN-The Movie Network and Vision tv. Still, the show has a micro budget, a cast of six and a crew of seven.

Story acts as the director and cameraman on the production that takes place in a remote rain forest on a northern Vancouver Island.

With shades of the Blair Witch Project, two estranged brothers take a life-changing trip into the rain forest where strange, supernatural events take place. Only one brother comes out of the woods.

Local actors Todd Witham and Harrison Coe star as the brothers. Other cast members are being recruited from Vancouver Island.

While the show is not being shot under the Dogme 95 Manifesto, only natural and bounced light was used to record the action.

*Fly away Peter

Pete Mitchell resigned his position as b.c.’s film commissioner Oct. 28 to take up the role of vp marketing at the expanding Vancouver Film Studios on Grandview Highway. The complex, which is presently a series of warehouses used for production, is evolving into a bona fide studio which will eventually house 10 stages, both renovated and purpose-built spaces.

‘It’s a great opportunity,’ says Mitchell. ‘It will be the largest facility of its kind and it allows me to move forward with my career.’

Over his four-year tenure at the B.C. Film Commission, the industry grew from $400 million in direct spending to $1 billion, which is the estimate for 1999.

‘The industry really has gone through a metamorphosis,’ says Mitchell, explaining that there has been a recent shift from television to film in Vancouver. He adds that while the financial incentives and crew are big draws for Vancouver, the merits of the stable labor-management relations and the general willingness of residents to accommodate the industry cannot be discounted.

A search to replace Mitchell had not begun at press time.

*Bon Voyage

An ambitious documentary project by Jack McGaw (Fiddler Productions) will follow the St. Roch ii vessel as it retraces the historic voyage of its namesake through the Northwest Passage 60 years ago.

Called Voyage of Rediscovery, the documentary will track the six-month voyage of the St. Roch ii (otherwise known as nadon) when it leaves Vancouver July 1. The documentary is to be finished within weeks of the voyage end in December. It will also involve a cd-rom project and links to the Internet website dedicated to the trip.

The documentary crew, who will accompany the nadon through the ice-choked Arctic and hurricane season in the Caribbean in its 22,000-kilometer, around-North America adventure, will mount a digital camera on the vessel and use satellites to bounce images to the website.

The original St. Roch, one of the most famous wooden vessels in the world, is located at the Vancouver Maritime Museum. The 65-foot aluminum St. Roch ii will also make history as the smallest vessel to make the trip.

*Polley-Annie

Fast-rising Canadian ingenue Sarah Polley is set to star in Vancouver producer Charles Pitts’ screen adaptation of Wilderness Station, a story written by Alice Munro. The production received a development boost with the patronage of executive producer Bill Gray at Cine-Groupe’s Toronto office.

Set in the 1850s, Wilderness Station is about a woman trapped in an arranged marriage with a cruel homesteader and her journey to find freedom. Anne Wheeler is set to direct and shares cowriting credit with Pitts (Lives of Girls and Women).

The production, which is scheduled to go to camera next year, is a coproduction between Pitts’ Gregorian Films, Anne Wheeler Films, Cine-Groupe and Polley.

*Rocky Mountain guy

CBS brings The John Denver Story to the small screen after production wraps Dec. 1. Chad Lowe stars as the folk singer who crashed his plane. Kristin Davis (Sex and the City) costars. The project is being produced by Granada, which also has two series in Vancouver – Beggars and Choosers for Showtime and Cold Feet for nbc.