Vancouver: If sheer elbow grease earns you credibility in the movie business then Miridien Filmed Entertainment will have Hollywood at its feet. Okay, an exaggeration, but the Vancouver-based, low, low, low-budget production company – which amalgamated Jan. 20 with equally budget-conscious producer Isis Media Works of Vancouver – will have line produced one feature and produced two of its own features and a short film by the end of March.

Producer Renee Giesse, one of a handful of young producers at Miridien, says the advent of digital video and the eagerness of crews to work on deferral or for free has allowed the company to self-finance, quickly earn its credentials and gain the interest of distributors.

In January, the company oversaw production on Exiles in Paradise (by director Wesley Lowe), a story about the challenges of immigrants.

And Miridien wrapped production Feb. 25 on the film industry mockumentary Sex, Size and Other Lies. The low-budget independent comedy takes a swipe at show business and also manages to ‘dissect the sexual repression that plagues North American society – The Player meets Living in Oblivion,’ says a synopsis from Miridien.

Written and directed by Lindsay Bourne, the film stars Vancouver actor Steven Mansueto, who also appears in Exiles and is a cofounder of Miridien with Trevor Mirosh. Bourne and Mansueto coproduce Sex with film bank roller Lily Hui and former Isis principals Miki Czernin von Chudenitz and Giesse.

Salvador’s Deli, meanwhile, wraps 11 days of production March 14. The black comedy is about three brothers forced to take over their father’s pizza restaurant after he’s killed and their developing skills in the area of euthanasia.

Savage Island goes March 18-31 as a psychological thriller about a family that moves into a remote seaside home only to find they are unwitting neighbors to a family that lives in the wild and has designs on their domesticated son.

Shoplifter, a short that mixes The Matrix with The Twilight Zone, goes into production later spring.

Giesse says cash flow comes from earnings by Isis as a music video and commercial production company and post-production facilities let out by Miridien’s founding owners.

*Let it be

The long-awaited Columbia TriStar mow about the life of Linda McCartney goes into production in Vancouver March 13 to April 7. No cast was finalized at press time.

And the nbc pilot Rocky Times will wrap production March 8. Exec produced by Bob Goodwin (The X-Files), the series involves a Bostonian played by Breckin Meyer (The Insider) who follows his girlfriend played by Laurie Fortier (To Gillian on her 37th Birthday) to a quirky Colorado town and works for a tabloid newspaper.

*Transaction Man

Mainframe Entertainment will be the service producer for Hasbro Properties’ 26-episode cgi series Action Man, to begin airing on Fox Kids later this year. A one-hour special airs in May.

According to a company statement, Action Man is the number one toy for boys in Europe and the series will launch the Action Man line of toys and games, licensed merchandise and marketing programs in the u.s.

Bob Skir and Marty Isenberg, following up work on Transformers: Beast Machines (Fox Kids, ytv), will write the series.

Mainframe chief executive Ian Pearson says the new series will combine the best technologies dedicated to motion capture for the action sequences with Mainframe’s signature lip-synching and character animation.

Action Man is about the adventures of a young thrill-seeker who discovers a unique ability to anticipate and react to danger a split second before it happens. Of course, he also has to save the world.

*Snow job

While Paramount feature Snow Day may have shoveled a quick path to box office oblivion, one local contributor’s 3D stop-motion animation work should not be overlooked. Animator David Bowes, who stars in his own Telus ad about a clay animation director, is responsible for two minutes of screen time when he facilitates a Marvel Comics superhero doll’s ability to ‘talk’ to a young female character. Bowes worked with Calgary puppet-makers Chris Bridges and Brian Pfahl.

Known mostly for commercials and the Leo Award-winning Twisteeria (ytv), 12-year-old Bowes Productions is using the Calgary-shot Snow Day, the company’s first feature, to get into longer-form work.

*Short stuff

Writer Deborah Peraya, director Larry Di Stefano and producer Eunice Lee comprise the Vancouver-based creative team behind the only Western Canadian short film script to win a National Screen Institute-Canada drama prize this year.

Mr. Reubens Goes to Mars is a 10-minute story about an elderly man and his friends from a seniors home who wreak havoc at a nightclub. Peraya and Di Stefano also produced the 1998 16-minute short film Dirty Windows (which documents in vignettes the course of a romantic relationship) and are amid production on another short, The Lumiere Report, a five-minute, 1940s-style newsreel about a film director. Lee is a producer for the cbc pilot Lotusland, an arts and culture program that debuted in February.

The nsi prize includes $3,000 in cash, $6,000 in services, training at the Institute in Winnipeg and instant participation in the Local Heroes film fest.

*Calendar pinups

Playback, yes us, is a sponsor for the April 6 B.C. Film and Television Symposium hosted by legal powerhouse Arthur Evrensel of the Vancouver office of Heenan Blaikie. Themes to be explored include bank financing, tax credits, convergence, coproductions and broadcasters. Registration is (604) 669-0011, ext. 105 and cost is just shy of $250 including gst.

* You have until April 7 to apply to become one of 30 aspiring filmmakers in b.c. to convene for ReelShorts, a five-day video workshop that is part of the B.C. Festival of the Arts in Nelson May 26 to June 3. Mentors Norma Bailey (The Sheldon Kennedy Story) and Sandy Wilson (My American Cousin) will instruct participants on how to make short documentaries or dramas.

For submission guidelines, see www.bcfestivalofthearts.bc.ca.