Vancouver: A new partner of Stratford Internet Technologies of Vancouver has purchased Urban Peasant Productions – maker of 650 22-minute episodes of the cbc cooking show Urban Peasant – and will remake the show for broadcast and webcast this September.

In the deal, host James Barber and Urban Peasant executive producer Jack McGaw move to Stratford’s Avenuezero.com, a website designed to make urban living easier.

Seen in 80 countries and heard in five languages, Barber is one of the most televised cooking show hosts in the world, says Avenuezero president and ceo Bob Bedard. He adds that Barber’s television audience skews to a younger, e-commerce-friendly demographic (aged 18-34), which makes him a good choice for a Web-based production, so far called Cooking with James.

By combining tv, Internet and animation, the new show or ‘studio’ will feature a video feed of Barber at the stove composited with an animated background and sassy, new characters – the twin, Generation-y girls April and Zoe – with Who Framed Roger Rabbit-type results.

At press time, a pilot for pbs was being shot and produced, says Bedard, though no broadcast arrangements had been signed. In Canada, the show will move from cbc to the Food Network, he adds.

As part of the deal, Avenuezero will digitize the 650 existing episodes of Urban Peasant and add the new animated backgrounds. At times when Barber is talking to the audience, Avenuezero will insert the twins. The result is an archive of cooking tips so that when site users want to know how, for example, to braise carrots, they can download a clip.

Other proposed webcast studios on Avenuezero include Clarice’s Toolbox, Saving Space with Linsey, The Urban Garden with Al and Entertaining with Herb and Maurice.

Meanwhile, two other Stratford divisions are on steep growth curves because of Web-based production and post-production: Supersonic is an audio/video/dvd post house for Web production and SuperVision is a 2D animation and webisode production company. The companies will move into 9,000 square feet of office space in Vancouver’s trendy Yaletown district in June, says Supersonic gm Pat Batrynchuk.

The companies act as service suppliers to Web-based series such as The God & Devil Show (on Time Warner’s site Entertaindom.com) and Radiskull (on Macromedia’s Shockwave.com).

Check out //www.entertaindom.com/pages/god_devil/home.jsp and //joesparks.shockwave.com.

The three- to four-minute animated ‘webisodes’ are content created specifically for the Web as production initiatives to keep user traffic high, says Batrynchuk. ‘Flash’-brand technology, for instance, allows the sites to animate simple 2D skits like The God & Devil Show, which is a kind of warped Regis & Kathie Lee talk show.

But Batrynchuk says the real potential is in how Flash can be used to create broadcast-quality animated productions in very little time. He says the Stratford companies have come up with a way to use and export Flash animation so that a 22-minute cartoon episode can be completed in 12 days.

An animated series for Nickelodeon and another kids series involving a big-name music star are in the works and will use this new exported Flash technology in production should they go ahead.

*Blue movie

Indie starlet Christina Ricci stars in the feature Prozac Nation, starting production May 15 and wrapping June 25. Based on the novel, Prozac Nation chronicles the struggles of a first-year Harvard student dealing with depression. Los-Angeles-based independent producer Millennium Films is backing the us$10-million ($14.8-million) production; no distributor was in place at press time. Jason Biggs (American Pie) and Anne Heche costar.

*Rocka bye-bye baby

TVA’s Francois St-Laurent, Fox Family’s Lance Robbins and Vanouver producer James Shavick are doing business together again in the mow called Special Delivery. In it, News Radio star Andy Dick plays a well-meaning bumbler who works for a private adoption agency, and when he gets his big break to deliver a baby to its adoptive parents, he mistakenly switches it for a doll.

Production in Vancouver runs May 8 to June 2.

*Cannes-do attitude

The Artist’s Circle, a Vancouver-made, 10-minute film by director Bruce Marchfelder, has been accepted to screen during the Cannes 2000 International Critics Week. The film, about being held captive by a piece of artwork, stars Stargate regulars Michael Shanks and Don S. Davis; the cinematographer is Emmy winner Joel Ransom of The X-Files and Harsh Realm.

*TV times

Vancouver filmmakers Maureen Kelleher and Annie Frazier Henry’s broadcast documentary To Return: The John Walkus Story had its international theatrical premiere at the Taos Talking Pictures Festival April 15. The documentary about a young native adoptee who returns to the village from which he was taken as a child will be broadcast locally on Vancouver Television May 7 and have a national broadcast on Vision tv May 9.

* Driver’s Seat, a car review show hosted by Ted Laturnus and Tony Whitney, has been sold to Hong Kong-based Phoenix Territories for distribution in Asia. In all, 26 episodes will air in China and the deal includes a number of non-exclusive territories including Azerbaijan, Iraq, Mongolia, Sri Lanka, Uzbekistan and Yemen.

Driver’s Seat is produced by Insight Film and Video Production and distributed by Canamedia Productions.

* Lost Boys Studios of Vancouver says it will be the lead animation and effects house used for the new Gene Roddenberry starship series Andromeda, which begins shooting in Vancouver May 8. In the 26-episode series, the starship Andromeda or ‘Andy’ is given a personality and can reveal herself in human form. Allan Eastman of Fireworks Entertainment is the series’ executive producer and will direct the first episodes.

*Clarification

One subtlety about ice: beyond cool (mentioned in the April 3 issue) failed to translate in information from the cbc. While the one-hour piece by director Tony Papa is inspired by the Judith Marcuse choreography dealing with teen suicide, his version is dramatization that includes some dance.