Radical Sheep Productions turns such trumpeted body parts as human hands, heads, shoulders, elbows, knees and toes into a primordial world with stunning landscapes and fanciful creatures in its newest preschool series Land O’ Hands.

Set in the prehistoric badlands of Alberta, the 50-part series is produced for broadcast on Treehouse tv and is budgeted as a $1-million package of four-minute episodes. It follows the comic misadventures of a six-year-old boy named Bungle, who lives with his friends and family, all of whom are sculpted foam cast puppets, in the digitally composed world of Land O’ Hands.

Each segment will feature the surreal visual style of a pastoral universe where millions of tiny fingers make up blades of grass, the palm trees have arm-trunks and hand-leaves, and ‘handelopes’ leap over rippling brooks while ‘monk-knees’ swing from trees.

Currently in production at Wallace Avenue Studios (with shoot dates from Aug. 21 to Sept. 22), the series, which combines composite video, stills photography and life casts, is produced by Radical Sheep principal and series creator Robert Mills, who also directs the majority of episodes.

Derek Ryan is also attached to direct.

Pazit Cahion and Bill Murtagh (1996 Gemini Awards) are the writers on the series, and John Leitch is exec producing.

*very small films takes to Africa

very small films was very busy last month grappling with visa issues at very foreign borders and ultimately shooting the very first documentary in Africa’s newest nation, Eritrea.

To create the one-hour doc The Right to Play, the Toronto-based doc team followed an Olympic Aid mission, which took Olympic medalists Silken Laumann, Johann Koss, Mike Powell and Trent Dimes to Eritrea to teach u.n. camp refugees the healing aspects of sports.

‘They were coaching people to become coaches to help kids,’ says exec producer Michael Lamport.

But while crew members were trying to make their way to the newly defined territory, which recently split from Ethiopia and remains at war with its mother nation, they lost their camera batteries and ended up detained for three days at the Sudanese border on account of insufficient visas.

Eventually, they spent two weeks documenting the efforts of the Olympians and life within the refugee camps, marking the first entrance of cameras into the fledgling country.

Gemini Award-winning producer Sally Blake (Wrestling with Shadows) is producing the doc for an October broadcast on CBC Sports. However, the film is scheduled to first screen at the Canadian International Development Agency conference in Winnipeg on Sept. 16.

cida financed most of the roughly $70,000 film, with licence fees from cbc and second-window broadcaster Vision tv topping it off.

Ilana Banks is directing and Gregory Sheppard of The Partners Film Company is co-exec producing with very small films principals Lamport and Blake.

Other very small films projects on the go include The Disciples, a one-hour doc that examines the Christian rock theme. ‘With so many Christians making pop groups these days, how do they deal with their Christian values?’ asks Lamport, who’s again attached as exec producer.

One of the subjects of the doc is Table of Stone, a French-Canadian band made up of Protestants who play in Nashville.

Blake is directing and coproducing with Marc de Guerre.

Further down the pipeline, Lamport is producing and directing a doc on Mr. Dressup’s Ernie Coombs, called Tales from the Tickle Trunk. Blake and Sheppard are exec producing.

*Cloud Ten tries God for $11 million

Cloud Ten Pictures, based in St. Catharines, Ont., has gone to camera on its newest high-budget Canadian feature, Judgment, starring a host of American talent and shooting in and around Toronto from Aug. 14 to Sept. 9.

Produced by Nicholas D. Tabarrok (Left Behind), directed by Andre Van Heerden (Revelation) and exec produced and written by Cloud Ten principals Peter and Paul Lalonde, the $11-million thriller brings a modern-day court drama to new heights, wherein edgy dialogue is interlaced with powerful performances by two lawyers representing God and the devil.

It’s the biggest trial in history and things will never be the same once the renegade group of resistance fighters called ‘The Haters’ led by Mr. T (A-Team) decide it’s time to take action.

‘This is another example of the way Christian filmmaking is breaking into the mainstream,’ says Peter Lalonde.

The film features well-known talents including Corbin Bernsen (L.A. Law), Jessica Steen (Armageddon) and Nick Mancuso (Revelation).

Peter Lalonde says he’s excited about the film, which is shooting just two months after the wrap of production on Left Behind, a $17.4-million coproduction with Kentucky-based Namesake Entertainment.

‘This film is completely different from Left Behind. Instead of explosions and airplanes, we’ve got multi-layered drama testing every inch of human reason while questioning the true goodness of God, a God who lets pain and suffering exist. The script is filled with difficult issues and tough decisions and that is what makes a truly interesting film,’ he says.

Judgment is to be released on video in early 2001 followed by a theatrical release in the spring. A distributor is yet to be attached.

*Nelvana coproduces Braceface and Cyberchase

Like the well-oiled machine that it is, Nelvana has greenlit yet another two new animated projects – Braceface and Cyberchase – both headed into production in August with international partners attached.

Braceface, a coproduction with China’s Jade Animation, features the voice of Clueless star Alicia Silverstone, who plays 13-year-old Sharon Spitz, an eighth-grader dealing with the stress associated with having braces. At an age when appearances mean everything, Sharon manages to turn her tin grin into a winning smile.

Production of 26 half-hours began in late August for delivery to Teletoon in Canada and Fox Family Channel in the u.s. in spring 2001.

Marilyn McAuley (Anne of Green Gables: The Animated Series) is producing the series with supervising producer Cynthia Taylor (Bear Spots).

Cyberchase, to premier on PBS Kids in the u.s. in winter 2002, is a production of Nelvana and Thirteen/wnet New York, a pbs affiliate. Production is underway on the 26-part groundbreaking on-air and online adventure series.

The series, much of which will be delivered by the end of 2001, features three Earth Kids who are summoned into cyberspace to defeat an evil hacker on a mad quest to overtake the cyberworld.

Lan Lamon is producing the series with Larry Jacobs (Blazing Dragons) as director.

The National Science Foundation, pbs, The Jeffry M. and Barbara Picower Foundation and the Kettering Family Foundation have provided funding for the series. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is funding the online prototype.

*Man Dancing gets jump started in Kitchener

man Dancing Productions is currently shooting its first feature, In Camera, on location in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ont.

Described as a prison suspense drama, the film focuses on the murder of a correctional officer by a prison inmate.

In order to achieve a raw and gritty feel, all footage in the film comes exclusively from cameras that exist in society, like home videos, news broadcasts, security cameras, taped interviews and audio clips.

Man Dancing is helmed by a group of recent Wilfrid Laurier University grads, including In Camera writer/director James Muir, producer Anthony Del Col and production manager Chris Baker.

The film, budgeted at $250,000, is expected to be a stepping stone for the young filmmakers. Most of the film’s funding has come from Human Resources Development Canada, which has allowed the production team to hire 18 youth in the area to serve as cast and crew.

The filmmakers have also received a lot of support from local and national organizations, including Collins Bay Institution, which will allow them to shoot some of their scenes within a fully functional prison in the Kingston area; the City of Kitchener, which is in the process of creating a Film and Television Committee to promote the Kitchener-Waterloo-Guelph area as a prime shooting location; and the City of Waterloo.

Man Dancing is planning to submit the film to the 2001 Sundance Film Festival. The world premiere of the film, which wrapped Aug. 25, will take place in early November at the Princess Cinema in Kitchener-Waterloo. *