Vancouver: No problem qualifying for Canadian content for the new feature The Rhino Brothers: it’s about hockey and how it disrupts a family.

The $850,000 full-length feature is using the new Sony HD24P cameras. It’s an initiative that has the support of Rainmaker Digital Pictures (which will do all the post-production at "aggressively priced" rates) and camera supplier William F. White, which provided the hd cameras for a fraction of the regular rate.

The feature is directed and coproduced by Dwayne Beaver (a onetime protege of Atom Egoyan) and coproduced by onetime costume designer Tracey Boulton, both recent graduates of the Canadian Film Centre.

The third producer is intrepid Vancouver restaurateur John Pineau, who has put up some cash. Other money sources are Telefilm Canada, Superchannel, TMN-The Movie Network, Citytv and distributor Seville Pictures of Montreal. The project also gets a 12.5% regional bonus from b.c.’s domestic film incentive by shooting in the Fraser Valley.

Rhino Brothers stars local actors Gabrielle Rose (The Sweet Hereafter), Curtis Bechdholt (The Outer Limits), Bill MacDonald (Dudley Do-Right), Alistair Abell (Air Bud I & II) and Deanna Milligan (Big Sound).

While Rainmaker isn’t giving away its services, says gm Barry Chambers, the producers and the post house have worked out a deal that, as he says, is aggressively priced and allows Rainmaker to help prove the technology.

Rainmaker is doing the prep work on the 24-frame progressive video, handling the offline and online editing, color correcting and outputting the product on 35mm film.

Rhino Brothers is in production in Maple Ridge Feb. 19 to March 16 and delivery is scheduled for August, in time for the Toronto International Film Festival selection process.

Fishing for talent

creative minds at cbc-bc and British Columbia Film have posed emerging b.c. screenwriters with an immediate – and offbeat – challenge. For The 2001: A Fill-This-Space Odyssey competition, screenwriters write an eight-minute dramatic film script inspired by smoked salmon.

"It’s a quirky theme and I hope writers will take great creative liberties with it," says Rae Hull, regional director of television at cbc-bc and senior director of network programming. "But we are serious about the important goal to provide extensive professional development opportunities for up-and-coming b.c. filmmakers."

Three winners get $11,000 plus $30,000 in services and labor, and airtime on cbc. Submissions must be made by Feb. 26.

-www.bcfilm.bc.ca

-www.vancouver.cbc.ca/contests/2001write/

Movie watch

any unionized American features not in production by the end of March risk being half-done before the writers and actors begin walking the picket lines in the u.s. later this spring.

Ergo, Winterdance, a Walt Disney Pictures comedy adventure is based in Vancouver but will shoot in Canmore, ab and Miami between Jan. 22 and April 26. It stars Cuba Gooding Jr. and James Coburn.

u.s. independent feature The Stick Up – about, well, a stickup – stars James Spader and shoots in Hope, bc, 90 minutes east on Highway 1 from Vancouver. Production on the moderate-budget show goes Feb. 11 to March 9.

TV watch

shavick Entertainment is doing another one of its spec productions with Blackwoods, a suspense mow. In it, a man who accidentally killed a girl in the mountains is lured back years later to be put on trial by the victim’s family. Production wrapped Feb. 16. Patrick Muldoon (Days of Our Lives), Michael Pare (Virgin Suicides), Clint Howard (How the Grinch Stole Christmas) and local actress Keegan Connor Tracy (Beggars & Choosers) star.

Shavick is also doing a Fox Family Channel show called Till Dad Do Us Part, starring John Larroquette and Markie Post, reunited from their Night Court days, and Jeffrey Jones (Sleepy Hollow), which is in production until March 2.

Screen legend Debbie Reynolds stars as a witch in Return to Halloweentown, reprising her role from the original Disney Channel mow Halloweentown. The first installment was shot in Portland, or a couple of years ago and the current production goes before the cameras until March 7.

USA Network is backing the mow Trapped, a disaster movie (a la Towering Inferno), starring Meatloaf (Fight Club), Parker Stevenson (Hardy Boys) and William McNamara (Beggars & Choosers).

Door to Door stars veteran actors William H. Macy, Kyra Sedgwick, Kathy Baker and Helen Mirren. Production runs to March 10. The Turner Network Television project is based on a true story of a door-to-door Fuller Brush salesman with cerebral palsy

Roger Corman is executive producing Avalanche Alley, a phat $1-million production about a financially troubled ski resort and snowboarders caught in an avalanche intentionally started by resort staff.

Cowriter/coproducer/director Paul Ziller has 15 feature films on his credit sheet. Production runs to March 4.

Lions Gate Television wrapped The Void Feb. 8, which stars Adrian Paul (Highlander), Amanda Tapping (Stargate sgi) and Malcolm McDowell (A Clockwork Orange). In the story (a la China Syndrome), scientists try to create little black holes as a source of energy, when something goes wrong.

Lost lemurs

vancouver-based documentary makers Alex Hamilton-Brown and Caroline Vivier, makers of The Learning Channel piece Giants – The Mystery and the Myth, have another title in post-production.

Madagascar – The Last Resource explores the "ecological calamity" of South East Madagascar.

"Madagascar has plants and animals found nowhere else on Earth," says Hamilton-Brown, making special note of the endangered lemur, found only in Madagascar. "But it’s precisely because of this uniqueness that Madagascar tops the list of the world’s most vulnerable ecosystems."

Andy Nathani of Vancouver’s Super Suite Video Production is the executive producer.

Datebook

the 2001 Vancouver Effects & Animation Festival/Digital Media Trade Show hosts its annual gig April 4-6 at the Plaza of Nations in Vancouver.

Awards are handed out to the best in 26 categories, including animated feature film and feature film effects. Submissions (they’re free) must by in by Feb. 28.

-www.veaf.com

* The International Association of Educational and Discovery Television Companies (aited, based in France), holds its second annual AITED Pitch event this year in Vancouver on May 23 during the World Education Market, an international trade show dedicated to education and training held May 21-24. At the pitch, up to five international producers will pitch ideas that combine television with other media and vie for a whopping $4,000. *

-www.aited.asso.fr

-www.wemex.com