Principal photography is almost wrapped and editing is well underway on Winnipeg-based Credo Entertainment’s 13-part, half-hour doc series Head Over Wheels, detailing the relationship between women and their cars.

"We’re beginning to rough cut episodes and they’re looking fun," says Credo executive producer Andrew Koster, producer of the series.

Credo set up a 1-800 number inviting callers to relate their experiences with automobiles and the responses guided the stories of most of the series’ episodes.

"We received calls from people right across Canada. People talked about memorable road trips they went on. We got a lot of stories about women who have gone on the road with their children after the breakup of a relationship and used the experience to come to terms with what had happened in their lives," says Koster.

"We had stories from women who ride motorcycles about why they do it and what it means to them. It’s an interesting combination of control and freedom; they have control of the powerful machine beneath them and the freedom of riding in the open air. Women also talk about the collective experience of riding together with their girlfriends in motorcycle clubs."

The series also explores women’s experiences – positive and otherwise – with the car repair industry. "Three or four women had such negative experiences," says Koster, "they decided to start their own garage to cater to what they thought would be a mainly female clientele, but which ended up including many men.

"We talk to women who are racers: one is professional and one is beginning to think about doing it professionally. We talked to the only female monster truck driver in Canada; her husband was a monster truck driver and she said, ‘I can do this.’ The irony of it is she’s pregnant so she can’t drive."

One episode deals with women who do road rallies while another covers safety issues. "When a man looks at a car he wants to know how fast it goes from 0 to 60 – a woman wants to know how fast it goes from 60 to 0," says Koster. Filming began around Labour Day weekend and is almost complete, with only a few more days of pickups to be shot. "We were blessed with a very long production schedule and have used the time wisely," says Koster. "We shot on average one week a month."

Filming is scheduled to be completed at the end of May. "We’ve gone to Toronto a couple of times, Vancouver, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, and we’ll be trying to get out to the Maritimes in the early spring," says Koster.

With WTN providing the key licence, funding came from Telefilm Canada and the Canadian Television Fund. Manitoba Film and Sound contributed equity financing.

While he won’t be drawn on the subject of budget, Koster says it is in keeping with specialty channel half-hours. "It’s not to be confused with a PBS series in terms of production values."

The series, with a summer delivery date, will air on WTN starting in October. Credo Releasing is distributing.

Have diary, will travel

Minds Eye Pictures in Regina is seeking a host for its series My Global Adventure. The 26 x 30 series, to be the subject initially of an interactive website and then a TV series, will track the adventures of the host as she/he travels to 24 countries over eight months.

Producers are looking for someone willing to participate in adventures of a physical, cultural and spiritual nature (examples include hot air ballooning over the Serengeti, swimming with sharks in the Philippines and visiting a leper colony in Calcutta) and then writing about it in diary entries available on the Web.

Web "viewers" are then invited to offer the host advice and ideas electronically during live chat sessions.

Even the selection of the host will be marketed as a draw for the show, with the winning adventure-seeker to be announced on a webcast April 27.

Life Network has the first window and will begin airing of My Global Adventure in January 2002.

Applicants can enter until April 2 at the website (www.myglobaladventure.com).

NSI repositions

The National Screen Institute has announced its intention to reposition the institute with a national focus. Says the NSI’s Robert Hardy: "Our greater national focus will mean greater emphasis on job-ready training as well as the inclusion of the television industry in addition to our current focus on film."

The repositioning will also mean the closure of the NSI’s Edmonton office, with the Winnipeg office serving as the administrative and course development hub of the organization. Plans are to open other locations in major production centres across the country over the next few years. The repositioning will have no effect on either of the Local Heroes festivals.

Local Heroes preps Edmonton run

The Local Heroes International Film Festival – Edmonton, running March 16-23, celebrates its 15th anniversary this year.

The festival includes the Global Heroes (10 international titles), Reel Heroes (the documentary component of the festival) and New Voices (emergent filmmakers, eight of them Canadian), as well as Family Series (a lineup of films for "all ages") and the NSI Movie Camp Premiere.

The festival opens with the Edmonton premiere of Anne Wheeler’s Marine Life, to be attended by ex-Edmontonians Wheeler and the film’s producer Arvi Liimatainen. The Anniversary Gala on Saturday, March 17, features the Aussie film The Dish, which screened at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival. The Closing Gala is The War Bride, a film shot in Edmonton by director Lyndon Chubbuck.

Industry seminars include Chris Haddock of Da Vinci’s Inquest and Greg Ball and Steve Blackman of The Associates talking about writing for television. Patrick Cassavetti, director of U.K.-based Greenpoint Films; Douglas Cummins, managing director of British-Australian Axiom Films; and entertainment lawyer Judith Merians will conduct a session on coprods. *