Halifax’s Salter Street Films cannot seem to keep itself out of the news lately. Following its sale last month to Toronto-based Alliance Atlantis Communications, Salter has announced it is buddying up with another Toronto company, Infopreneur. Together the two will develop a television version of Infopreneur’s Web hit Chilly Beach, retaining all of the Canadianisms that have made the animated property so popular.

According to Liliana Vogt, Salter’s VP of acquisitions and coproductions, the principals of Infopreneur – who have been teasing "big news" to come on the Chilly Beach website (www.chillybeach.com) – approached Salter about a possible coproduction on the show last summer. The idea was to create an animated Chilly Beach TV series based on the characters and locations already developed for the webisodes.

"We actually became interested in the property because it complemented the Salter Street brand perfectly," says Vogt. "Basically it had all the crucial elements for the making of what we felt would be a terrific animated TV series. Also, since it had enjoyed tremendous success on the Internet and already had an established fan base, we felt it would enjoy the same kind of success with television audiences."

Chilly Beach is (for now) a Web series following the inhabitants of a northern Canadian community, preying on nearly every stereotypically Canadian trait there is – from the overdone politeness to moose and polar bear attacks and bloody hockey brawls. And, lest we forget, our God-given ability to guzzle beer without shame.

"It’s a satire on how the rest of the world perceives Canada and Canadians," says Vogt. "The town is actually built on a drifting ice float, so, of course, the characters encounter various outrageous situations and their reactions are always Canadian or the way other people perceive the way Canadians usually are."

And so it is done. Salter and Infopreneur are teaming up for 22 half-hour episodes of Chilly Beach, shooting for the elusive 16-35 demographic currently cornered by South Park, Survivor and pro wrestling. Teletoon has already committed to the series, which is set for a fall 2001 delivery.

Vogt is reluctant to divulge the series’ budget the financing is not complete. She says, though, Salter and Infopreneur are going through the "traditional" funding steps and have already applied to the CTF and EIP and are actively looking to secure presales in international markets.

Salter Street Films International is distributing.

Ocean, Cellar Door shoot Inn Chef doc

Halifax’s Ocean Entertainment and Charlottetown’s Cellar Door Productions, producers of The Inn Chef series for Food Network Canada, are serving up a new project featuring the show’s star, Michael Smith.

Saturday Night: A Day and a Night of Chef Michael Smith is a one-hour documentary for Food that offers viewers a taste of life in the inn’s kitchen on a typically hectic Saturday.

"We follow Michael and his crew through a day of preparing for a fairly large night of 100 tables," says director Michael MacDonald. "We see everything from the moment Mike Smith wakes up to the end of the night."

MacDonald says keeping out from underfoot of the kitchen crew and serving staff while grabbing interviews "on the fly" was a challenge in the tight kitchen quarters.

While Smith does duty as narrator and star, another element of the doc is seen through the eyes of Smith’s selected "staj" for the evening.

"The staj is someone who really wants to work in the business and gets tried out for a night or a couple of days," explains MacDonald. "Mike picked Jeff at the Culinary Institute in Charlottetown. We see it from Jeff’s point of view quite a bit, which is kind of like what it would be like if a viewer were plunked into the spot. We get to see how he works out on his first time in a professional kitchen."

Shot in one day, the doc is budgeted at $120,000 and is nearing rough-cut stage. It was made with funding from Food, P.E.I. Business Development Corporation, the LFP and tax credits.

Ocean’s Johanna Eliot and Cellar Door’s Gretha Rose are producing.

A Michael Smith Christmas special is also in the works, this time with Ocean as the sole producer. Mountain Magic will be a presentation style program rather than a doc and will shoot later this month in Jasper, AB, says MacDonald. "Mike’s mom is going to be there to bake cookies with him," he adds.

It will air on Food leading up to the holidays.

News from the AFF

It’s still six months away, but the 2001 Atlantic Film Festival is starting to take shape with the addition of some new programs and staff, says recently appointed festival director Lia Rinaldo.

"The main push right now is the call for entries and call for scripts," says Rinaldo. "We’ve decreased all of our [film] entry fees to one $25 fee. It used to be a staggered system, but now it is just one fee, so we are hoping for a lot more submissions."

The deadline for film submissions is June 1.

The AFF will also be fielding script submissions for its Scripts Out Loud program. This part of the festival is only open to writers and filmmakers in Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and Newfoundland.

Scripts Out Loud is a series of three intensive weekend workshops with story editor Al Magee from the Canadian Film Centre. "He basically joins us for three weekends, with the last weekend [which involves actors reading excerpts from the scripts] culminating during the festival," Rinaldo explains.

Half-hour and feature-length scripts are eligible. The entry deadline is May 14.

Rinaldo also hints that the Strategic Partners portion of the festival this year will focus on coproductions between Canada and Spain or a Latin American country, but nothing has been confirmed.

News of AFF-sponsored year-round screenings should follow in the coming weeks as well.

Working closely with the new AFF executive director Gregor Ash, Rinaldo, a 10-year veteran of the festival, says the transition from program director to director has been relatively painless.

"There is a great feeling in the office," she says. "[Being program director] kind of primed me for this because I’ve always controlled the artistic side of the festival. This comes with a little more management and administrative responsibilities, but I was taking on a few more of those with each year. It’s not as shocking as I thought it would be, but it has been great."

Recent hires at the AFF include the returning Ivy Ho who will now be full-time communications manager, and new operations manager Andrea Gosine.

Rinaldo is also excited about the new AFF website (www.atlanticfilm.com), which was scheduled to launch mid-month. The folks at Halifax’s Collideascope Digital Pictures designed the site.

"It’s like nothing I’ve seen before with other festival websites," says Rinaldo. "It’s going to be pretty user-friendly and just has a very interesting look."

NSFTPA elects new board

The Nova Scotia Film and Television Producers Association has elected its new executive board for a two-year term.

Ocean Entertainment’s Sonya Jampolsky is president, Eco-Nova’s John Wesley Chisholm is acting VP, Collideascope Digital Pictures’ Jessica Andrews is treasurer and Salter Street Films’ Floyd Kane is secretary.

Jampolsky says one of the key concerns for the new board is ongoing cuts at the Nova Scotia Film Development Corporation.

"The provincial government keeps cutting the budget of the NSFDC and partly it is our responsibility to make sure the government knows how much we need them and to lobby on behalf of the NSFDC," she says.

The board will also continue to fight to keep the regional Telefilm Canada office, says Jampolsky. *