Vancouver: There was no distributor to shield the freshman filmmakers behind child welfare feature Protection as they ventured into Vancouver and Toronto theatres June 8.

As the latest Vancouver feature to self-distribute, however, the gritty drama’s marketing push did benefit from some largesse from its broadcasters and some mentoring from veteran distributors who might have otherwise been aboard the project if producers hadn’t sacrificed most rights to get the project done.

Producer Erik Paulsson says Movie Central and TMN-The Movie Network both anted up an extra $25,000 each on top of their licence fees to help create some audience buzz for the feature that won the Vancouver Film Critics Award at last year’s Vancouver International Film Festival. That money along with some pocket change from the producers themselves meant a $55,000 marketing budget to buy newspaper ads, hire a publicist, print some posters and stickers, and get a website launched.

Because The Georgia Straight newspaper is a sponsor, says Paulsson, Protection’s pre-opening ad was bigger than Pearl Harbor’s ad.

In a guerilla-marketing move, meanwhile, the producers hung 20-foot banners in well-traveled locations like Vancouver’s Georgia Viaduct and Toronto’s Don Valley Parkway to grab potential ticket buyers’ attention. More than 100,000 e-mails flooded the Internet, enhanced by the lists from grassroots community supporters such as women’s shelters. Producers have launched a promotional website at www.protectionthemovie.com.

Bravo! has been airing a five-minute ‘making of’ documentary and CHUM will be another broadcaster to show the feature.

‘Box office is not the ultimate goal,’ says Paulsson, who thanks Odeon’s Bryan Gliserman and TVA’s Jim Murphy for their distribution advice. ‘I know as a Canadian producer that chances for big box office are next to nothing. If we can hold the theatres for two weeks, I’ll be happy. If we can go three weeks, I’ll be ecstatic.’

With three prints, Protection opened at the Fifth Avenue Cinemas in Vancouver and the Carlton Theatre in Toronto. Ottawa, Calgary and Edmonton could also see openings in the near future.

Bruce Spangler, who wrote and directed Protection, will team up again with Paulsson for their next project, The Damage Done, about three kids.

Heartburn

Turner Broadcasting, raising the bar for television movies everywhere, is producing Dead in a Heartbeat, a service job for Vancouver’s Shavick Entertainment.

Get this: a high-tech genius driven mad after the death of his son during heart surgery wreaks vengeance on the surgeon responsible by creating pacemakers with bombs in them that he detonates whenever he wants to make his point.

Judge Reinhold and Penelope Ann Miller star in the production that wraps June 17.

Other productions aren’t nearly so heart, um, breaking.

* U.S. independent feature Pressure wrapped June 1, another movie about two guys who get into trouble when they meet some cheerleaders. Throw in an angry sheriff dad and, voila, conflict. Dawson’s Creek’s Kerr Smith and local Lochlyn Munro star.

* Also wrapped is The Extremists, a European action feature involving extreme sports like heli-skiing and whitewater rafting and a vengeful Serbian war criminal caught on videotape. Vancouver caps a traveling production that has been shooting in Europe, with Rufus Sewell and Vancouver native Devon Sawa in the cast.

* Breeders, an MOW for the USA Network, stars Jeanne Tripplehorn and Corin Nemec. Production on the TV movie about a homicide detective tracking down her serial-murderer brother wraps June 29.

* Multitalented Mandy Patinkin stars in the ABC mid-season replacement pilot Everything That Rises, which focuses on the people who investigate disasters. Production wrapped June 11.

* Local actor/director Helen Shaver will direct Kate Capshaw, Robert Forster and Clara Bryant in Due East, an MOW for Showtime through the local office of Dufferin Gate. The MOW, based on the novels by Valerie Sayers, is about a bookish late bloomer in a small town who discovers love and its repercussions.

Word play

B.C.-based screenwriters, both established and emerging, can now apply to British Columbia Film’s competitive Features in Focus Development Program (formerly Development Program ‘B’), an envelope within the Television and Film Financing Program.

Features in Focus, augmented by a recent injection of $5 million by the former government prior to the election, provides recoupable advances to both established and emerging B.C. screenwriters to develop long-form dramatic productions destined for theatrical release.

Up to $15,000 is available for established B.C. writers to complete a first-draft screenplay while up to $10,000 is available for eligible applicants to complete a rewrite of their screenplay. Up to $15,000 is available for eligible applicants to complete a script polish and begin preliminary scheduling and marketing.

‘The response each year to this program has been overwhelming, and while we cannot fund everyone, with the new money, we will be able to enhance our support of feature film development in the province,’ says president and CEO Rob Egan.

Application deadline is June 29. Guidelines and application forms are available at www.bcfilm.bc.ca/programs/develop/tffp_dev.html.

End of the line

Smoked salmon-inspired filmmakers have been scaled back to just three winners in the innovative 2001: A Fill-This-Space Odyssey competition backed by CBC Television British Columbia and B.C. Film. After 10 semi-finalists were chosen to workshop and pitch their short films to a panel of adjudicators in May, the final three were announced June 1.

Writer Shellie Troy Anderson is teamed with director Patti Henderson and producer Larisa Andrews to make Salmon Chanted Evening, the story of how a fisherman’s life is changed when he walks into a pier-side bar.

Writer Greg Rosati will direct Fish Out of Water, while Kevin McBride will produce. Taking a poke at the horror genre, this short is about a recreational fisherman with plans to smoke his catch, while the salmon has plans of its own.

And writer Geoff Inverarity will team with director Byron Lamarque and producer Kelly-Ruth Mercier to tell the ‘shattering’ story of a young girl at her mother’s funeral reception and a tray of smoked salmon.

The winners get $11,000 cash, up to $30,000 in services and labor and a future airdate on CBC.

Correction

Spooked a few people at Avanti Pictures with an error in the May 30 issue about their one-hour doc Ghosts and Ghoulies…West Coast Ghosts. Company chief Tony Papa and not newly added producer Gretchen Jordan-Bastow originated the project set to air on CBC and Space: The Imagination Station.

Apologies. *