Halifax’s Ocean Entertainment is cooking up two new series for Food Network Canada/Food Network (U.S.).

The Food Hunter (13 x 30) follows the international exploits of green grocer and CBC regular Pete Luckett as he travels the globe in search of what producer Johanna Eliot refers to as ‘exotic produce.’

‘The premise of each show is that we are going to places around the world in search of interesting fruits and vegetables and [Luckett] is our explorer,’ says Eliot. ‘Our first episode will be shooting breadfruit in Jamaica at the end of the month. He’ll be searching for the roots of breadfruit – the history of it, where it came from, how it’s distributed, what does the tree or bush look like. Also, there is going to be tons of other food information [in each episode].’

Eliot says Luckett was the logical choice for the job: ‘He’s sort of a walking encyclopedia of fruits and vegetables, and that’s where the idea came from. Pete is warm and friendly and has tons of credibility when it comes to fruits and vegetables, because he is a green grocer. That’s his day job.’

The pilot took Luckett and The Food Hunter crew to Mexico in search of a giant papaya. What they found, says Eliot, was a papaya that weighed in at a juicy 40 pounds.

The Food Hunter is budgeted at $1 million and begins airing in summer 2002. Funding comes from the Food Networks and Ocean.

The second series, Chef At Large (13 x 30), features The Inn Chef’s Michael Smith as he explores some unusual kitchens.

‘For example, we hope to be shooting at a Boy Scouts’ jamboree,’ says Eliot. ‘What does it take to feed that many boy scouts from all around the world at an international jamboree? Or what is it like cooking on an oil rig or a dude ranch? They are all unusual cooking situations and we have access to an unseen world.’

Chef At Large is a coproduction with Prince Edward Island’s Cellar Door Productions. It’s budgeted at $850,000 for 13 half-hour episodes and is being financed by the Nova Scotia Film Development Corporation, Telefilm Canada and licence fees from Food Network Canada.

Tall Ship sails on

There is no rest for the wet on the new Topsail Entertainment series Tall Ship Chronicles. Season one of the 13-part, one-hour series is currently airing on Life Network, but the crew likely hasn’t seen a single episode yet.

Tall Ship Chronicles follows an international crew of 45 participants from various backgrounds as they sail around the world on a tall ship, a rare treat for any would-be sailor, to be sure.

According to producer Edward Peill, they are still on the water and, at press time, were somewhere between Fiji and Australia, possibly docked in Papua New Guinea.

‘It doesn’t stop,’ says Peill from Topsail’s Halifax offices. ‘Usually when you have a season one and a season two you get a break. There is no break. We literally started in October [2000] and we’re going to keep going until October 2002.’

Peill says when the final episode is taped, the crew of the tall ship will have been traveling the world for a solid 19 months, shooting five days out of every week. He says it was very difficult for everyone involved at first, but now, with the first few episodes delivered to Life Network, the crew and producers have hit their stride.

‘For the first couple of months there was a lot of uncertainty as to how the logistics of things were going to work out, but once you’ve been through that a couple of times, it’s not so bad,’ admits Peill. ‘Also, getting the first couple of shows out the back end and getting your template set up and all those millions of different details you need to get it structured, we’ve pretty much nailed it all down, so it’s easier.’

Directors Colin King, Kelly McClughan and Nadine Pequeneza have each done some time on the ship. Peill says McClughan is currently on board and will remain with the expedition until January 2002.

So far, says Peill, episodes one to seven are being shot over a month, in realtime. The final six will be shot a little more leisurely, time budgeted at two months per episode. Peill says the producers already have a smorgasbord of material to sift through.

‘The biggest problem is having too much stuff,’ he says. ‘When you’re there for that long with the people living there, you get very much in the rhythm of what’s going on. You get a whole different type of access than if you are parachuting into something or you come and visit every week. You never get past a certain level of access.’

Peill says the series has received funding from the LFP, Nova Scotia tax credit and Rogers. It is budgeted at a little under $200,000 per episode.

Wedding Video turns into a Monster production

The Monster Productions, a new Halifax-based production company, has just completed shooting its first project for broadcast television. The Wedding Video, a 30-minute one-off (and possible pilot), is a first-time collaborative effort from Monster founders Adamm Liley (producer) and Jay Dahl (writer/director).

The Wedding Video is about wedding expectations meeting reality. The central character, Mike, is about to marry Gina, and he wants to document the entire process on video. He and his beer-swilling, hockey-playing chums buy a home video camera and wackiness ensues as the big day approaches.

‘Everybody you talk to about the project knows characters like Mike and Gina and Mike’s gang of friends,’ says Liley. ‘They are really likable characters. Everyone has been involved with the wedding machine and there are always disaster stories.’

The Wedding Video was one of five Drama Prize winners at last year’s Local Heroes Canadian Film Festival in Winnipeg. The filmmakers presold the project to CBC Atlantic and acquired some additional funding from Telefilm Canada.

Liley says the production was shot 70% on film, 30% on video on a budget of $60,000. Switching between formats made the shoot a little complicated.

‘A lot of the time it was multi-camera and it really tested our DOP and our continuity person,’ he says.

Liley says Monster is currently trying to drum up broadcaster interest in a Mike and Gina series and is working on some documentary ideas.

The Wedding Video is currently in post and will premier in February 2002 at Local Heroes in Winnipeg. It will air on CBC later in the year. *