Vancouver: With the American actors reaching a contract settlement and the threat of production-squelching picket lines relegated to an excuse to take some summer holidays, Vancouver crews are starting to get booked up again.

Production volumes for the rest of the year are not expected to reach the overheated rates of activity leading to July 1 when the actors’ old contract lapsed. But Vancouver, true to its roots as a television town, will be busy with a slew of new and old series. A healthy batch of 18 series is in various forms of prep and production for summer shoots.

Among them are Canadian series Da Vinci’s Inquest (season four) and Cold Squad (season five), which are newly into production with their latest orders from CBC and CTV, respectively.

The Chris Isaak Show, a fact-blurred-with-fiction series about the crooner himself, returns to production in July for its second season. The show is seen in Canada on MuchMoreMusic.

NBC’s teen soap series Just Deal, whose first season was produced locally by Larry Sugar, will return for a second season. Futuristic Fox series Dark Angel is also back for a second season.

An impressive roster of newcomers includes WB’s Superman-as-a-teen series Smallville, which also has a July start.

Paramount’s action series Special Unit 2 is a go and replaces Seven Days, which has been cancelled.

Diane Keaton will be in Vancouver in August to begin directing Pasadena, a new primetime soap for Fox/Columbia TriStar with Dana Delaney in the lead. Production runs until December.

NBC series Skate, about skateboarders, will be in production Aug. 7 to Oct. 31. NBC has also commissioned Undercover, an espionage series with Oded Fehr, Grant Snow and John Seda. It begins production later this month and wraps Dec. 10.

Spooky Paramount/CBS series Wolf Lake, with Tim Matheson and Lou Diamond Phillips, also goes later in July and wraps Dec. 7.

Jeremiah, MGM’s end-of-the-world series, replaces Outer Limits at The Bridge Studios in Burnaby and begins in September.

Sextant Entertainment’s puppet show Don’t Eat The Neighbors, by all accounts outrageously funny, continues production at studios also in Burnaby.

Lions Gate Entertainment’s reality series No Boundaries for ABC will bring crews to the more rural parts of B.C. and the Yukon.

And the biggie: Steven Spielberg’s 20-hour miniseries Taken, about alien abduction. Broken into 10 two-hour movies, the series will air on the Sci Fi Channel.

Canadian reality

By press time, some of the eight contestants for The Great Race, a 13-part Canadian reality show for CTV’s new digital channel Travel, will be chosen.

Four two-member teams, armed with mini-cams and an eclectic grab bag of survival tools, will race from Victoria to St. John’s and vie for prizes such as their very own pet beaver or a year’s supply of beer.

Nick Orchard and Randolf Eustace-Walden produce the series from the Vancouver-based offices of Soapbox Productions, which has produced other fare such as Northwood, Double Exposure and Cosmic Highway.

Production of Race (www.thegreatrace.ca) starts in early August; airdate is sometime in the fall with the launch of the new channel.

Soapbox, meanwhile, is also in production with eight one-hour episodes of astronomy show Cosmic Connections, made for Discovery Canada and narrated by William Shatner.

And bringing its slate of shows for Travel to three, Soapbox has commissions to produce Sex! The Travel Show, a series about the world’s – um – erogenous zones, and Posh Life, a series about jet-set traveling.

Octopuses’ gardens

The dramatic mating rituals of reef squid comprise the initial images in Tentacles, the first of four one-hour episodes in the high-definition documentary series Ocean Realms, which is being done on spec.

Conditions during the three-week expedition to Bonaire Island in the Caribbean were ideal, says Victoria-based producer Danny Mauro (Sport Diver Television), a 15-year diving vet. ‘We were able to work in warm, clear water and found an approachable school of squid only 50 feet off the dock. We were able to record several behavioral sequences that have never been filmed before.’

Ocean Realms, due for release in mid-2002, examines sea creatures with leading marine scientists. The wily giant Pacific octopus and other members of the cephalopod family will also star in the premiere episode.

Mauro produced 52 half-hours of Sport Diver Television for TSN between 1992 and 1996, and 39 half-hours of Undersea Explorer for Outdoor Life between 1997 and 2000. Both series are in syndication around the world.

In self-financing the first four HD episodes of Ocean Realms, Mauro hopes to surf the wave of HD implementation in North America and abroad. He is negotiating a presale to Japan’s NHK, which is already HD-capable, and expects to sell the series here to early HD-adapters National Geographic, Discovery or PBS. He hopes to expand the series to at least 13 episodes.

Mauro says he can keep the price of the initial production down by doing all the production and post-production work in-house.

Ocean Realms cameraman Neil McDaniel, a veteran of underwater shoots, is using the Canadian-made Amphibicam underwater housing for the Sony high-definition wide-screen 700A and F900 cameras and shooting in the 1080i format.

Other episodes explore sharks, manta rays and toxic marine animals.

No joke

Vancouver filmmaker Ric Beairsto is in post-production with CBC Newsworld Rough Cuts documentary Stand-Up Samurais, which explores the grueling world of stand-up comedy. He and director Harry Killas followed six comedians over five months as they slogged through the comedy circuit across Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia.

Morality tale

Vancouver filmmaker Mark Lewis (The Same Old Story) has wrapped production on No Consequence, a 16mm short about a prostitute with hopes for stardom and a tempted computer salesman. Shot by DOP Robert Voytcheff (Mrs. Bear), the film stars Mackenzie Gray (The Voyage of the Unicorn) and Tara Hungerford (Mon Amour Mon Parapluie). It’s festival-bound.

Classic story

On July 17, at North Vancouver’s Capilano Suspension Bridge, the final episode of Red’s Classic Theatre went to camera for KVOS TV 12, the Bellingham, WA station. The vintage movie showcase, starring veteran Vancouver broadcaster Red Robinson, has run for 12 years – a whopping 618 episodes. The final episode airs on July 29.

Fest fare

The sixth annual Sea to Sky Film Festival, which will take place at the Eagle Eye Theatre in Squamish, BC Sept. 20 and 21, is looking for submissions. All recently produced films on 16mm and 35mm and professional-quality videos are eligible. There is no fee and awards are handed out in comedy, documentary, drama and experimental categories. Deadline is Aug. 15 (www.sea-to-sky.net/filmfest). *