SHOOTING is wrapping up in Calgary on the Hallmark Productions miniseries Roughing It. Budgeted at $8.5 million, the two-part, four-hour project is based on the novel by Mark Twain. Roughing It stars James Garner as the old Mark Twain, in tales of the young Twain’s quest for his calling as a writer.

Calgary’s Tom Benz is producing with Brian Gordon. Executive producers are Robert Halmi Jr. of Hallmark Channel and Hallmark Productions in New York, Larry Levinson out of Levinson Productions in L.A., and Roughing It writer Steven H. Berman.

Directed by Charles Martin Smith, the miniseries’ funding is ‘funneled through Hallmark and Levinson Productions,’ according to Benz. The producer says the project, ‘at this point, is without Canadian financing, [but] they’re certainly up here taking advantage of the Canadian programs and tax incentives.’

The miniseries is targeted to air in 2002 on Hallmark Channel. Benz explains the folks from Hallmark have been spotted on the Prairies before. ‘They just completed Johnson County War [here]. They discovered us a little while ago. They know the community and they enjoy themselves here. So they’ve come back with a few projects and have the potential for several more. The Hallmark Channel is in need of a lot of programming.’

Bay days

WINNIPEG’S Frantic Films $1.3 million (4 x 60) reality production Quest for the Bay (the follow-up to Credo Entertainment’s Pioneer Quest series) took to the water in July to begin a 10-week boat trip along the paths of the 19th century fur traders.

Using heavy, period-specific equipment, the team of eight rowers (collected from all walks of life, and all parts of Canada) in one 40-foot York Boat departed from an historic trading post at the junction of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers. The trip concludes 1,200 kilometres later at the mouth of Hudson’s Bay.

The series’ director Andy Blicq, cocreated the show with Jamie Brown, the creator of Pioneer Quest. Although Brown created PQ for Credo, part of his ‘package’ when he left last year included taking both episode nine of PQ and The Quest for the Bay concept with him. Brown is parlaying the properties into a new live-action division of the visual effects house Frantic.

Brown is also developing similar series about the gold rush and a ‘First Nations story,’ also through Frantic.

Frantic is retaining the distribution rights for the series. Also, Brown expects, as with Pioneer Quest, the new series may end up longer than the four one-hours originally planned.

The series will show on History Television with a second window on The Life Network. Other funding sources were the CTF, equity from Manitoba Film and Sound, tax credits and an investment from Frantic. The series is slated to begin airing on History in January 2002.

Bugs in your bloomers

CALGARY’S White Iron Pictures is currently in post on 13 episodes of Bugs and Blooms for HGTV. Director Jakoba Dedert is taking what White Iron executive producer Joe Novak calls ‘a three-dimensional approach to gardening, focusing on the relationship between plants, insects and the environment.’

Targeted at the urban gardener, the show is hosted by horticulturist Donna Balzer and entomologist Todd Reichardt. Karin Klassen is the series’ writer and producer.

According to Novak, the budget ‘is somewhere between $400,000 and $500,000 for the whole series.’ Funding came from HGTV, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, the CanWest Independent Producers Fund and the federal sales tax credit.

With no distributor, the show recently launched on HGTV. Joining Novak as executive producers are Jean Merriman and Lance Mueller.

‘The buzz line,’ explains Novak, ‘is that it’s a program that’s good for your soil and good for your soul.’

Dark Thunder rolls in Sask.

THE Media Group studio in Saskatoon is busy these days working on a one-hour claymation Christmas special for Dennis and Melanie Jackson’s Dark Thunder Productions. The stop-frame animation project, Christmas at Wapos Bay, was written and directed by Dennis Jackson.

Produced by the Jacksons and associate produced by Media Group’s Anand Ramayya, the project follows three young Aboriginal children and their parents on a trip to the country to visit the grandparents for Christmas dinner.

Environmental problems caused by forestry, mining and forest fires have depleted the land and decimated the animal population, making for lean times at the grandparents’ house. With Christmas dinner in danger, the kids set out in the night to hunt by dogsled. When they get into trouble, they are saved by their grandfather (played by Gordon Tootoosis) and learn many valuable lessons about their environment and elders.

The Aboriginal story is largely being produced by native Canadians, says Ramayya. ‘It lends a real integrity to the project. It was written, produced and directed by First Peoples of Aboriginal ancestry [the Jacksons]. And their company, Dark Thunder, has a real commitment to hiring from that community. Over 50% of our crew are Aboriginal or Metis. Our entire cast is Aboriginal and bilingual. It hasn’t been easy to find them. They’re all Cree and English speakers.’

With production continuing throughout August, the special is targeted to air at Christmastime on the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network.

Financing for the ‘just over $300,000’ project has come from the Canadian Television Fund, the Shaw Children’s Programming Initiative, the Saskatchewan Arts Board, SaskFilm, the Global Western Independent Production Fund, APTN, the Saskatchewan Communications Network and federal and provincial tax credits. A distributor has not been attached.

In other news, Dark Thunder is also teaming up with Media Group on a live-action documentary about Sturgeon Dam, which went up in northern Saskatchewan in the 1930s. It will examine ‘the different spin-off effects on the communities up north and also how it affected the fish population,’ Ramayya says.

Global Visions

EDMONTON’S Global Visions Festival, a ‘progressive, multi-disciplinary event offering an extraordinary showcase of high-calibre Canadian and international documentary films,’ has announced the dates for its 2001 event. Previously called the Third World Film Festival, Global Visions, according to spokesperson Tonia LaRiviere will be ‘bringing a little bit of the world to the Edmonton Arts District’ for a twentieth year.

The festival runs Nov. 8-11.

24p HDTV comes

to Winnipeg

MIDCANADA Production Services recently announced the addition of high-definition television to its list of services. Says MIDCAN president Wayne Sheldon: ‘Requests from film and television clients made the move pretty much inevitable. Whether it’s motion picture, television, HDTV, DVD or Internet, 24p covers it all.’

Andy Andy in Alberta

SEASON three of the Minds Eye Pictures/Anaid Productions kids series Mentors, currently shooting 13 new episodes in and around Edmonton, has brought Cheers veteran Derek McGrath (My Secret Identity) to the Alberta capital to star as Gregor Mendel, the father of genetics, in an episode penned by Edmontonian Greg Kennedy.

The series, created by Minds Eye’s Josh Miller, is produced by Kevin DeWalt (Minds Eye) and Anaid’s Margaret Mardirossian (Anaid) and airs on Family Channel. Minds Eye International will handle international distribution.