Vancouver: The USA Network has picked up a full season of 20 hour-long episodes of Lions Gate Television’s The Dead Zone. Vancouver’s Crescent Entertainment will oversee production.

The series, based on the Stephen King novel, will debut in June and will be distributed in North America by Lions Gate and internationally by Paramount.

Anthony Michael Hall, who starred in the two-hour pilot shot in Vancouver in 2001, will carry on with the series about a man who emerges from a long coma with psychic abilities. Nicole De Boer, Chris Bruno and John Adams costar in the series that promises a mix of action, romance, the paranormal and the quest for justice.

Production begins at The Crossing Studios in Vancouver in March.

USA reaches 85 million homes.

Cabin fever

Lawrence Kasdan directs Castlerock’s Dreamcatcher, which opened its production offices in Vancouver on Dec. 18.

Based on the Stephen King novel and adapted for the screen by William Goldman, the film tells the story of four boyhood pals whose reunion at a deep-woods cabin goes awry when they meet a mysterious stranger.

Morgan Freeman, Jason Lee, Tom Sizemore and Donnie Wahlberg star. Production runs until May 14.

Docu-slope

Vancouver’s Peace Arch Entertainment is in production until mid-April with Whistler Stories, a 13-part docusoap chronicling the lives of characters living at the trendy ski resort north of Vancouver. The half-hour series, funded by Life Network, the Canadian Television Fund and Peace Arch, will debut on Life next winter.

The eyes have it

Look into the eyes of the Orcs and Hobbits in the feature film Lord of the Rings and you will likely see the handiwork of Alain de Zilva, who hand painted 100 contact lenses for the trilogy shot in New Zealand. His Coquitlam-based, family-owned contact lens business, Eyetech Optics, has a tidy sideline in special effects lenses, having worked for many series in Vancouver including The X-Files. Each lens, designed to cover the eye, costs between $300 and $800, depending on the detail required.

A guy thing

The Directors Guild of Canada BC and British Columbia Film have announced the five winners for Kick Start money to fund their short films in 2002. Each winner gets a mentor, $12,000 and $1,200 in credits toward post-production work at Rainmaker Digital Pictures and Post Modern Sound.

Bart Simpson (with mentor Penelope Buitenhuis) will make A Vampire’s Guide to Sweden, in which an unfaithful bloodsucker is shipped off to the land of 24-hour sun by his jilted girlfriend.

Jason James (with Andrew Currie) will make light.rapid.transit, in which a man falls in love with the automated woman’s voice on the Vancouver SkyTrain.

Byron Lamarque (with John Juliani) will make Once Upon A Time On The Beach, an homage to the Spaghetti Western, in which a boy takes on a bully at the beach.

John Penhall (with Coreen Mayrs) will make The Bed, in which a young couple in love discovers a magic bed that allows them to spend as much time together as they desire.

Kevin Fair (with Stuart Margolin) will make The Kiss, in which a bumbling fruit-stand operator slides between reality and daydreams when he falls in love with a sexy customer.

Productions must be completed within a year.

Roaring success

B.C. filmmakers looking for kudos should get their 2002 Leo Awards entries in by Feb. 1 (for programs completed between January and June 2001) and Feb. 15 (for programs completed between July and December 2001). Download entry forms at www.leoawards.com or call (604) 688-4875 (ext. 3).

The two-day event goes May 10 at The Vancouver Playhouse for the Celebration Awards Ceremony and May 11 at The Westin Bayshore for the Gala Awards Ceremony.

Meanwhile, the thorny issue of eligibility that plagued last year’s awards (that had winners like non-resident producer Andy Thomson getting an award for information series Storm Warning) will be tested again with a slight regulation refinement regarding residency.

What can enter? Any production that qualifies as Canadian at the CRTC, CAVCO or BC Film qualifies along with any international or interprovincial coproductions that include a B.C. coproducer. The directing mind and creative and financial control of the show must rest with B.C. residents who have ‘maintained a residence’ here – this is the new part – for the year preceding the commencement of principal photography of the production.

Who can enter? Any B.C. resident who has ‘maintained a residence’ here for the year preceding the commencement of principal photography of the production can enter craft categories, whether or not the production qualifies for consideration.

Nominees will be announced April 9.

From across the Strait

CHUM station The New VI in Victoria launched a weekly one-hour call-in political talk show called Right On Jan. 13. Host Pia Shandel squares off with panelists Moe Sihota and Norman Spector, and other guests and callers about the issues of the day.

* The 8th annual Victoria Independent Film & Video Festival goes Feb. 1-10. The Man from Elysian Fields opens the festival and stars Andy Garcia as a struggling novelist who is hired by Mick Jagger as a paid companion for well-heeled women.

Other features new to the West Coast are Todd Solondz’s comedy Storytelling, Mr. In-Between (based on the Neil Cross novel about an assassin) and the U.S. drama Five Years.

Michael Anderson, director of Around the World in 80 Days, will present a Master Class.

For more details visit www.vifvf.com.

Moon at Sundance

Three Sisters on Moon Lake, written and directed by Vancouver filmmaker Julia Kwan (10,000 Delusions), gets a screening at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival in the shorts program that culled 79 films from 2,100 submissions.

The film, created through the Canadian Film Centre, tells the story of three young Chinese-Canadian sisters who overhear a snippet of their parents’ conversation one night, which leads to devastating consequences.

In 2001, Kwan received The Charles Israel Screenwriting Prize through the Writers Guild of Canada for her feature script Karena and Eve, which is in development, with Kwan the director.

Too much of a good thing

CBC’s new late-night Vancouver-based variety show zed has been inundated with ideas for ‘smart, low-budget and convergence-oriented stories in virtually any genre’ and had to delay announcing the winning pitches until Jan. 21. ‘It’s a national stage for new ideas and emerging talent – performers, filmmakers, musicians, writers, comics, poets – pulled from and aimed at that elusive, media-savvy crowd in their 20s to 30s,’ says CBC.

Tick tock

The annual DOXA Documentary Film and Video Festival is accepting submissions until Feb. 1. It’s free. See www.vcn.bc.ca/doxa for details.