Having had success with the pilot for the political comedy Rideau Hall, which aired on CBC in January, Halifax-based Topsail Entertainment is busy producing the first full season of the series, six half-hours for the public broadcaster.

The series, shooting in Halifax Aug. 5 to Sept. 6 and slated to debut Oct. 11, is penned by Made in Canada writers Ed Macdonald, Alex Ganetakos and Bob Martin. Directors Allan Nicholls (Saturday Night Live), Ron Murphy (Gavin Crawford Show) and Michael Kennedy (Kids in the Hall) will helm two episodes each.

Produced by Greg Morris, with executive producers Brooks Diamond and Topsail president Mike Volpe, the $2.5-million series takes a satirical look at politics and entertainment, with a healthy dose of disco. Funding for the project, starring Bette MacDonald, Jonathan Torrens and Fiona Reid, has come from the LFP, EIP, CBC and the Nova Scotia Film Development Corporation.

Also in production at Topsail is season three of Trailer Park Boys, coproduced with Halifax’s Trailer Park Productions and written by Mike Clattenburg, Barrie Dunn, Robb Wells, Jackie Torrens and J.P. Tremblay. Dunn and Volpe are producing eight half-hours for Showcase, with Clattenburg directing. Key cast include Tremblay, Wells and Mike Smith. On a budget of $1.3 million, with funding from the LFP, EIP and NSFDC, the comedy series started shooting in Halifax on July 31 and wraps Sept. 16 for delivery in January.

The production house is also at work on Coast Guard Chronicles, a one-hour doc shooting Aug. 15 to Sept. 1 on Coast Guard vessels off the Nova Scotia coastline. With funding from the LFP and NSFDC, the $100,000 production is directed by Charles Doucett and written by Barry Cowling, who also produces alongside Morris and Volpe. Topsail will deliver the documentary to Global Television in the fall.

The Girl From Glace Bay, a one-hour special coproduced by Topsail and Toronto’s Rhombus Media, will air on CBC and PBS in the fall. It features a live concert at Glace Bay, NS, by 11-year-old singer Aselin Debison. Also in the works at Topsail are season five of Steeplechasing, coproduced with Red Ochre Films of St. John’s, NF, for Vision TV, and Tall Ship Chronicles, 16 one-hours for Life Network. The $2.5-million reality doc series will also be launching a $400,000 interactive website in mid-August, funded through Telefilm Canada, the Bell Broadcast and New Media Fund and NSFDC new media funds.

imX’s first French feature

Folle Embellie (Out of This World), a WWII drama coproduced with Les Films de la Croisade in France and Tarantula in Belgium, marks the first French-language feature for Halifax production company imX communications. Shooting in France and Belgium, principal photography began on July 22 and will wrap in mid-September. French director Dominique Cabrera works with Canadian actors Gabriel Arcand (Post Mortem) and Pascale Montpetit (Savage Messiah). The feature is distributed in Canada by Montreal’s FunFilm, in France by Rezo Films and in Belgium by Cineart.

Technology at the Eye of the Storm

Halifax-based Eye of the Storm Media Productions, in coproduction with East West Media of Charlottetown, PEI, is currently shooting Rail Against the Machine, a four-part doc series for Discovery Channel, which is taking director Jeff Domm and his crew from the Pentagon, to surveillance gadgets, to cyber sex.

The series, written by John Piccolo and Kelly Lyons, went to camera May 3 and shot in Miramichi, NB, Toronto, Winnipeg, Vancouver and various locations throughout the U.S. and England, before ending up in Halifax to wrap on Aug. 6. Four early weeks of shooting were also spent in Halifax doing recreations to illustrate the themes of the doc, which examines different aspects of Canada’s love/hate relationship with technology.

On a budget of $640,000 and with funding from Discovery, the LFP and EIP, the four one-hour episodes will look at surveillance, automation, weaponry and pleasure technologies. The series will be delivered to Discovery early in the new year and is produced by Piccolo and Richard Zurawski.

Eye of the Storm, currently with nine full-time staff and three field crew, was born five years ago primarily as a service production company and has expanded into producing its own films over the last year, with a focus on documentaries.

Canada’s island paradise

Lucy Maud Montgomery’s legacy has been both a blessing and a curse for Prince Edward Island. Since the success of the Salter Street Films/Cinar production Emily of New Moon, the growth of P.E.I.’s film industry has not kept pace with other Atlantic provinces. However, thanks to the efforts of P.E.I. filmmakers like Hamish Redpath, president of Redpath Productions of Flat River, PEI, the province is taking a serious look at its film industry.

‘We need to focus on another industry here in P.E.I. besides fisheries, tourism and agriculture,’ says Redpath. ‘The film industry is a proven economic industry in virtually every other province.’

According to the CFPTA’s Profile 2002, Nova Scotia is the largest production centre outside of B.C., Ontario and Quebec, growing 33% last year, while P.E.I.’s industry shrunk by 5% during the same time period. However, with its diverse scenic backdrops, long history of stage production and subsequently large talent pool, Redpath says he envisions a thriving film industry in the island province’s future, complete with a significant soundstage, seaside film institute and a professional Web presence.

In addition to leading the campaign for film industry reform, Redpath has also launched www.peifilm.com, a site that encourages filmmakers to shoot in P.E.I. He says that within 10 days of launching the site in mid-July an L.A.-based production company contacted him about shooting a six-day, two-person Betacam project on a local community event.

With $50,000 from Human Resources Development Canada, the Canada-Prince Edward Island Labour Market Development Agreement and P.E.I.’s Department of Development and Technology, Toronto-based TCI Management Consultants has begun a thorough investigation into major questions surrounding the viability and state of the island’s film industry, to be completed Nov. 30. The study will evaluate the present state of the province’s film industry, examine the economic fallout from Emily and devise an in-depth strategic plan to elevate the film industry on the island to optimum levels.