After a series of fiscals that reported steady growth in Atlantic Canada, production revenues varied in 2002/03, with only the smallest province, Prince Edward Island, seeing a considerable jump.

The factors at play in this lull in activity include post-9/11 and wartime economies. But with all that behind, the region’s four provinces project a summer that should boost production numbers to what last year’s should have been, unless the rising Canadian dollar interferes.

‘We’re probably going to come in around $120 million [for 2002/03],’ says Nova Scotia Film Development Corporation CEO Ann MacKenzie. ‘We’ve had steady activity for 12 months of the year.’

2002/03 was the sixth straight cycle Nova Scotia generated production numbers over $100 million, and although the province didn’t see a return of big-budget U.S. guest productions on par with K19: The Widowmaker or The Shipping News, it did see a continuous slate of local indie projects. These include director Andrea Dorfman’s feature Love That Boy, part of imX communications’ $750,000 digital feature series seats 3a & 3c, as well as the first season of Rideau Hall and season three of Trailer Park Boys, both produced by Topsail Entertainment.

Several U.S. MOWs also shot in Nova Scotia, including Martha Inc.: The Martha Stewart Story, starring Cybill Shepherd, for NBC; The Christmas Shoes, starring Rob Lowe, Mafia Doctor, starring Paul Sorvino, and Footsteps, starring Candice Bergen, all for CBS; and Hunger Point, starring Barbara Hershey, Homeless to Harvard, Too Young to Be a Dad, and Heart of the Stranger for Lifetime Television.

MacKenzie foresees a big fiscal ahead, anchored by the recently wrapped $10-million Salter Street Films/Tapestry Pictures/CBC mini Shattered City: The Halifax Explosion, about the famous 1917 disaster, and Three Needles, the new feature by Thom Fitzgerald (The Wild Dogs) for Emotion Pictures. Salter is also gearing up for a new season of the Mary Walsh talk series Open Book, while Halifax’s Big Motion Pictures is coproducing the $4 million MOW Sleep Murder with Toronto’s Shaftesbury Films.

According to Film New Brunswick executive director Ray Wilson, the province’s production dollars tallied in the mid-$30-million range again in ’02/03 on the strength of several local docs and guest productions. He says New Brunswick has not been hurt significantly by the departure of Citadel Studios’ sci-fi series Starhunter 2300 (which relocated to Mississauga, ON in 2002), and says negotiations are underway for several Canuck copros and foreign projects.

New Brunswick was the recent scene of Piggy Bank Blues, a Quebec/New Brunswick copro starring Mary Walsh (This Hour Has 22 Minutes) and Jane Curtin (3rd Rock from the Sun). Also in town was William Baldwin, shooting the $5-million sci-fi feature Red Rover, while the James Caan-Jennifer Tilly feature Jericho Mansions wrapped in October.

Wilson acknowledges that foreign shooting has become increasingly important to New Brunswick.

‘We’re getting more of these types of productions and we should be getting several more this year,’ he says.

Meanwhile, Newfoundland and Labrador experienced a drop from $22 million in production in 2001/02 to $3 million in 2002/03. Newfoundland & Labrador Film Development Corporation executive director Leo Furey characterizes the past year as a ‘development year’ and remains optimistic.

In the year just ended, Newfoundland ran on the steam of the indie features The Bread Maker from Kickham Productions and Red Ochre Productions’ Making Love in St. Pierre, as well as four locally produced docs, including Morag Productions’ Homicide.

‘You’re not going to have Random Passage, The Shipping News and Rare Birds every year,’ says Furey.

But there are some big titles that might be on the way, including Dark Flowers Productions’ $6-million MOW Atlantic Blue and Pope Productions’ six-hour Gander mini for CBC. Winnipeg’s Frantic Films is also scheduled to shoot its doc series Quest for the Sea over the span of eight to 10 weeks on The Rock. The Ace Pictures/Jim Byrd production The Colony of Unrequited Dreams, with Don McKellar attached to direct, might also be coming.

Chris Bonnell, NLFDC’s director of programs, forecasts a healthy slate of Newfoundland-produced docs this year, led by the 13-part series Going the Distance from producer Annette Clarke.

‘Throughout this lull our documentary producers have been extremely strong, continuing with their projects,’ he says.

The NFLDC is addressing the matter of studio space to stimulate more production. The organization is currently purchasing grip and lighting equipment from dealers and other production centres and is looking at existing structures for production space. The next phase will see the construction of a new purpose-built facility.

P.E.I. reported nearly $11 million in production for 2002/03, up from approximately $8 million the year before. According to Joan Turner Adams, locations and marketing manager at Technology PEI, which helps advance growth in the province’s tech and production sectors. P.E.I. is steadily growing in terms of infrastructure and general market stature, thanks largely to the September 2002 opening of the Atlantic Technology Centre.

The ATC currently houses a number of production service companies, including Toronto-headquartered Trapeze Media (working on the 2D Flash animation series The Doodlez for Cellar Door Productions) and the Paramita Academy of Makeup. Salter Street Digital has also opened a second location there for audio and picture post-production (see story, p. 35).

Last year saw P.E.I. receive one of its biggest guest productions ever in Shaftesbury Films’/Cellar Door’s nearly $3-million MOW Mrs. Ashboro’s Cat for Animal Planet. Cellar Door is rumored to be in talks for a second MOW, and Adams hints that P.E.I. may also be landing its first feature film guest production in Technology PEI’s lifetime.

‘There is a feeling in the air and a real buzz,’ says Adams. ‘Even our own indigenous production has just taken off.’

Illustrating that, Charlottetown’s Campbell Webster coproduced several episodes of Yet I Blame Hollywood, a series of animated movie-review shorts with Montreal’s Matt Zimbel for CBC’s ZeD. Islander Bill Kendrick recently completed two doc projects – Spirit in Her Voice for CBC and Bed & Breakfast Dreams for HGTV.

Given the variables that affect U.S. producers’ on-again, off-again desires to shoot north of the 49th, particularly with the loonie’s recent dramatic climb, reps from each Atlantic province agree that, going forward, their emphasis will be on developing local production.

‘If we have to wait for every guest production, then we’re not going to get very far in this game,’ says the NLFDC’s Bonnell. ‘If we don’t grow our local industry, nothing is going to happen.’

MacKenzie adds that as much as Nova Scotia enjoys the crew experience and regional profile boost that come with guest work, the NSFDC is banking on its local producers.

‘They are creating Nova Scotia intellectual property, which means they are training our crews and telling our own distinctive stories,’ she says. ‘They’re even the ones that are providing the necessary industrial space that the guest productions rely on when they come here to shoot. We’ve always focused more on the local industry.’

-www.NBFilm.com

-www.film.ns.ca

-www.newfilm.nf.net

-www.techpei.com