Vancouver: Making it big for a Vancouver producer might be a stint on Oprah’s Oxygen Network, a feat Force Four Productions will achieve March 12 when the one-hour pilot of Making it Big airs.

The documentary series with reality elements, which also airs on Life Network in Canada April 24, is about three up and comers who vie for an opportunity of a lifetime. In the first episode, for instance, three photographers compete for a chance to meet with high-end New York photographers and to be mentored by a celebrity photographer.

Career success guru Nicole Williams, author of Wildly Sophisticated: A Bold New Attitude for Career Success, hosts the show. Rob Bromley, Gillian Lowrey, Maureen Palmer and John Ritchie produce along with story producers Thomas Hunt and Natalie Southworth.

Funding comes from tax credits and broadcaster presales. The series, should it be picked up, will go this fall.

Force Four also begins shooting the tentatively titled Gillian Guess Story on Feb. 23 – a CHUM-City MOW about the notorious juror who had an affair with the defendant in a court case. Local actor Joely Collins will star in the project, written by Angus Fraser and directed by Bruce McDonald. Executive producer is Hugh Beard, while Debra Beard, Bromley and Ritchie produce the MOW that hopes for a theatrical run on the festival circuit.

And consumer-affairs series The Shopping Bags (a partnership of Force Four and New Shoes Productions) just got a renewal for a fourth season of 26 half-hours on W Network. Anna Wallner and Kristina Matisic host. Series producer is Heather Hawthorne-Doyle.

Brightlight shines

Vancouver-based Brightlight Pictures has signed on to executive produce six new MOWs for CHUM Television and Victoria-based station The New VI, reason enough to christen Brightlight’s new Victoria branch office.

The first two projects go to camera on Vancouver Island this spring. The balance will be completed by the fall.

Suspense drama Lies Like Truth (winner of the 2003 Reel Edge contest) is produced by Gumboot Productions and tells the story of a burnt-out executive caught in a web of lust, deceit and murder. Peter Campbell produces, Brian Paisley is the screenwriter, and Michael Bateman is the director.

Murder mystery Cable Beach won The New VI’s 2002 Drama Initiative contest and tells the tale of a fisheries officer who discovers a tangle of truth and lies while patrolling a remote beach. The project is produced by Nora Arajs and written by Andrew Struthers.

‘We’re excited to be expanding our already-strong relationship with Brightlight Pictures,’ says Barry Dodd, The New VI’s director of programming and independent production. ‘They’ve proven their expertise in projects like Alienated. Now, as executive producers, Brightlight will be instrumental in supporting our highly talented local production teams in bringing the six new films to fruition.’

Meanwhile, Brightlight will oversee production on the new Millennium Films feature Edison, starring bodice-ripper Justin Timberlake in his debut acting gig, along with Kevin Spacey, Morgan Freeman and LL Cool J. Production runs March 8 to April 26.

Timberlake plays a journalist who uncovers the inner workings of a corrupt police unit.

David Burke, best known for the Vancouver-shot Wiseguy, will direct the film based on his own original screenplay. Shawn Williamson from Brightlight is the supervising producer hired by L.A.-based Millennium.

Naked news

Playback broke the news that Canada’s longest-running drama series, Cold Squad, was not going to be renewed for an eighth season on CTV. That’s not such bad news for Vancouver producer Julia Keatley, who expects to go back into production this summer (pending CTF financing) with the CHUM-City one-hour drama-comedy series Godiva’s, co-created by Keatley and Vancouver native Michael McLennan. The first season plan is for 16 one-hours.

Far from the procedural crime genre, Godiva’s takes place in a restaurant. But Keatley is giving away few details after having Cold Squad replicated in large degree as the Jerry Bruckheimer series Cold Case, which is continuing on CTV. Talks between the Cold Squad and Cold Case producers continue, she says.