Yule logs

Vancouver: A Beachcombers Christmas goes into production late July to late August, part of the ongoing legacy of the CBC’s long-running Beachcombers series.

Actors from last year’s New Beachcombers MOW – including Jackson Davies (who is also executive producer), Dave Thomas, Deanna Milligan, Cameron Bancroft, Graham Greene and Kendall Cross – return for the yuletide show. Anne Wheeler will direct.

The New Beachcombers MOW, which brought an updated story about log salvagers back to Molly’s Reach at Gibson’s Landing along B.C.’s coast, drew 723,000 viewers in November 2003, making it the highest-rated CBC TV premiere movie of the fall season, according to producer Soapbox Productions of North Vancouver.

The original Beachcombers series attracted an average 1.5 million CBC viewers each week for 19 seasons.

‘A lot of people who grew up watching this show love to sit down to watch this with their own children,’ says producer Nick Orchard. ‘We’d like to do a Beachcombers special annually.’

The MOW will air in December.

Meanwhile, Soapbox is proving to be one of the exceptions in the local domestic scene that is generally down in volume. Orchard is also in production with 13 half-hour episodes of Heads Up, a kids astronomy series for TVO and Knowledge Network. Production began in January and delivery is in the fall.

For CBC’s Life and Times, Soapbox is doing three one-hours of Second City. Also for CBC is the two-hour history of Canadian rock ‘n’ roll Before the Gold Rush, based on the book by Nicholas Jennings. For Bravo!, Soapbox is in production with six one-hour documentaries on ‘seminal’ Canadian films such as In Praise of Older Women, Meatballs and The Grey Fox. Ian Edwards

Planned parenthood

Montreal: Is it legal to hold a bidding war over a baby? Has adoption become part of the global market economy? Such questions are front and center in the Christal Films/Lions Gate MOW Baby for Sale, made in association with Muse Entertainment.

‘The film is based on a true story about a couple who became bidders for a baby. It’s a pretty common situation,’ says Irene Litinsky, a producer at Muse. ‘It’s amazing the lengths people will go to adopt. It’s also the lengths people will go to protect the children.’

Baby for Sale, a US$3.3-million shoot spanning 20 days, is being filmed in Montreal, wrapping on May 21. Peter Svatek (Student Seduction) directs and Pierre Jodoin is the DOP on this project scripted by John Wierick. Leslie Grief is the executive producer from Los Angeles, with Litinsky producing locally.

Montreal subs for New York, Minnesota and Budapest in the film, which follows the story of Lauren (Dana Delany, China Beach) and Bill (Hart Bochner, Liberty Stands Still) on their adoption ordeal. They need $100,000 to adopt baby Nikki from an operative in Hungary. Suddenly, the price goes up, as other couples place bids. Lauren and Bill call the police, who set up a sting that threatens to end the adoption deal altogether.

Litinsky says one of the biggest challenges was working with infants. ‘Working with babies is always challenging,’ she says. ‘We didn’t use twins to play baby Nikki, in the end. We used two different babies. Any babies are big variables on set.’

Baby for Sale will air on Lifetime the second week of July. Joanne Latimer