While the Saskatchewan industry hopes a rise in indigenous projects will offset a soft 2005, B.C. remains Western Canada’s Hollywood hot spot, and Manitoba and Alberta are basking in an Oscar glow that is making for a busy summer of offshore activity.

‘Capote really gave us a leg up,’ says Manitoba Film & Sound CEO Carole Vivier, of the Winnipeg-shot film that went on to pick up a 2006 best actor Academy Award for Philip Seymour Hoffman. ‘The film really increased our visibility, particularly among the American independent feature world,’ she adds.

Capote’s success quickly translated into new U.S. projects landing in the province. For the first time in Manitoba’s production history, four American features shot between January and April, typically the slowest time of the year.

‘We have never had crew working that early and on so many projects, and it was a direct result of Capote,’ Vivier says.

These films include Miramax’s The Lookout, starring Jeff Daniels, Warner Bros.’ The Good Life with Bill Paxton and Harry Dean Stanton, and the indie offerings Blue State with Anna Paquin, and You Kill Me, headlined by Ben Kingsley and Luke Wilson, which wrapped at the end of May.

Manitoba saw production volume rise to a record high of $124.6 million in fiscal 2005/06, and the province is on track to reach these levels again this year, says Vivier.

Six MOWs produced by RHI Entertainment (formerly Hallmark) and Peach Arch Entertainment are shooting back-to-back this summer and fall in Winnipeg. The first, Off Road, a thriller about a killer grizzly bear, is currently in production, with David DeCoteau directing and Tyler Hoechlin (Road to Perdition) starring.

Next up will be Maneater, directed by local Gary Yates (Niagara Motel), which shoots at the end of July.

Manitoba’s labor tax credit (which offers a base credit of 45% plus 10% available in bonuses) helps make shooting in the province very cost-effective, says Vivier.

‘A producer in L.A. saw Capote and thought it looked like a $25-million movie, and when he found out the real budget [$7 million], he was shocked,’ she recalls. ‘Producers are recognizing they can get a lot of value on screen here.’

Indigenous production is also healthy this summer in Manitoba, with the second season of the Global soaper Falcon Beach (Original Pictures/Insight Productions) underway.

Two more MOWs are on tap for summer shoots: Anagram Pictures and Eagle Vision are in preproduction on a CTV movie about controversial Cree politician Elijah Harper; and The Stone Angel, a Buffalo Gal Pictures adaptation of the Margaret Laurence novel, is expected to begin production in early August.

House Party, a $410,000 half-hour Comedy Network pilot shoots in late July. The potential series is produced by Winnipeg’s Farpoint Films and Inferno Pictures, directed by James Genn (Robson Arms), and starring Jay Malone and David Reale.

Vivier says crew availability is the only roadblock to even more production this summer.

‘I think we could have more projects going if we had more crew – and not just entry-level positions, but also senior ones such as production managers,’ she says.

Alberta, meanwhile, hosted several high-profile American productions over the past year – mostly westerns – on the heels of the summer 2004 shoot of Oscar-winner Brokeback Mountain. These include The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, starring Brad Pitt, and Steven Spielberg’s Into the West miniseries, which recently received 16 Emmy Award nods, including six for Alberta crew.

‘Not only do these films raise our profile in terms of locations, but they also highlight the expertise of our crews,’ says Alberta film commissioner Dan Chugg.

Fifteen features and dramatic TV projects shot in Alberta last year, and so far in 2006 the province has already reached that number of productions going to camera.

The Alberta Film Development Program restructured its grant program as of April 1, and now contributes between 14% and 23% of all Alberta spending, depending on the level of local ownership. Also new to the program, foreign shoots are eligible for the base 14 % incentive.

Four MOWs in a series titled In the Valley of the Wild Roses for German broadcaster ZDF are taking advantage of this foreign shoot incentive this summer, and will shoot back-to-back southwest of Calgary.

As well, the Hollywood feature Resurrecting the Champ, starring Samuel L. Jackson and Josh Hartnett, is shooting, while family drama Moondance Alexander with Don Johnson recently wrapped.

Pitt is expected to return to Calgary this fall to produce Peace Like a River, starring Billy Bob Thornton, about an American family feuding with neighborhood thugs. Chugg can’t confirm at this point that the movie will indeed land in Calgary, although he maintains the city tops the producers’ list.

Shooting has begun in Northern Alberta on the Aaron James Sorensen series Hank Williams First Nation, based on the feature of the same name, for APTN. The six half-hour episodes are produced by Peace Country Films and the Woodland Cree First Nation, and star Gordon Tootoosis (Legends of the Fall).

Other projects shooting this summer include four Lifetime western TV movies coproduced by Alberta Filmworks, which exec produced Brokeback Mountain. The company is also in production with CCI Entertainment and BBC Worldwide on Dinosapien, a 15-ep U.K./Canada copro kids series that combines CGI and live action.

After a relatively dismal 2004, B.C.’s production industry staged a comeback in 2005, with volume rising by more than 50% to more than $1.2 billion.

Most of the gains were due to bolstered foreign feature activity, which increased 200% in 2005 to $580.2 million worth of production.

Shawn Robins, spokesperson for B.C.’s Ministry of Tourism, Sports and the Arts, says offshore feature film production is going strong this summer and points to healthy production volumes for 2006.

The rising value of the loonie [US$0.88 as of this writing] isn’t turning away shoots, he adds. Earlier this year, the province committed to extending its production tax credits, which stand at 18% for foreign shoots and 30% for domestic projects.

‘You can [still] get great value shooting here, because we can do just about any location in the world, plus we offer a sound production base, and talented and experienced crews,’ Robins says.

There are a dozen Hollywood features currently shooting or in preproduction in the province, including Fox’s Fantastic Four sequel; Revolution Pictures’ Are We Done Yet?, starring Ice Cube; Deck the Halls, with Matthew Broderick and Danny De Vito, from New Regency and Fox; DreamWorks’ Things We Lost in the Fire, starring Halle Berry; and Case 39 with Renée Zellweger.

Elsewhere, the Saskatchewan industry is looking to make a comeback of its own this year.

Production volume dropped from a record $65 million in 2004/05 to $56.2 million in 2005/06, but SaskFilm acting CEO Susanne Bell sees encouraging signs.

‘For the past few years, we were witnessing a decrease in indigenous production,’ she says. ‘But this year there is a marked increase in the number of local projects being shot.’

Saskatchewan’s tax credit was bumped up from a base of 35% to 45% as of Jan. 1, with additional bonuses of up to 10% available.

‘There has been an enormous increase in inquiries from producers across the country and internationally since this announcement,’ says Bell.

In addition to new episodes of Vérité Films’ Corner Gas and Renegadepress.com shooting this summer, the new animated series Wapos Bay, produced by Dark Thunder Productions for APTN, is in production in Saskatoon.

Filming is also underway in Regina and Moosejaw on the $3-million thriller Intimate Stranger, produced by Blueprint Entertainment and Stephen Onda Productions. The TV movie for Global and Lifetime stars Kari Matchett as a single mom whose love interest, played by Peter Outerbridge, turns out to be a stalker.

Meanwhile, production begins on Minds Eye Entertainment’s CBC mini The Englishman’s Boy on July 31. John N. Smith is directing the $10.2-million movie written by Governor General’s Award-winning author Guy Vanderhaeghe.

www.mbfilmsound.mb.ca

www.albertafilm.ca

www.gov.bc.ca/tsa

www.saskfilm.com