B.C. is on an even keel with service work, but it’s been a quiet summer on the Prairie front. However, fall is looking up with a mix of service and series production for the western provinces.

Christopher Nolan’s $200 million sci-fi action flick Inception (starring Leonardo DiCaprio) will likely film a significant number of scenes in Calgary and Kananaskis, AB, but no one in Alberta will officially confirm the shoot. Inception would be the first big-budget, big-star movie shoot in wild rose country since 2005’s The Assassination of Jesse James with Brad Pitt.

Inception’s stellar supporting cast includes Michael Caine, Canada’s own Ellen Page (Juno) and Marion Cotillard (La vie en rose).

Nolan also wrote the script and will produce the film with his producing partner Emma Thomas.

Meanwhile, in Winnipeg, Saw helmer Darren Bousman’s remake of the ’80s horror film Mother’s Day is underway, with Winnipeg-based Farpoint Films service producing. The film stars Rebecca De Mornay (American Venus), Briana Evigan (Sorority Row), Jaime King (My Bloody Valentine), Shawn Ashmore (X-Men), and Deborah Ann Woll (True Blood).

On the indigenous front, Space has given a green light to Todd & the Pure Book of Evil, a coproduction between Toronto’s Aircraft Pictures and Corvid Pictures and Winnipeg’s Frantic Films. The half-hour sci-fi comedy series is about a group of teens in a high school who get their hands on a book that gives unlimited power to the beholder and makes their wishes come true.

And while domestic production has been slow in Vancouver, two domestic series are shooting this fall: the Global police procedural Shattered – a copro between Toronto’s E1 Entertainment and Vancouver’s Force Four Films – goes into production in late October, and Brent Butt’s new Comedy Network series Hiccups is underway.

Manitoba is on track for volume to ring in at about the same level as last year (around $63 million), a far cry from the high of $100 million in production in 2001.

‘We are holding our own, but it’s a challenging time,’ says Manitoba film commissioner Carole Vivier. ‘On the domestic side, Canadian broadcasters’ licence fees are down and there are fewer foreign presales for features. It is harder to close financing.’

Winnipeg’s Buffalo Gal Pictures and Toronto’s Breakthrough Films and Television just wrapped a second season of the Citytv series Less Than Kind in Winnipeg, and the APTN/Showcase series Cashing In is currently shooting season two.

To help leverage more projects, Manitoba Film and Sound increased its equity investment fund by $1.5 million, so a total of $3 million is available for the ’09 fiscal year.

SaskFilm – expecting a downturn in overall volume this year – has increased its development fund and upped the equity investment cap on low-budget features (a maximum of $150,000 per feature is now available) to get more projects going during the slump.

‘We typically do tons of doc series and we aren’t doing even close to typical volumes in this genre,’ says SaskFilm CEO Susanne Bell, who reports that the province won’t meet its traditional volume of $70 million in production this year.

WestWind Pictures’ Little Mosque on the Prairie has wrapped its five-week location shoot in Indian Head, SK. And the stop-motion animation series Wapos Bay is currently shooting season four in Saskatoon. The province also recently landed its first Hallmark movie, A Dog Named Christmas.

Another first for the province, Hungry Hills, an adaptation of the novel by George Ryga, is the first Saskatchewan-directed (Rob King) and -produced (Rhonda Baker) film to premiere at TIFF.

Saskatoon’s Angel Entertainment is developing a half-hour comedy series with VisionTV called Flat Earth ER, and a third season of Rabbit Fall is in development with Space and APTN.

B.C. had a steady summer of service work to keep production levels on par with last year.

Current movie shoots running into late fall include the Twentieth Century Fox features The A-Team, Marmaduke and Diary of a Wimpy Kid; Universal’s Charlie St. Cloud; Warner Bros.’ Sucker Punch; and Summit Entertainment’s Eclipse. The Lifetime miniseries Seven Deadly Sins is shooting, as are three Hallmark movies.

TV series in production include NBC’s Caprica and Psych; Fox’s Fringe and Human Target; MGM’s Stargate Universe; and five Warner Bros. series: Life Unexpected, Always a Bridesmade, V, Supernatural and Smallville.

Just wrapping production is the local feature Guido Superstar: The Rise of Guido, an ultra-low-budget action comedy written, directed, starring and produced by actor Sylvio Pollio (How It All Went Down), along with actor/producer John Cassini (Intelligence, Robson Arms), who also has a lead role in the film.

‘It’s a hilarious movie about a hapless Italian immigrant living in Vancouver who is coerced to infiltrate Asian gangs by the police or get deported, so of course all sorts of hijinks ensue,’ says Cassini.

The biggest concerns facing the B.C. industry are the recent tax-credit improvements announced in Quebec and Ontario, which are causing Americans to look east when planning upcoming shoots.

COMPETING WITH QUEBEC

Quebec instituted a blanket 25% all-spend credit, and Ontario’s new credit, if approved by lawmakers, will be a 25% spend rebate covering labor, rentals or purchases such as equipment, studios and software, and on-set catering, but won’t include other meals, entertainment, hotels or out-of-province travel.

Whether these recently revealed spend exclusions will dissuade Hollywood from landing in Ontario remains to be seen, but in the meantime, Pete Mitchell, EVP and COO at Vancouver Film Studios says his phone isn’t ringing.

‘This is the time of year we should be getting lots of inquiries about shooting in the new year and I’m getting nothing,’ says Mitchell. ‘Our long-term clients are sitting on the sidelines and waiting to see what B.C. is going to do [about the tax credit] before making decisions. When I look six months out I see nothing confirmed to shoot. ‘

Mitchell says he has heard that the province’s financial analysts were overwhelmed with the budget, which came down in early September, but they now have the time to look at the film and TV tax-credit issue.

‘We have a clear indication from [Kevin Krueger, minister of tourism, culture and the arts] that there won’t be a match [with Quebec], but the issue is on the table,’ says Mitchell. ‘Time is of the essence. It is creating an atmosphere of uncertainty and that is a killer for business.’

Manitoba’s Vivier notes that Ontario and Quebec have an advantage because their new credits won’t face as much of a federal tax-credit ‘grind’ – only the labor portion of the spend will reduce the federal tax credit. Non-labor spending eligible for a rebate in Quebec and Ontario won’t be included when a producer’s federal tax credit is reduced to take into account tax money received provincially.

‘That’s a big deal,’ says Vivier. ‘These all-spend credits absolutely add another level of competition.’

Overall, Vivier feels the federal tax credit needs to be improved to make Canada as a whole more attractive internationally. She also points out that it is ‘extremely annoying’ that every time a province increases its labor credit, producers face a reduced rebate at the federal level (known in the industry as the grind).

‘I am a supporter of all-spend credits because it also stimulates other areas of the economy,’ says Vivier. However, she notes that on lower-budget shoots a labor credit is often more advantageous for productions than all-spend credits because their overall spend isn’t very high. Factor in the province’s labor tax credit (45% and up to 65% with bonuses), plus the fact that shooting costs in general are lower.

Ontario isn’t a concern for Bell.

‘Saskatchewan doesn’t service the same types of projects, and with our 55% labor rebate [maximum, including bonuses], it is still hard for Ontario and Quebec to reach our numbers, especially since we are such an affordable place to shoot,’ says Bell. ‘As well, a lot of projects come to Saskatchewan for creative considerations – because they need a specific landscape or want to use our cost-effective and world-class studios.’

The Alberta Film Development Program recently increased its grant program to compete with Ontario and Quebec. Productions now receive 20% to 29% of eligible expenses – including hotel, food, travel, post, VFX and rental costs – capped at $5 million per project.

The fund’s value remains fixed at $20 million for 2009/10, but because many projects don’t reach the cap, and money is administered over long periods. More than four projects can be funded annually.

This increase has been well received by local and foreign producers, says Lindsay Blackett, Alberta’s minister of culture and community spirit.

He notes that current Alberta productions include third seasons of CBC’s Heartland and APTN’s Mixed Blessings. The Canada/U.S. horror comedy feature Tucker and Dale vs. Evil (directed by Eli Craig) recently wrapped production, as did the Fox TV MOW The 12 Men of Christmas.

But to make the province even more attractive, Blackett would like the province’s unions to negotiate long-term labor agreements with U.S. producers, as they do in B.C., where three-year master deals are ratified to ensure labor stability.

‘Producers need a level of certainty in these economic times,’ says Blackett.

A soundstage is also high on the agenda, as the CFB Studio Centre, a decommissioned military base that had four retrofitted studios, is now closed and productions are making do with retrofitted warehouse spaces.

A studio complex has been in the planning stage for several years but never seems to gain traction.

The problem, according to Blackett, is the industry expected the government to pay a lion’s share of the costs, but the government expected more financial commitment from the industry. As well, the scale of the project was very grand.

‘Neither the public nor the private sector stepped up – everyone wanted someone else to pay for it, so it went back and forth,’ he says.

Now they are looking at a more cost-effective proposal that would allow for expansion of the studio on an incremental basis.