ALBERTA

Biggest challenge:
Calgary needs a proper soundstage, and an announcement is due anytime. Some say Alberta must be more competitive in terms of production financing to help manage labor and new media costs

Recently Wrapped:
• Calgary’s Nomadic Pictures teamed with Montreal’s CD Films on the $15 million feature teen thriller Straight Edge, shot mostly in Fiji under helmer Christian Duguay. The prodco also backed the MOW murder drama Don’t Cry Now, directed by Jason Priestley for Lifetime and Corus Entertainment

Shooting now and coming soon:
• The $4-million CTV MOW To Serve and Protect – Tragedy at Mayerthorpe (working title), from Calgary’s Seven24 Films and Toronto’s Slanted Wheel Entertainment, began shooting in and around Calgary March 8 for 19 days. It dramatizes the events surrounding the recent murders of four RCMP officers
• From Joe Media comes The Secret of the Nutcracker, a CBC HD movie featuring the Alberta Ballet, which starts shooting in Coleman, AB in late March

On screens:
• The Brad Pitt western feature The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is due for a fall release
• The boxing drama Resurrecting the Champ, starring Samuel L. Jackson and service produced by Alberta Film Entertainment, should hit screens Aug. 3

Production in Alberta has been rising since the province brought in its Film Development Program in 2000. Now the province has, according to Alberta film commissioner Dan Chugg, ‘a very attractive investment program’ which gives grants to producers based on a percentage of their total Alberta spending, not just the eligible labor portion.

The grants range from 14% to 23% of the total Alberta spend, which, he says, equals 25% to 42% of labor costs that would, under other provincial programs, be eligible for a tax credit. Chugg says the grant mechanism is faster than navigating a tax credit, and, since it’s based on a formula and objective criteria, producers can assign the grant agreement to the bank towards their financing.

Chugg says 55 productions, including 20 one-off dramas, shot in Alberta last year, and the program’s budget, $14.9 million for 2006/07 fiscal, will rise by more than 10% in each of the next two years.

But not all are satisfied, as evidenced by the recent resignation of Calgary film commissioner Beth Thompson, who was ultimately frustrated by the amount of money in the AFDP and its $1.5-million per-project cap, and would like to see tax incentives as well.

‘The numbers [in Calgary] haven’t changed in six or seven years. We can see in other provinces there is considerable growth. We’re in a market that should be doing really well… but for some reason we’re not,’ Thompson says.

For his part, Chugg remains optimistic. ‘We know it’s going to continue to be busy because of the [number of] location packages being prepared,’ he says.

SASKATCHEWAN

Biggest challenges:
Training crews fast enough to match growing production volume

Recently wrapped:
• The U.S. indie feature Ferris Wheel, produced by and starring Charlize Theron
• Downloading Nancy, another U.S. indie feature, starring Maria Bello

Coming soon:
• The MOW Be Careful What You Wish For, produced by Stephen Onda Productions and Blueprint Entertainment for Global Television and Lifetime
• U.S. indie feature Surveillance
• CTV’s Corner Gas V from Three Thirty-Five Productions and Vérité Films

On screens:
• Minds Eye Entertainment’s mini The Englishman’s Boy is in audio post in Regina. The finished production goes to CBC April 16, with an expected airdate in September

In recent years, Saskatchewan’s annual production volume has ranged from $50 million to $65 million, 20 to 25 times higher than in the early ’90s, according to SaskFilm acting CEO Susanne Bell.

The growth has brought with it such star power as Charlize Theron, who was in Regina and Moose Jaw late last year starring in and coproducing the $5-million family drama Ferris Wheel, which wrapped in December. Regina’s Stephen Onda was service producer.

Now SaskFilm needs to ensure that the availability of personnel, soundstages and other production essentials keeps pace with growing demand. ‘Capacity is becoming an issue,’ Bell says.

Onda notes some positive signs: ‘There’s nearly 300 people in the community… They’re developing excellent skills, from drivers to camera department. We only imported about 20 technicians for Ferris Wheel.’

Onda is also the Canadian producer on the $4.5-million feature Surveillance, ‘a twisted tale of three murders on a desolate road,’ to be exec produced by David Lynch and directed by his daughter Jennifer, and going to camera April 16.

The busy Onda is also a producer on the feature Downloading Nancy, which started a 22-day shoot in Regina in February. It stars Maria Bello (A History of Violence) as an unhappily married woman who hires an Internet acquaintance to kill her.

MANITOBA

Biggest challenge:
Needs more crew to attract greater volume

Recently wrapped:
• The $20-million Hollywood thriller The Horsemen, starring Dennis Quaid
• The doc My Winnipeg from the inimitable Guy Maddin

Coming soon:
• Walk All over Me, a $3-million feature comedy-thriller about a would-be urban dominatrix, copro’d by Eagle Vision (MB), Chaos A Film Company (AB) and Colin Neal (QC)
• A couple from Frantic Films: Retail, a half-hour dramatic pilot for Showcase; and Guinea Pig, an extreme experiences/infotainment series, with Ryan Stock and Amber Lynn, shoots eight HD half-hours for Discovery Channel Canada

On screens:
• The U.S./Canada coventure feature Blue State, exec produced by and starring Winnipeg native Anna Paquin, with Eagle Vision on board, is eyeing a summer release
• The Stone Angel, with Buffalo Gal Pictures and Skogland Films producing an adap of the Margaret Laurence novel starring Ellen Burstyn, is looking at a September fest launch

Manitoba Film & Sound CEO Carole Vivier says her province has had two years of ‘non-stop production.’ The MFS production list for the past 14 months shows: half a dozen offshore features; one drama series (Falcon Beach); eight MOWs, including five from Paquin Entertainment; two kids series; nearly 20 one-off docs; nine doc series; six French-language titles; and several aboriginal-themed productions.

She adds that Manitoba will have seen more than 50 productions – at least 20 of them dramas – from last April to the end of this March.

‘I’d say we’re pretty consistent with last year, [and that] was our best year ever,’ she says. ‘We’re on an upward trend.’

Last month saw Guy Maddin and Jody Shapiro shoot pickup footage on the $600,000 Documentary Channel feature doc My Winnipeg, a copro of Shapiro’s Everyday Pictures and Buffalo Gal of Winnipeg. Auteur Maddin has threatened recently to leave Winnipeg, but Shapiro insists, ‘Winnipeg is his muse.’