Vancouver: From a serial killer’s fingernails to a grilled cheese sandwich bearing the image of the Virgin Mary, there isn’t much that hasn’t been sold on eBay.

So when producers from Vancouver-based Provost Pictures came up with the idea of selling film credits on eBay to raise money for their feature The Beast of Bottomless Lake, they were surprised to find out they were breaking new ground.

‘We had conversations with people from eBay, we talked to our lawyers and all their responses had been, ‘Oh my God, how come this has never happened before?” says producer and sometimes-actor Kennedy Goodkey.

Goodkey believed he had stumbled upon a marketing and fundraising goldmine. Six weeks later, Beast became the first movie to sell film credits in eBay history. Four days before bids were set to close on Aug. 26, the filmmakers had received a bid of $67 for the role of an extra, while an executive producer credit was going for $510 and a product placement opportunity was up to $41. All this won’t make up the film’s proposed $200,000 budget, but it’s a start.

‘It’s fun and exciting to see bids at all,’ laughs director and coproducer Craig March, who has acted in many locally shooting Hollywood productions, including I, Robot and Paycheck.

The Beast of Bottomless Lake is a mockumentary about a group of academics looking for B.C.’s legendary lake serpent, the Ogopogo. Scheduled to begin shooting in May 2006, it is described by its producers as ‘The Office meets Jacques Cousteau with a little bit of Jaws thrown in.’ March says his dream cast includes Mark McKinney in the lead, although no actors have yet been approached.

The script was cowritten by Goodkey, March and their late friend and colleague Keith Provost, who died after a bicycle accident in 2001. Goodkey and March decided to revisit the script earlier this year and produce it in honor of their friend with help from Vancouver’s Love Your Work Productions, which has made a couple of DIY arts & crafts DVDs.

‘It’s something that’s very special to us,’ says March. ‘And it’s great to have a lot of laughs and get a great amount of fun out of a project that we believe in.’

www.provostpictures.com