Vancouver: Perhaps the one West Coast production company not feeling the economic pinch of 2002, Dufferin Gate got an early holiday gift from main customer Showtime. Two of the three pilots shot earlier in the fall have been picked up as series and there is a new MOW on the way, also in the new year.

Earthlings, the tentative title for a one-hour series about the lives of lesbians in West Hollywood, will be 15 hours over the season including the two-hour pilot.

Jennifer Beals (Flashdance), Scott Bairstow (Tuck Everlasting), Pam Grier (Jackie Brown) and Mia Kirshner (Century Hotel) make up part of the ensemble cast.

Producer Rose Lam says the series is ‘not the girl’s version of Queer as Folk,’ but it will flirt with edgy content.

Out of Order, a story about the struggles of a husband-and-wife screenwriting team, will be six one hours, with Eric Stoltz (The Butterfly Effect), Felicity Huffman (Girls Club), Kim Dickens (Last Call) and Justine Bateman (Family Ties) in the cast.

The Ranch, a prospective story about hookers, did not make the cut at Showtime.

‘We have a very strong relationship with Showtime,’ says Lam, adding that the bulk of the U.S. cablecaster’s commissions are done in Canada. ‘They have had cuts, but in spite of that, we’ve had a good year. Next year will be a big year.’

While Dufferin Gate has picked up the next season of 13 episodes of The Chris Isaak Show, which goes to camera in January, the company is also prepping an MOW called Jack, about a 14-year-old boy coping with a gay father.

Digi-drama

Cellmates, a local digital video feature in the $1-million range, wrapped two weeks of production Dec. 2. Written by Grant Buday (White Lung) and directed by Douglas Thomson (Karma Cup), Cellmates stars Ian Tracey (Da Vinci’s Inquest) as a Vancouver man who has to face his past when his pregnant ex-wife (Rachel Hayward of Harsh Realm) shows up at his apartment. Tobias Mehler and Babz Chula (Dirty) costar.

DOP Randal Platt (The Chris Isaak Show) shot Cellmates on a Panasonic DVX100 24P. Jaye Gazeley (Road) and Ian Smith (Jinnah on Crime) produce and venture capitalist Harold Forzley executive produces.

Cellmates is the first of four planned, privately funded films to be made entirely in B.C., says Gazeley.

‘This is a test for our investors,’ he says, pleased that private investment comes without the constraints of Canadian culture requirements. ‘If all goes well, accessing more money shouldn’t be a problem.’

TV Times

Peace Maker, despite its production timing, is not a Christmas-themed MOW. The USA Cable show starring Tom Berenger (Training Day), Peter O’Meara and Bellamy Young (We Were Soldiers) is an 1881-set story about the introduction of modern crime-fighting techniques in the Old West. One month of production wraps Dec. 20. Larry Carroll (Red Skies) is director and co-executive producer of the project, which may be a back-door pilot.

USA is also bankrolling the miniseries Traffic, based on the U.K. series Traffik and the Oscar-winning movie by Steven Soderbergh.

Martin Donovan (Insomnia), Elias Koteas (Ararat), Balthazar Getty (Deuces Wild) and Mary McCormack (Full Frontal) star in the six-hour production that, like its predecessors, tells interconnected stories related to drug trafficking. Nelson Lee (Oz), Ritchie Coster (The Tuxedo) and Brian George (Keeping the Faith) round out the cast.

Production runs Nov. 12 to Feb. 14. Producer Stephen Hopkins (24) directs the first two episodes.

In the Oxygen Network MOW The Other Woman, Peter Gallagher (Titanic) stars as a therapist who has two wives. The U.K./U.S. coproduction comedy also stars Devola Kirwan, Cheryl Hines (Curb Your Enthusiasm) and Donnelly Rhodes (Da Vinci’s Inquest).

Three weeks of production in various Lower Mainland locations wrapped Nov. 29. Rachel Talalay (Without A Trace) directs.

Poets, killers and cads

Vancouver’s Mainframe Entertainment has secured the rights to develop the television adaptation of the sci-fi comic book Alien Legion, created by Carl Potts.

According to Mainframe, Alien Legion has sold more than two million units in North America since its debut in 1983. Focusing on the adventures of a band of interstellar fighters called Force Nomad, reminiscent of the French Foreign Legion, Alien Legion features a multi-species crew of ‘footsloggers and Soldiers of Fortune, priests and poets, killers and cads…culled from the dregs of three galaxies and hardened by intergalactic battles into a seemingly unstoppable fighting corps.’

Mainframe, which doesn’t yet have a broadcaster in place, plans to do 13 half-hour episodes for the U.S. and 26 for the international market. Kevin Gamble will produce the CGI series at Mainframe’s Vancouver studio.

In other Mainframe news, the company won a BC Export Award in the category of new media and entertainment in November. The award recognizes B.C. companies that have made significant contributions to the export business.

Etc.

Vancouver’s David Paperny executive produced Every Body, a Bravo! documentary by writer/director Deb Wainwright about local choreographer Joe Laughlin and his collaboration with dancers in South Africa. The work, called Sonke Sisonke/Every Body, draws on both African and Western dance, and takes prejudice, oppression and the resilience of the human spirit as its themes. The documentary, which follows Laughlin from rehearsal studio to performance, aired Dec. 2.

* Short comedy/horror The Woods wrapped three days of production in Surrey Nov. 11. Written by Michael Northey (Stuck!) and directed by Rob Wenzek (The Adventures of Johnny the Argyle Sock), The Woods stars Northey, Paul McGillion (See Grace Fly), David Lovgren (rollercoaster), Malcolm Scott (The Overcoat), Judy Closkey (The Overcoat) and Mike Kopsa (3000 Miles to Graceland). In the DV production, four friends go on a hunting trip only to become the hunted.

‘Tis the season

‘Tis the right time of year to talk about socially minded film efforts.

Projections is called ‘a video mentoring project for street involved youth.’ Organized by sociologist Alanna MacLennan, the program helps street kids build life and job skills with a curriculum that includes six months of short filmmaking and a three-month internship.

Four kids finished the first program that wrapped in August and MacLennan is raising $400,000 to help 15 kids beginning in May. Fireworks Entertainment and The McLean Foundation are among the industry types to ante up.

Meanwhile, CBC is marking World AIDS Day Dec. 1 with an award recognizing youth-driven social change. In conjunction with the Dr. Peter Centre, which evolved after CBC ran its groundbreaking AIDS-awareness series with Dr. Peter Jepson-Young, the new annual award will be presented Dec. 1, 2003.