Winnipeg and towns in the Interlake district of Manitoba are to serve as locations that could either retain their true identity onscreen or be repackaged as American by Winnipeg-based prodco The Screen Center, in its production of The Lights On The Lake.

The feature film, currently in development, concerns fictional Cold War plotting in 1960. Tentatively scheduled to go before the camera in June, the film has already snagged 60% of its projected us$5-million budget from German investor-backed prodco and distrib Gruenberg Film.

A director has yet to be named, and according to Screen Center producer Dave Antoniuk, this decision will affect the project more than usual. The nationality of the selected director will determine whether the picture stays in Canada, uses federal funding agencies, retains an explicit Canadian location, or goes looking for funding south of the border and experiences a change in setting to Minnesota.

Antoniuk, who has worked as an assistant director on episodic television (The Queen of Swords, Psi Factor and Emily of New Moon), is nonetheless confident in his European partners. ‘It will be a much more director-driven project [than tv], that’s why it’s going to evolve [depending on the choice of director]. Ideally, I would like to keep it in Canada.’

*MythQuest goes to Calgary

Citing lack of studio space, Saskatchewan diehard Minds Eye Pictures is moving production of season one of live-action/cgi youth drama series MythQuest to Calgary.

Days before the end of 2000, Regina-based Minds Eye discovered the building it had been using as a soundstage was being sold for use as a call centre. Interim measures that included shooting in three Regina locations culminated in the decision mid-January to move production of the 13-part series’ remaining episodes to Calgary.

‘The reason Saskatchewan doesn’t have a soundstage facility is just that the level of production in the province to date didn’t demand it and there wasn’t a seasonal demand, a winter demand,’ says Minds Eye’s Lanis Anthony. ‘Because the industry has now grown, it has hit a plateau. It now needs a soundstage. Now the tax credit is firmly in place the soundstage is next.’

Talks between the three levels of government and the private sector to build a soundstage have been underway since the implementation of the provincial tax credit in 1998, including a feasibility study conducted by a Los Angeles consultancy firm that took a year to put together and was finished in fall 2000. Minds Eye, one of Saskatchewan’s most prolific production companies, is a driving force in the talks.

In the years before the tax credit came into being, Westank Willock, a pilot project facility owned by the government, was used for filming. One disadvantage of the facility was its proximity to railway tracks: filming had to stop when trains rumbled by.

‘The failure was in the structure of the building – it was seen as ‘nice try.’ [The government] mothballed it,’ Anthony says.

‘What it spawned was discussion and the feasibility study that said if we want the industry to grow we must invest in a soundstage.

‘We have to take [the industry] to the next level, and the next level is the soundstage. We know that it’s the [lack of a] soundstage that restricts our movement.

‘We’ve tried existing facilities. They don’t work. You can’t retrofit an existing building as easily as you can build from the ground up something conducive,’ says Anthony.

Minds Eye has an office in Alberta, a province chosen for the disrupted series as a matter of convenience: ‘They had a facility that was close enough that we could use,’ says Anthony. ‘It was a matter of the space that was required and the space available. It was a matter of proximity. We looked at the smoothest transition.’

To ease the transition, key crew members have been offered first refusal on working at the Alberta relocation. One production factor that will take more smoothing over is the loss of the Saskatchewan tax credit. As for compensating for these lost monies, Anthony says: ‘We have a delivery date to make. Filling the gap will come from a number of sources. At this point I can’t say how those gaps are going to be filled.’

MythQuest will air on Showcase in Canada and pbs in the States.

*Fund deadline March 1

The CanWest Western Independent Producers Fund is up and running and the first application deadline is March 1.

The fund is for both film and television, but all applicants must have a broadcast licence.

The fund makes $23.9 million available over five years in non-recoupable grants for qualifying production companies in the Prairie provinces and b.c. The fund is for both film and television, but all applicants must have a broadcast licence.

Fund information sessions have been underway across Western Canada since mid-January, with Winnipeg scheduled for Jan. 30 and Calgary for Jan. 31.

Fund executive director Sandra Green says, ‘Optimally, we’ll see some new series coming out of the West. This fund will create further income for licences to be given to Western producers and at the same time the fund will benefit people producing already. The overall goal in the end is to give a shot in the arm to Western Canadian industry.

Guidelines stipulate ceilings of $20,000 per hour to a maximum of 13 hours for factual, children’s, variety and entertainment series; $35,000 per hour to a maximum of four hours for a one-off or special; $45,000 per hour to a maximum of 13 hours for drama series and $80, 000 per hour to a maximum of four hours.

Applicant companies must have been operating for at least three years in their province to be eligible.

For info: www.cwipfund.ca. *