Kim Todd’s recently launched production company Original Pictures has landed its first project – the $25-million family feature Ogopogo, to be shot this summer in Winnipeg.

Based on the story of Canada’s legendary monster of the lake, Ogopogo is written by Barry Authors, who is also producing. Britain’s John Henderson (bbc series The Borrowers, Loch Ness) will direct and special effects and building of the monster will be handled by the Jim Henson Creature Shop.

Production of the monster has begun in England and will move to Winnipeg for final stages. The 10-week shoot is expected to begin in August.

Cast has not yet been attached.

Todd, executive producer on the film, says that Manitoba’s natural locations and the financial incentives offered by the provincial government through Manitoba Film and Sound helped Original Pictures land the project.

* Camera West’s risky business

Long-running Saskatchewan prodco Camera West Film Associates has spun off a new company, Infinite Motion, to develop and produce ‘more adventurous, less commercial’ film and tv projects.

‘Some of the best ideas, some of the most amazing talent will never see the light of day unless someone takes a chance on them,’ says director/producer Larry Bauman, who is heading up the new entity. ‘That’s an exciting thing. That’s worth the effort.’ Bauman adds that he is looking to team up with copro partners interested in taking on ‘riskier endeavors motivated by something more than the bottom line.’

Projects in development include Invisible Empire, a doc based on the experiences of Bauman’s own family during the late 1920s when the Ku Klux Klan came to Saskatchewan. cbc, scn and Saskfilm have committed development funding to the project.

Sex!Violence!Freaks, a copro with Distinct Features of Ottawa, is a documentary about the American exploitation film production company Troma – a New York-based studio notorious for producing what Bauman dubs ‘the most bizarre, weird and disturbing movies.’ Its credits include The Toxic Avenger series and Chopper Chicks in Zombie Town.

Bauman met up with reps from the company at mip and struck up a relationship with company principal Lloyd Kaufman, who has a degree in philosophy from Yale and is married to the New York State film commissioner.

The doc has been licensed by Bravo! and Montreal’s Films Transit is attached to distribute. Bauman, meanwhile, is quite amused by the fact that guys ‘from Regina and Ottawa are doing a film about a notorious New York exploitation filmmaker.’

Two feature films written by Bauman that he describes as ‘very dark, but very true stories’ are being developed with support from Saskfilm and the CTV Development Fund. The crime story Secret Lullaby is based on a Saskatchewan crime case, while Outlaw Heart follows the true story of cowboy Will James, who was put on a train with a revolver and some cookies at the age of 15 and sent to the Prairies. After a bar room brawl that ended in a murder, James was chased over the American border by the Mounties. Once in the u.s., he was discovered by Hollywood and became a famous scriptwriter as well as a well-known book illustrator who never quite forgot his cowboy roots.

Potential American coproducers are interested in the project, says Bauman.

Camera West, helmed by Bauman and Don Copeman, has been producing in the province for nearly 20 years and is currently developing the fantasy feature Mrs. X, a $5.5-million drama coproduced with the script’s author Gregory Sinclair of Toronto’s Braintree Productions. Telefilm Canada, Saskfilm and the ctv Development Fund have supported development of the project. Described as an ‘X-Files for kids,’ the film follows an alien who comes to earth and assumes the identity of a woman and meets up with a family that has recently moved into town.

Camera West has also just completed work on the National Film Board/Waterhen Films natural history copro Season of the Eiders for Discovery and is set to commence shooting on the sequel to its science documentary The Dinosaur Hunters for scn and cbc. Both projects are distributed by Minds Eye International.

Bauman and Copeman are also executive producing Saskatchewan filmmaker Robin Schlaht’s feature debut Solitude, slated for principal photography this summer, and writer/director Brett Bell’s feature Volatile.

* In development with Independent

Gail Tilson of Regina-based Independent Moving Pictures is in development with the cbc on Rat Wars, an Alberta/Saskatchewan coproduction that takes a look at a strange dichotomy between the two Prairie provinces – Alberta, which spends more than $500,000 annually to be rat-free and actually operates a rat patrol that searches out and shoots rats; and Saskatchewan, where rats run freely without government interference.

The idea for the project came to Tilson from a German director who owned a pet rat in Germany, but found out when she moved to Alberta that it was illegal. Dinosaur Soup Productions of Edmonton will coproduce.

Tilson is also developing a metaphysical thriller called The Risen, scripted by British Columbia writer Jim Osbourne. Tilson tried to get the project funded through the Canadian Television Fund, but, although written by a Canadian, it is not based on a Canadian book or true story and the project could not achieve high enough Cancon points to qualify. ‘I talked to the ctf about shooting in the West Edmonton Mall to make it more visibly Canadian and they said, yes that would work, but if we didn’t have enough shots of the mall left in the film after editing, we could lose the ctf money,’ explains Tilson, who has opted instead to solicit American financing for the project.

Tilson is also working on the real-life story of a family of settlers who landed in Yorkton, Sask. in the early days of western expansion.

‘It’s about a group of people struggling to survive and also creating a cultural community,’ says Tilson. ‘It’s an incredible story.’

Tilson optioned the rights from the descendants of a Yorkton family who have researched the family history for the past 12 years and she is now looking for a writer to script the history into a drama to be titled Wilson’s Beauties. The project will be coproduced with Nick Kendle of Orca Productions in Vancouver.

Tilson is also working on a documentary with Saskatchewan post house Protrax, which is seeking to expand into production. Titled A Warrior’s Homecoming, the project profiles Saskatchewan musician Chester Night and is licensed to scn and cbc.

* NFB Prairie support

The National Film Board’s Edmonton and Winnipeg studios report that together they have supported 33 Prairie filmmakers over the last year, helping them complete their short dramas, documentaries and animated films.

Through the Filmmaker Assistance Program, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba filmmakers received $80,000 in fiscal ’99/2000. fap is a nation-wide program which assists new filmmakers with film and video stock, processing and printing, transfers and post-production services.

Among the recipients of fap funding, from Alberta are Ron Schuster’s Crunch and Julie Trimingham’s The Diva; from Manitoba, Cory Lussier’s Accidents, Kevin Doherty’s I Come in Pieces and John Tanasiciuk’s Baliland; and from Saskatchewan, Dianne Ouellette’s Daisy and Ian Toews’ Four Corners.

* CFCN commitments

The CFCN Production Fund has awarded another round of funding to Alberta-based producers.

Projects offered equity investment are Storytellers Productions’ Stories from the Seventh Fire: The Limited Series, based on the award-winning animated/live-action pilot; WG Production Services’ Wild Geese, a tv movie set in 1920s Alberta about a dysfunctional farming family whose lives are changed by the arrival of a young teacher; Illusions Entertainment’s environmental feature thriller Anthrax; an additional season of the Anaid Productions/Minds Eye Pictures series Mentors; Agitprop Films’ The Breath of God, a one-hour exploration of the craftsmanship designs of the Bible over the centuries; Souleado Entertainment’s Cut to Pieces, a documentary that looks at the pros and cons of hysterectomies; and Karvonen Films’ Yukon: Land of Extremes, which follows the porcupine caribou herd on its annual migration.

Producer development was committed to Alberta Filmworks for Good Day for a Drum Dance, a spiritual action-thriller, and the third installation in the North of 60 tv movies.

Scriptwriter development went to Laura Hutchinson MacLean for the half-hour animated special Sam’s Runaway Christmas; Russell Mulvey’s Cowboys, a tv movie based on a true story featuring Alberta’s own John Ware; and Clem Martini for the live-action kids pilot Conversations with my Neighbors’ Pitbull.

The CFCN Production Fund also funded ampia’s mentorship program and the Calgary Society of Independent Filmmakers $100 Film Festival.

* Website gets new face

manitoba Sound has freshened up its website with the help of Winnipeg’s spacecadet design and Visual Lizard. Program guidelines and application forms can now be downloaded from the site, including the Film and Video Production Tax Credit. As well, recent editions of news releases and news letters are available, and lists of projects awarded funding and those currently in production can be obtained. The address is www.mbfilmsound.mb.ca.

* FAVA hosts ‘that digital thing …’

Representatives from film co-ops across Canada will converge on Edmonton June 5-10 for the Independent Film & Video Alliance 2000 Conference.

Hosted by the Edmonton-based Film and Video Arts Society co-operative, the conference theme is ‘that digital thing…’. Highlights of the week-long event will include a keynote address from Geoff Pevere, three curated evenings of film and video screenings; multimedia installation exhibitions and electronic audio concerts; and a series of roundtable discussions focusing on the implications of digital technology for low-budget film, video and new media artists and the potential opportunities it holds.

The Independent Film and Video Alliance is made up of 47 Canadian film, video and new media co-operative resource centres, community tv stations, festivals and independent distributors, which collectively represent more than 7,000 independent media artists from across the country.

* TechQuest 2000

TechQuest 2000 is a two-day e-conference set for May 9 and 10 in Winnipeg. Designed for professionals in the fields of film, tv, multimedia, photography, broadcasting, graphic design and publishing, the conference looks at how to put together new media and interactive projects – particularly how to pitch these projects and to whom; building financing plans; who to go to for funding and what investors are looking for; how to integrate interactive components into existing tv or multimedia programs; webcasting – how it works and the potential for growing a business; and marketing and distribution outlets.

Speakers include Bell Broadcast and New Media Fund’s Andra Sheffer, SGI Virtual Reality’s Walter Stuart, sgi’s David Plant, Sara Diamond of the Banff New Media Institute, and MidCanada Productions’ Kevin Dunn.