Vancouver: A couple of productions in Victoria are squeezing in before the millennium gong strikes. And they cap off a best-ever year of production in the provincial capital.

The Operative (aka The Company Man), the latest feature by Vancouver’s Prophecy Pictures and producer John Curtis, continues production until Dec. 23 after a quick 18-day shoot using what producers call ‘a green crew.’

Football player Brian Bosworth plays a former cia operative who, after being imprisoned by the old kgb, gets involved in a story of intrigue involving kidnapped girlfriends, billionaires, stolen art and the Russian mob. The film dresses up Victoria as Boston and is shooting in the historic Carnegie Building, last used as the set for the Mel Gibson movie Bird on a Wire.

The $2-million production is the third this year for two-year-old Prophecy. Earlier in 1999, it produced the films A Twist of Fate and Silencer. Curtis says Lions Gate Films has Canada distribution for all three films, the first of which should be in theatres in February or March.

Curtis is projecting similar production volume for the company next year.

Meanwhile, Sometimes a Hero is a $1.5-million, privately financed feature by director Jalal Merhi and producer John Danylkiw. The film – described as a romantic action thriller about rival gangs in a turf war – is the first dramatic foray for Victoria’s Pastiche Productions, which is known mainly for its corporate production.

The film stars Canadians Bryan Genessy and Joan Kennedy. Production wrapped Dec. 14.

(Pastiche has also delivered six of 13 episodes in season three of Undersea Explorer for Outdoor Life, a series about diving throughout the world.)

Victoria Film commissioner Kate Petersen says direct spending in Victoria by the film and television industry should total between $8 million and $10 million for 1999, up sharply from 1998’s $6 million. More than half of the volume has been generated by low-budget Canadian productions.

According to Petersen, however, funding is still a struggle for the Victoria commission, which operates on a $250,000 annual budget. The budget for 2000 is not yet in place and will require (like other regional commission budgets) the support of the provincial government.

* Keystone takes home six pack

Vancouver’s International Keystone Entertainment – creator of the Air Bud franchise – has a three-year, six-picture production deal with MTV Networks and MTV Original Movies for Television. The deal gives Keystone world distribution rights, excluding the u.s.

Keystone says distribution of the mtv films will fall under Keystone’s new brand Keystone Generation, through which the company intends to produce its youth-oriented films for audiences aged 12 to 24 years.

Principal photography began in Vancouver Nov. 22 on 2Gether, a story about the rise of a young boy band and the music promoter behind the band members.

Post-production services are to flow through Keystone’s wholly owned subsidiary, Western Post Production.

* On the laugh track

Peace Arch Entertainment, in partnership with SL Feldman & Associates and Global Television, has signed executive producers David Steinberg (a director on Mad About You, Friends and Seinfeld) and Frank van Keeken (writer for Kids in the Hall, Material World, Mad About You) to produce a new sitcom.

The as-yet-untitled series is set in a talent agency and is promising ‘a barrage’ of cameos from prominent recording and film and television stars.

The series is scheduled to air next fall.

In other Peace Arch news, the company’s sci-fi series First Wave pre-empted completion of its second season because lead actor Sebastian Spence underwent elective back surgery. Production will resume in January, after Spence recovers, and the five remaining episodes of season two will wrap just ahead of the start of season three.

* ESP MOW

Sight Unseen, a cbs mow to air in the spring, is based on the true story of a police profile/clairvoyant who helps solve a serial murder case in Washington State. The project stars Melissa Gilbert, Thomas Ian Griffith and Maria Conchita Alonso. Production wraps Dec. 22.

* Another first

Wrapped Nov. 29 is the American independent feature A Fate Totally Worse than Death, starring Christopher Lloyd. The us$4.5-million ($6.6-million) feature is about three girls who accidentally murder a friend and pay for it by aging.

Fate is the first project completed in Vancouver for the l.a.-based producer team of father Sid and sons Bill and John Sheinberg, which had previously worked in Toronto with That Old Feeling (Bette Midler, James Caan).

The Sheinbergs are also the producers of For Richer or Poorer (Tim Allen, Kirstie Alley).

According to their publicist, the producers self-finance and look for distributors later. Along with Fate, Playing Mona Lisa – their most recent feature with Alicia Witt and Marlo Thomas – is also looking for a distributor.

* Community notes

* PS Films has completed production on Sara’s Story, a one-hour documentary that records two years in the life of 25-year-old actor Sara Taylor who struggles with a rare cancer. Thirty-six hours of footage document her journey and how it has affected her family. The one-hour documentary airs on Global next spring.

* Summer Love, a rave documentary produced by Vancouver actress Joely Collins, had its ‘universal’ webcast debut on the Global Media Network on Nov. 26. The project, about an illegal 24-hour music party in b.c., was split up into five episodes for the webcast that ended Dec. 3. Previously, Summer Love screened during the most recent festival season.

* Entries to the second annual Shavick Award for best emerging director in Western Canada have to be in to Shavick Entertainment by March 27, 2000. Directors from the four western provinces and three northern territories are eligible.

The winner gets $10,000, while second place gets $5,000 and third $2,000. In the first year, the top prize went to Jochen Schliessler for his 11-minute short The Fisherman and His Wife.

* Bat not Brat

According to Bill Kowalchuck at Tundra Productions in l.a., his deal with Atomic Cartoon is almost but not quite as reported in the last B.C. Scene.

Stellaluna, by author Jannel Cannon, is about a bat, not a brat. Atomic is providing services for rough storyboards and not designs for the 30-minute-plus, direct-to-video production.