Movie Vista’s VCC efforts

beginning to pay off

Vancouver: Over the past year, producer Bob Frederick’s Movie Vista has raised almost $1 million through a Venture Capital Corporation to help fund the company’s production slate.

Frederick, who formed Movie Vista with actor Jackson Davies a year ago, says raising the private capital has not been easy. ‘It doesn’t happen quickly, and it’s taken well over a year of hard work to start making all those important connections with the investment community.’

Frederick is playing his cards close to his chest until several deals are closer to closing, but says Movie Vista ‘will be focusing on live-action drama, both television and theatrical. Suffice it to say, since it’s our first year, we need to choose very wisely in starting production.’

Hanna Fisher, a former director of the Vancouver International Film Festival, has been hired as vice-president of international marketing.

Slow burn in Victoria

Sean Allan has moved his proposed Victoria studio facility to a slow burner following word the provincial ndp government won’t be providing seed money for the project.

Allan says his company, Victoria/Vancouver Island Film Studio, asked the government for $350,000 to help get the project off the ground, but the province’s counter-offer was just ‘unacceptable if we were to make this a profitable business.’

Allan’s plans call for a 45,000-square-foot studio with two 12,000-square-foot stages situated on a seven-acre tract of land north of Thetis Lake and across from a race-car track.

The studio is still in the works, says Allan, but he’s worried about losing momentum. ‘We came so close. We’ve got the land and the builder, now we’re looking at other private investment options.

‘I guess there’s no support for the film industry outside of Vancouver,’ he continues. ‘The (provincial) government is investing $2.3 million into The Bridge Studios and extending their low-interest loan to North Shore Studios, but getting even a small studio built in Victoria seems to be an endless uphill battle.’

Says David Mills, the new Victoria film commissioner: ‘A film studio is essential for the long-term continued growth of the film industry on the whole island. Without it we will continue to remain solely a location destination that cannot service whole productions.’

However, Mills says Allan’s studio proposal is not the only one kicking around. Vancouver Island publisher David Black (no relation to Conrad) has been investigating the possibility of converting the former Royal Roads Military College into a possible ocean-front studio/public garden.

State of the unions

The long-standing ubcp/actra dispute continues to be the big union issue on the West Coast, and word has it the battle may be spreading further east.

ubcp is rumored to be on a recruiting mission across the country, with reported sightings in Regina and Toronto.

‘Not so,’ says ubcp president Peter Partridge. ‘We had our first round of negotiations with actra on April 19 and (were) scheduled for another on May 2. At this time, the only thing our membership has authorized is an `information’ campaign to present their case to other parts of the country. But to my knowledge, this has not been done yet. We’re waiting to see how the negotiations go first.’

A special blend

International spfx, a Burnaby, b.c.-based special effects company, has just completed work on TriStar’s big-ticket fantasy-adventure Jumanji starring Robin Williams and the soon-to-be-released Keanu Reeves vehicle, Johnny Mnemonic, produced by Alliance Communications, TriStar and Twentieth Century Fox. Both projects relied heavily on the blending of physical and visual (computer-generated) special effects.

spfx president Rory Cutler, who spent more than nine months working on the visual effects for Jumanji with consultants from San Francisco-based International Light and Magic, says there is an increasing demand for expertise in making those physical effects blend seamlessly with computer-generated effects.

‘Today, a producer can use the computer for everything from simple touchups to total creation. The tricky area is where the real-world image and the computer-generated image meet. The physical effects have to be designed to work with the visual effects,’ he says, because once you get into post, it’s too late to fix what came from the set.