Bridge Studios honors the late

special effects wiz John Thomas

Vancouver: Kudos to The Bridge Studios, which last month renamed its special effects stage – North America’s largest – the John Thomas Special Effects Stage in honor of Vancouver’s legendary special effects wiz. John Thomas, whose international reputation ranked him among the best in the business, died earlier this year after a brief bout with cancer.

His career spanned more than 20 years, during which he chalked up an awesome array of credits including Cliffhanger, K2, Alive, Bird On A Wire and Time Cop.

A round of fireworks or at least a double descending cable or two, would have been fitting for the unveiling ceremony, but instead, Thomas’ wife Betty, a stuntperson and special effects artist herself who worked with her husband on several films, simply unveiled a plaque in his honor.

‘John absolutely loved his work,’ she said. ‘He was a perfectionist who taught himself, and more importantly, dozens of others learned from him.’

The stage, stretching over one acre of covered space, is booked until April for the mega-budget, f/x-intensive TriStar feature Jumanji. No doubt Thomas would be pleased.

Big break for locals

and speaking of Jumanji, headliner Robin Williams hasn’t even arrived in town yet but already he’s chalking up big points with the crew.

Usually when actors of his stature comes here they bring their own hair and makeup people with them. But Williams has opted to hire locally, a terrific career boost for Vancouver makeup artist Sandy Cooper, hairstylist Sherry Linder and special effects makeup artist Charles Porlier.

Jumanji, directed by Joe Johnston, is a fantasy adventure based on a book by Chris Van Allsburg about the supernatural powers of a board game that comes to life. A young boy playing the game in 1969 is sucked into its vortex and locked in the game’s dimension until some other children pick up the board 20 years later and he can finally attempt to escape.

Industrial Light and Magic of San Francisco has been brought in to handle special effects, with Stan Parks from l.a. heading up the department and Vancouver’s Rory Cutler on board as special effects co-ordinator.

Production on Jumanji began in New England Nov. 14 and moved late last month to Vancouver where it will wrap April 1, 1995.

Lucky ticket

it took seven years of his young life and by his own account nearly killed him, but at long last 29-year-old producer/director Gavin Wilding has completed his first feature film.

The Raffle, superbly shot by local lensman John Houtman, opened in theaters in Vancouver, Montreal, and Toronto, as well as Portland and Pittsburgh in the u.s. last month. Par for the course, the film only lasted a week on screens in Canada. Nevertheless, Wilding says the film, shot on location in 11 countries around the world and produced for less than $1 million – all from private funding – has already broken even, and that’s without the video rights.

The Raffle is distributed by Famous Players in Canada, A-Pix Entertainment of New York in the u.s. and Prism for foreign territories. Wilding says the next step is direct-to-video.

Nicholas Lee, Bobby Dowson and Mark Hamil of Star Wars fame star in the story about a man’s quest for the perfect woman.

For all those producers out there wondering how he got those fab budget-boosting helicopter shots of the Empire State Building: Wilding says he simply booked himself on the cheapest helicopter tour of the Big Apple, took a window seat, leaned out and started shooting.

A sound track cd for the film is being released this month, with music from Elton John, Dan Hill, Doug and The Slugs and The Fabulous Thunderbirds.

Meanwhile, Wilding is already in development on a follow-up feature entitled the Pleasure Principle, written with Rob Glennie of Vancouver ad agency Glennie Stamnes Advertising.

In his ‘spare time,’ Wilding recently started his own commercial production house, Rampage Entertainment, specializing in stylish, attitude-driven, live-action commercials.

Two for Spelling

spelling Television is getting back down to business in Vancouver once again with production on two syndicated series, Robin’s Hoods and the new University Hospital (formerly titled Young Nurses), being filmed at its Lake City studio location in Burnaby, b.c.

University Hospital, which is described as ‘not so medical as er or Chicago Hope but not so soapy as Melrose Place,’ traces the lives of four student nurses. This sounds like a revamped version of a previous Spelling series from a few seasons back, Nightingales, which mercilessly had its wings clipped. Ah well, try, try again. Nothing like tight white uniforms to boost the ratings.

Booked solidÉ

b.c. film unions report a phenomenally busy production season with no sign of slacking off in the near future.

‘Normally at this time of year we expect some kind of off-season slowdown, but it’s just not happening,’ says Tim Hiltz of IATSE Local 891.

To relieve the pressure on Vancouver locations, word has it the unions are looking at a variety of creative solutions, including the possibility of servicing more productions out of Victoria with a ‘local hire’ clause to help avoid the additional costs of importing labor from Vancouver.

This could provide the catalyst Victoria has needed to attract bigger productions and serve as the springboard for getting Sean Allan’s long-awaited studio project approved and off the ground.

The producers of the feature, Dunston Checks In, must have been listening. They went over to b.c.’s capital city last month to check out the Empress Hotel as a possible location to shoot their family drama about two young boys who live with their hotel manager father in a chi chi hotel that has been plagued by an elusive cat burglar.

Things looked good until the high cost of taking over the stately hotel ruled it out. Now the producers are back in town checking out the frequently used Hotel Vancouver.

Éand more on their way

the folks from Morgan Creek Productions were also in town in November to scout for their next mid-range budgeted feature, Big Bullies. Scheduled for a February shoot, the film is about a small-town Minnesota kid whose life is made miserable by the town bully. Twenty years later, divorced and a successful writer, he must deal with the bullying nature of his own young son.

Producer Fraser Heston, who has filmed in Vancouver on numerous other occasions, most recently for Needful Things, is hoping to shoot his latest film, The Alaska Project (working title), for Castle Rock Entertainment in the new year.

And John Badham (Stakeout, Bird On A Wire), another solid repeat customer in Vancouver, has been chatting with the film commission about bringing his next feature, The Nick of Time for Paramount Pictures, to town.

The film takes place over two hours in the life of a recently widowed man who is abducted en route to l.a. from San Diego and forced under the threat of death into a plot to shoot the governor of California. Production is planned for March 1995.