Initial glitches with the tapeless Red One camera aren’t deterring John Ritchie from using it to shoot Playing for Keeps, a TV movie for CTV and Lifetime.

‘Sure, there are new challenges with new technologies,’ says Ritchie, executive producer and co-owner of Vancouver’s Force Four Entertainment. But ‘it’s beautiful. It is one-half the cost of the highest-end HD. Some say it looks even better than 35mm. Our DOP [Kamal Derkaoui] is really excited about the format.’

The Red One is the first digital camera capable of a 4K image and 35mm depth of field, and records to a hard drive.

The $4.7-million movie started its 20-day shoot in the Vancouver suburb of Langley, ‘to take advantage of tax credits,’ says Ritchie. Then it moves to Vancouver locations for five days – including renting the Pacific Coliseum for one day, where ‘we’re going to bring in 300 people, and visual effects by our effects house SPIN will turn them into 15,000 fans,’ says Ritchie.

Inspired by a true story, Playing for Keeps stars Jennifer Finnegan (Close to Home, Crossing Jordan) as a sports groupie whose affair with a married pro basketball player, played by Roger Cross (24, NCIS), turns ugly when they battle for custody of their mixed-race son. Desperate Housewives’ Doug Savant co-stars as the lawyer who champions the single mother up to the Supreme Court of Canada.

Gary Harvey (Robson Arms, Whistler) directs the story by Shelley Eriksen (Shania: A Life in Eight Albums, Cold Squad). Ritchie shares exec producer duties with Force Four colleagues Rob Bromley and Gillian Lowrey. Producers are Howard Dancyger and Marsha Newberry.

‘It took us four years in development to get this off the ground,’ says Ritchie, best known for the Gemini- and Peabody Award-winning miniseries Human Cargo, and the series The Shopping Bags and Making It Big. Playing for Keeps is the eleventh original movie from CTV’s Heroes, Champions and Villains production strand, and is slated to air this winter.