Vancouver: Despite uncertainty about its future as a government agency, Knowledge Network is forging ahead with its summer and fall schedules and has prelicensed 25% more projects for 2002 than last year.

Vancouver: Service producer Legacy Filmworks of Vancouver may scare up its first episodic drama series if the one-hour pilot Haunted raises the right network interest.
Legacy chief Deboragh Gabler, who is normally busy with U.S. network MOWs, says the UPN/CBS/Viacom production is about a private investigator who survives a near-death experience only to emerge from the trauma with the ability to see dead people who can help him solve crimes.
Fourteen days of production began April 1. No cast was set at press time.

Vancouver: An American MOW producer once told me: ‘I can’t roll out of bed in Vancouver without making money.’

Vancouver: The stock market may be drawing sad faces for most entertainment companies, but that hasn’t dissuaded Delaney and Friends Cartoon Productions of Vancouver from going public.

Vancouver: U.S. studios are back in the lab with a number of experiments underway on the West Coast.
Eastwick is for Warner Bros. This is the show for any of you wondering what happened next at the end of the 1987 feature film The Witches of Eastwick with Cher, Susan Sarandon, Michelle Pfieffer and the satanic Jack Nicholson. The half-hour presentation pilot is about the witches’ sons and wraps 10 days of production March 28.

Vancouver: CTV is swapping The Associates for The 11th Hour, the CBC has one new series planned, Global is skewing its focus again to reality TV and, overall, Canadian dramatic series has seen better days.
That’s the quick take on next year’s fall schedule as broadcasters in Canada finalize their commitment memos for producers lined up at the LFP and EIP troughs.

Vancouver: A controversial initiative by the Screen Actors Guild means the runaway production debate is heating up and the rest of the world may finally get a little scorched.
Global Rule One, which is supposed to come into effect May 1, is SAG’s unilateral imperative to extend its contract beyond the U.S. border. Specifically, it requires that all SAG members work under the SAG contract on any English-language television, theatrical, commercial or industrial productions made anywhere in the world for the U.S. market.

Vancouver: We may have lost Arnold, but we got Arnie.
The US$170-million blockbuster Terminator 3: The Rise of the Machines briefly lighted upon Vancouver, bringing with it the promise of the biggest feature in B.C. history. But alas.
Officially, studio space opened in Los Angeles, where T1 and T2 were shot. Officially, it has nothing to do with runaway production lobbies or the political aspirations of star Arnold Schwarzenegger, who fancies the comfort of California’s gubernatorial chair.
Officially, it means that Universal Picture’s production costs just increased substantially and the studio has asked for its booked stages in Vancouver to be sublet.

Vancouver: Almost 24% of the staff at Sextant Entertainment Group in Vancouver was laid off Jan. 31, a delayed reaction to last year’s fears about a Screen Actors Guild strike in the U.S., says the company’s CFO.

Alliance Atlantis Communications’ acquisition of Salter Street Films may have sounded some alarm bells regarding the future of the Halifax prodco and the overall well-being of the East Coast production industry. However, as the dust settles on the change of hands, business is marching forward with little detriment and some new advantages.

Vancouver: Attendance at NATPE 2002 was down as much as 40% and, in general, action on the floor of the Las Vegas Convention Center was dead, but they didn’t really notice at the Canada Pavilion.

Vancouver: With an expected cost-slashing provincial budget announcement just 15 days away, a delegation from British Columbia’s Community Marketing Group will be in Victoria Feb. 4 to ‘suggest’ ways the Liberal government can reduce its interest in the local film industry.