Vancouver: The lingering effects of the almost-strike by SAG earlier this year began to fade a little more with the last days of summer.
Vancouver’s overall volumes began to increase in September with the addition of titles such as big-budget Columbia feature I Spy, season two of Showtime series The Chris Isaak Show, the Discovery docudrama Living with Monsters (about hunting through the ages) and the mammoth alien-abduction miniseries Taken by DreamWorks.
New MGM suspense series Jeremiah with Luke Perry and Malcolm-Jamal Warner started production at The Bridge Studios in Burnaby in September. Also in production in Burnaby is the Warner Bros. series The Young Person’s Guide to Becoming a Rock Star.

Vancouver: After years of asking the provincial government to restore or enhance its dwindling operating budget, British Columbia Film has finally been able to show what it can do with a few extra bucks.
A $5-million parting gift from the former provincial government this spring has sparked overall annual increases in homegrown production in 2001/02 of 71% and, more specifically, quadrupled the number of features the funding agency can assist.

Vancouver: It’s said that if you ask any Los Angeles film executive in the know what’s going on in Vancouver, he or she will be able to tell you the names of U.S. productions underway at any studio here. It’s a party trick of growing difficulty, however, as the city’s soundstages proliferate to meet the continuing demand from the U.S. and abroad – producers who want to take advantage of shooting in Lotus Land.

Vancouver: With an amendment to their current master collective agreement, ACTRA members can now continue performing in any production that is underway when the current actors’ IPA expires Jan. 16, 2002 or if the union goes on strike.
The change – which was approved by ACTRA’s board of directors, the CFTPA and the AMPTP in late August and does not need formal member ratification – comes on the heels of a controversy involving Daredevil, a $92-million 20th Century Fox/ New Regency feature originally scheduled for production in Montreal that moved to Vancouver (where ACTRA does not have direct jurisdiction) to avoid a potential work stoppage.

Vancouver: The onslaught of new digital channels launching in Canada this month means an onslaught of foreign trademarks at the gate – putting direct pressure on Canadian brands protected to date by the CRTC’s culture rules.
Notable among the newcomers is MTV, the ubiquitous American brand for youth, music and urban living, which will debut in Canada through its new partnership with Craig Broadcasting.

Vancouver: On Sept. 1, as part of the massive switchover of station affiliations in Vancouver, CKVU 13 returned to its roots as an independent station. This is a temporary measure, until the CRTC approves the $125-million purchase of the station by CHUM Ltd. and paves the way for it to become by fall 2002 The New VU or some such Citytv-branded station like Victoria’s The New VI.
Already the station, formerly owned by Global, is walking and talking like a CHUM station since CHUM is providing much of the fall programming and acts as CKVU’s national sales agent. The bulk of the new schedule will comprise CHUM shows such as FashionTelevision, Star TV, MovieTelevision, Electric Circus, Sex TV, Ed the Sock and The New Music.

Vancouver: Infinity Films of Vancouver will evolve from a producer of variety and information programming to a creator of drama after a coproduction deal inked during a B.C. Film Commission-sponsored trade mission of local producers to Munich July 2-5.
The Cariboo Runaways, a $5-million family MOW, will be a 50:50 partnership with German producer NDF, says Pat O’Brien, a partner in Infinity with Shel Piercy and Dan Carriere. Production could begin in the spring.
The Infinity principals originally secured the rights to the story in 1993 from children’s writer Sandy Frances Duncan of Gabriola Island. But they didn’t make much headway with the production until the Sharing Stories conference in Edinburgh two years ago. There they pitched NDF and eventually signed a formal deal in Munich.

COMING-of-age feature film Lost and Delirious by Quebec director Lea Pool opened in major Canadian markets July 27 with 92% of the box office receipts generated in the U.S. over its opening weekend there earlier in the month.

VANCOUVER: The former general manager of Knowledge Network, fired from his position May 14, warns operational changes to B.C.’s 20-year-old public broadcaster will dramatically impair its ability to serve its audience.

VANCOUVER: The Canadian Feature Film Fund’s controversial roster of top-performing Canadian films has undergone some transformation since it was published Mar. 29, but it won’t be including Air Bud and Art of War, two recent films that won the Golden Reel award for box office success.

VANCOUVER: Supermodel Kathy Ireland reprises her role as Santa’s daughter in the TV movie Twice Upon A Christmas: Rudolfa’s Revenge, an update of the Once Upon A Christmas MOW shot here in 2000.

Vancouver: There will be many production executives in Canada – and maybe even a few in the U.S. – who envy Kevin Beggs, executive VP of series TV for Lions Gate Television. The boyish charmer gets the best of ‘television land’ and ‘television hinterland’ – production power and production subsidy, respectively.
While working for a technically Canadian company, the San Francisco native can keep an L.A. office, lunch with the U.S. network bwanas, cultivate his reputation in the TV power matrix, bask in the greenback-oriented ethos, and fly to the sets of his Vancouver-made, government-supported shows in time for dinner call.
In his hands, program concepts that would otherwise languish in the Finance Department as undercapitalized American shows see the full light of day when he brings them north as six-out-of-10 Cancon shows. And, by using the lucrative tax rebates, he is not burdened by the yoke of Canadiana.