Foundation Features

In advance of its upcoming Upfront Presentation, CTV announced today its latest pick-up for the 2013/2014 broadcast season with a second season order of its original drama series MOTIVE(@MotiveTV). The #1 new Canadian series of the year, CTV has ordered an additional 13 episodes for the series' second season from Vancouver-based Foundation Features and Lark Productions. Production is set to begin this summer. The announcement comes with just one episode remaining before MOTIVE's first-season finale nextThursday, May 16 at 10 p.m. ET/PT on CTV and CTV Mobile.

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After swiftly scrapping planned summer drama series Weird Desk last month, ABC has picked up another original drama for next summer, Canadian import Motive, from former Dexter andThe Mentalist exec producer Daniel Cerone. The 13-episode CTV series focuses not on who did the crime, but why the crime was committed in the first place.

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The set of Motive, CTV’s new police procedural that’s filmed on a studio lot in Burnaby, B.C., looks in many ways like a typical police-station set. There’s the bullpen, full of detectives’ desks, next to the sergeant’s office. There’s the break room, and the interrogation room and the conference room.

But the lighting is bright and the space airy, and in the front lobby there’s a big wall covered with assorted greenery. It has a Vancouver feel to it, which makes sense since the show is set, purposefully and plainly, in Vancouver.

“One of the things we’re doing is trying to showcase the city,” says Rob LaBelle, one of Motive‘s executive producers. Each week, a murder will take viewers to a different part of greater Vancouver — the show’s fictional “Metro PD” means they can bypass the real-life fact that different parts of the region are patrolled by different police forces. LaBelle says they didn’t want their stories to always be set in, say, the Downtown Eastside, so instead are shooting in places like False Creek and Kitsilano.

“This is in Vancouver, and we’re shooting it as Vancouver,” LaBelle says.

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Just a few months ago, Rob Merilees and Dave Valleau were executives and partners at Vancouver film production company Infinity Features, carrying on the work of their late mentor, William Vince.

Today they head a new company, Foundation Features, which on Monday began shooting its first feature film, Altitude. And while Merilees and Valleau have embarked in a new direction, Bill Vince is still a guiding light to both of them.

"We felt we were going in separate directions," says Merilees of their split with Infinity. "This is a new start, a new day, and we like to think that this is what Bill would have liked us to do, reinvent ourselves, since we did that a few times with Bill."

Vince's legacy permeates much of what Merilees and Valleau hope to do with Foundation, from his "never give up" mantra and firm decision-making to his belief that the film business should be fun.

Foundation's office in Chinatown is just blocks from Infinity's digs. All seven people who work at Foundation came from the film and television production side of Infinity, and Foundation will continue on in the direction that Vince, who died last June, had set for his partners: a mix of film and television projects; co-productions with other countries; and stories that have international appeal.

"We're just continuing on what we started with Infinity, trying to make high-quality, high-profile theatrical films and television shows that will last and stand the test of time," says Merilees.

Valleau stresses that while Canadian projects will be important, international appeal is a priority.

"We won't be limited to the Canadian-content films," says Valleau. "We're making films for the world market."

Read the complete article at The Vancouver Sun.