Chris Carter has high hopes for pilot
By: Glen Schaefer

Chris Carter has news for anyone who thought he left Vancouver when The X-Files did.

"It's not like you've seen any less of me this year," says the writer-producer, who's had his hands full this month with Harsh Realm, his big-ticket pilot for a new TV series.

The 43-year-old Carter, who keeps a place in Vancouver's West End, gets to sounding positively home-grown when he starts talking about working in B.C.

"Shooting up here in the intense way that I have -- I've filmed almost 200 hours of television up here -- you get familiar with a lot of the crew, the locations, the town and the pool of acting talent."

Carter notes that aside from a couple of lead roles, Millennium and the Vancouver-filmed episodes of The X-Files were acted entirely by Canadians.

For Harsh Realm, he's dipping even deeper into the Canadian talent pool, with three Canadians among the six series regulars.

Winnipeg-raised Scott Bairstow stars, and fellow Canadians Max Martini and Rachel Hayward play alongside Americans Samantha Mathis, D.B. Sweeney and Terry O'Quinn.

Behind the cameras, Carter has pulled in several Vancouver creative types from his X-Files days, including production designer Graeme Murray, cinematographer Joel Ransom and art director Greg Loewen.

Carter made his TV fortune in Vancouver six years ago with The X-Files, a moody cops-and-aliens long shot. Then he mined a darker vein with Millennium.

The X-Files took off for Los Angeles last year, at the request of the show's stars, and low ratings have kept Millennium's future dicey at the end of each season.

With Harsh Realm, Carter's looking for another mainstream smash.

"We had no anticipation with The X-Files pilot, we only tried to make it good and we got very lucky," says Carter.

Harsh Realm raises the stakes.

"I'd like to make this new TV series a big hit," says Carter. "It's really fun to tell stories with actors and characters that you like. I'm looking forward to this being another way to explore the things I'm interested in."

With a budget of $6.5 million, a longer-than-usual 16-day shooting schedule and enough effects work to simulate a war, Harsh Realm has a scale beyond that of most series pilots.

"A pilot is the origin of life for a TV series," says Carter.

"The episodes that will spring from it -- and you hope you'll have 100-plus -- have to live up to its production standards, story-telling standards and performance standards.

"There are a million ways to fail and you try to always step boldy but cautiously forward."

If the Fox network approves Harsh Realm as a series -- and no one thinks they won't -- the show would start production in July, with Carter up here every week to watch over it and do most of the writing.

"For the record, I love the rain," says Carter, laughing.

"As little as it rains here, I love it."

Carter says the show would be on a scale with The X-Files, which had as many as 300 crew members working on each episode by the fifth year of production. Budgets would be as much as $2 million US an episode.

Carter juggles his producing duties with his first love -- the writing. He's banging out The X-Files season finale as we speak, and is also working on a deal to write a novel.

Down the road, there's the next X-Files movie, which would come some time after the show's next -- and likely final -- season.

And who knows, Carter might end up filming that movie in Vancouver as well.

"We're too far away from any kind of solid decisions on when and where," says Carter, adding he doesn't have a script for the movie yet.

"It's in the thinking stages right now but, in spite of what many people believe, I know David Duchovny would love to come back here and shoot an X-Files movie."