Halifax: It was hard to get away from Ricky, Julian and Bubbles at this year's ShowCanada. Time and again, there they were. Around every corner, at every podium. Holding a press conference, introducing a highlight reel or smoking out behind the hotel - the boys of Trailer Park Boys were front and center to pre-hype their soon-to-shoot movie.

"It's still cameras following us around and interrupting our lives, just bigger cameras from what they tell us," grumbled Robb Wells, in character as Ricky, at a press conference on April 28.

News that the feature version of the hit series will shoot this summer in nearby Dartmouth - with series creator Mike Clattenburg at the helm under exec producer Ivan Reitman - dominated the opening days of ShowCan. Reitman signed on to the project last year and recently finished the script with Clattenburg, while leaving room for improvisation.

"The story is more focused," says Reitman. "When the story is told over six, eight episodes there's this loosy-goosy quality to it. Part of that is the charm of the show, but part of it has to be focused down a little bit. So it can be told in 90 minutes."

"We work with a script, but if it's not sparking we throw a match on it," Clattenburg adds. "So there's always some life to the scene and there's always that spark of comedy happening for the first time."

Promotion-wise, it was a good fit. The boys are popular here - the show shoots just on the other side of the harbor - and the prospect of their popularity playing out on the big screen raised eyebrows among the 700-odd exhibitors and distributors in town for ShowCan.

The four-day convention moved into three hotels in the Nova Scotia capital late last month - mainly to promote coming releases, wholesale popcorn, projector lenses and the like to theater chains. The trade floor hosted a record 52 companies, while the major distribs screened spring and summer movies such as Madagascar (DreamWorks), Crash (Maple Pictures, taking over for Lions Gate) and It's All Gone Pete Tong (Odeon Films).

The show helped put a big spotlight on the province, says Ann Mackenzie, CEO of the Nova Scotia Film Development Corporation, which cohosted a well-attended breakfast presentation on April 29. "It was an excellent opportunity to put in face time with distributors," she says. Funders from Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick, Manitoba and Saskatchewan also took part, the highest turnout of the bodies since ShowCan opened its doors to them three years ago.

ShowCan is a chance to get distribs involved with projects and to gather intelligence about up-and-coming filmmakers, says Mackenzie.

"I think it was a great convention. Lots of industry work got done," says organizer Adina Lebo, pointing to the provincial funders and a series of closed-door meetings. "The provinces were extremely happy."

But conventioneers also took time out to talk about production, marketing and writing jokes at an April 29 panel about English-Canadian cinema.