In a screening room in a mansion high above Anchorage, with the season's first snowfall underlining both the scenic drama of the 49th state and the logistical hurdles to doing business here, Evergreen Films in Tuesday rolled out a plan for kick starting an Alaska film industry.

Step one: Find a bestselling author with a storybook character ready to leap to life on the small screen. Step two: Sell the idea of a series built around this character to television in Europe, Hollywood or both. Step three: With a television deal in hand, and assistance from the state's new Transferable Film Production Credit Law, roll into production.

Author Dana Stabenow, a native Alaskan with the small "n," said it would be great for the state if the plan works, and even better for her.

"If it ever hits the screen," she said, "I can pay the mortgage."

Californian Mike Devlin, a partner in Evergreen, said he's convinced his company can get it done. Yes, he admitted, Alaska confronts filmmakers with difficulties -- some real, some merely imaginary. But "our secret little place," as he called it, has a majesty, a beauty and an otherworldly character sometimes matched only by the otherworldly folks who live here. The citizens of the Alaska beyond Anchorage, Devlin noted, are sometimes "a little different from the folks we're used to."

Stabenow, an oil patch worker turned bestselling author, has both captured and cataloged many of these characters in a 16-book series about private investigator Kate Shugak. The first Shugak book, "A Cold Day for Murder," won Stabenow an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America. Her last Shugak book, "Whisper to the Blood," hit the New York Times bestseller list. Her next Shugak book, "A Night too Dark," is due for release in 2010. A small crowd gathered in the screening room below McHugh Peak above Anchorage seemed hopeful "Kate Shugak: Alaska PI" would be on screens somewhere not too long after.

"The television series is really the foundation for us," said Devlin, who produced his first film in Alaska -- a documentary on sharks for National Geographic -- last year. The filmmaker, who gives every indication of having fallen in love with the state like others before him, found out in the making of that film some of what could be done and some of what needs to be done.

For one thing, he said, the state needs to develop the infrastructure to support film making here. A regular TV series -- needing cameramen, sound technicians, a studio, a production facilities and more -- would provide the foundation on which to build a business that could bring jobs and opportunities for Alaskans.

Sen. Johnny Ellis, D-Anchorage, the man who pushed state film incentives through the Alaska legislature, said he is hopeful Evergreen succeeds. Pointing north to Fairbanks, Ellis noted that Interior Republican Rep. Jay Ramras could today testify that the film business is good for the state. Ramras owns and manages Pike's Landing, a major Fairbanks hotel complex and restaurant where 60 people in the state to make a Honda commercial were holed up Tuesday waiting on snow.

That, too, sort of underlined the good and the bad of working in the north, where winter days are short and the climate can prove uncooperative in any month.

"People are afraid of transportation costs," Devlin said. "They're afraid of the weather ... it'll take a while."

Then he rolled tape on a knock-your-socks-off Alaska video featuring mountains, glaciers, breaching whales, feeding bears, basking sea lions, attacking sharks and more that served to remind everyone that despite the potential problems, the settings in Alaska -- when they are good -- are oh-so-very good. Alaska, Devlin seems convinced, is a special place. And that might just be a marketable commodity.

Contact Craig Medred at craig_alaskadispatch.com.