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Dramas and Comedies

Olympia Dukakis stars in OUTtv’s Sex & Violence

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From a media release:

OUTtv has Sex & Violence

  • Oscar winner Olympia Dukakis Stars in and Executive Produces this original miniseries

OUTtv premiered Sex & Violence, its first original Canadian mini-series, this past Sunday night. The series stars Oscar winner Olympia Dukakis (Moonstruck, Tales of the City), Gemini winners Jennie Raymond (The Associates) and Jackie Torrens (Made in Canada), Kerry Fox (Shallow Grave, An Angel at My Table), along with Canadian Idol alum Naomi-Joy Blackhall.

The gritty and graphic series looks at the lives of professionals who work in the aftermath of domestic violence: a social worker, a victim advocate, a prosecutor, a police officer, and a therapist. The show chronicles their struggles to maintain healthy, intimate personal relationships while working daily with people caught in violent and dysfunctional lives.

Sex & Violence highlights OUTtv’s commitment to Canadian television production. “As an independent Canadian channel, we’re delighted to be working with the multi-talented Thom Fitzgerald,” said OUTtv COO Brad Danks. “And it’s a thrill to have Academy Award® winner Olympia Dukakis involved both as the star and Executive Producer. At 82, she proves that there are still strong roles for women in television.”

Thom Fitzgerald (The Hanging Garden, Cloudburst) wrote and directed the six-hour Nova Scotia-based production. Sex & Violence is produced by Halifax’s Emotion Pictures. Film and Cultural Industries Nova Scotia and the Eastlink TV Independent Production Fund also financed Sex & Violence.

Encore of episode 1 airs on Friday, Nov. 22, at 10pm ET/10pm PT. New episodes Sundays at 9pm ET / 10 pm ET.

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Bitten, Dramas and Comedies, Featured

Industry Update – Adapting Bitten: From Book to Television

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Bitten was the focus of a panel discussion at the 2013 Canadian International Television Festival, at the TIFF Bell Lightbox. I had the opportunity to ask executive producers Daegan Fryklind and J.B. Sugar about the show. The Bitten panel included castmembers Greg Bryk, Joel Keller, Michael Xavier, Paulino Nunes, and Steve Lund, and was hosted by InnerSPACE‘s Ajay Fry and Morgan Hoffman.

Cameron Archer: This one would be for Daegan and J.B. Sugar. How closely did you work with Kelley Armstrong in adapting the [Women of the Otherworld] book series to this show?

J.B. Sugar: Kelley was involved in the early stages a lot more heavily, when Daegan delivered her first couple drafts of the first and second episode scripts, as well as the show bible. I think the best news for us, as creatives adapting her work, was to have her kind of give us her blessing and say “Daegan really got the world, and the voices, and the characters”…I  think that was an amazing blessing to get, and let us move forward with confidence. (whispers to Daegan Fryklind) Expand.

Daegan Fryklind: And then Kelley did come to set, also, and met the writing team, and took a tour of Stonehaven, and our standing sets, and loved it. As J.B. said, to get her stamp of approval was really an honour. She was extremely busy during our production season with her newest novel, and touring a lot, so…

Steve Lund: (attempts a menacing tone) Omens. Check it out.

Fryklind: …but would throw us a lot of good feedback on Twitter, which was great.

Sugar: Random House Canada’s about to re-release Bitten in a new edition, and there’s a nice little burst on the cover, giving some props out to the show, saying “coming to Space”.

Morgan Hoffman (InnerSPACE): Cool!…[Women of the Otherworld is] such a beloved book series, and there’s numerous books within it. What would you say were the biggest challenges in adapting [the series] to a TV show?

Sugar: I’m sure Daegan has the right answer…Bitten the first season of the show follows closely to the plotline of Bitten the novel. The Otherworld series kind of jumps in time, and goes into backstory. I think the challenge was to take this wealth of mythology, and backstory, and character that needed to be crafted into a narrative that would work for the medium of TV. That’s something that Daegan and our writing team just did so brilliantly, so I’ll let her expand on that.

Fryklind: The novel itself also stays very closely to Elena [Michaels]’ P.O.V. – that’s internal monologue. In adapting the novel to a series, I had to really blow out character arcs for (refers to male cast attending CITF panel) each of these fellows, so that they had their own storylines, and so that when we were coming away from Elena to other storylines, we had B-plots and C-plots. We sorta blow out the world, blow out their valley, and create characters there, and Toronto, and Philip [Madden]’s world, and his family, and just give everyone their own throughline, and their own want and need throughout the first season.

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Dramas and Comedies

Super Duper Deelia in development

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SHAFTESBURY PARTNERS WITH BITTEN AND SMALLVILLE STAR LAURA VANDERVOORT ON NEW KIDS’ SERIES SUPER DUPER DEELIA

  • New half-hour live action series for girls from the mind of Supergirl

Leading producer and distributor Shaftesbury today announced that it has partnered with actor, writer and producer Laura Vandervoort (Bitten; Smallville) on Super Duper Deelia, a new series for girls created by Vandervoort and targeted to girls aged six to 12. Produced by Shaftesbury in association with John May and Suzanne Bolch of Heroic Television (How to be Indie; Connor Undercover), the half-hour live action series follows the adventures of a young girl who discovers she has superpowers on her 10th birthday.

“I was a tomboy growing up, and didn’t like princesses, ponies or pink,” said Vandervoort. “There weren’t any television series that I wanted to watch growing up. With my Supergirl background and fan base, I thought it would be great to develop a series that speaks to girls like me.”

“Super Duper Deelia is about embracing your individuality and learning how to be yourself in the world,” said Christina Jennings, Chairman and CEO, Shaftesbury. “Laura has created a unique and empowering character for girls in Deelia, who struggles with how best to use the superpowers she suddenly inherits on her 10th birthday. Luckily she has a great group of friends, a wise grandmother and a talking dog to confide in.”

Deelia has always been super – a super friend, a super creator of the most original outfits and a super human to her dog. But on her 10th birthday, she discovers that she’s not just super in a regular way – she has actual real powers. The big question: what to do with them? Deelia wants to use them to change things for the better, but her ideas of how to do that don’t always work out the way she hopes. Luckily, she’s not out there super-heroing it on her own. Deelia comes from a long line of super women including her grandmother, who has plenty of good advice to share. Plus Deelia’s dog, Shadow, is not just a loveable mutt. He’s also her very own sidekick with powers of his own, including the ability to talk. Super Duper Deelia is a series about the fun, challenges and temptations of growing up super – and discovering that the ultimate power is actually the ability to think differently.

The star of the highly anticipated new Space and Syfy series Bitten, Laura Vandervoort is a Canadian actor, writer and producer best known for her iconic role as Kara (Supergirl) in The CW’s global hit series Smallville. Vandervoort launched her career at a young age in popular kids’ series Goosebumps and Are You Afraid of the Dark? before going on to star in such series as Instant Star and V and feature films including The Entitled, This Means War and Ted.

Super Duper Deelia is created by Laura Vandervoort and executive produced by Vandervoort, Christina Jennings, John May and Suzanne Bolch.

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Dramas and Comedies

Grojband premieres September 5 on Teletoon

From a media release:

Grojband Rocks the TELETOON Lineup this Fall

  • Canadian premiere of this TELETOON Original Series airs Thursday, September 5 at 7 p.m. ET/PT

What do you get when you combine wicked tunes, over-the-top teen angst and epic sibling rivalry? Grojband, a brand new TELETOON Original Series premiering on Thursday, September 5 at 7 p.m. ET/PT, during the Can’t Miss Thursdays programming block.

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In this half-hour series, 12-year-old Corey Riffin starts a garage band with his three best friends and quickly realizes that their band sucks – like, a lot. It’s not their music or ever-changing image that’s the problem. It’s Corey’s lack of lyrics. He just can’t think of anything cool to write about, until Core finds his older sister Trina’s diary, which is full of teen angst. Corey and the band “secretly” use her latest diary entry as lyrics to their new tune and the result is pure awesomeness. The only problem is that Trina’s a total witch and can’t stand the thought of her little brother’s garbage band becoming more popular than her. But luckily Corey always knows just what to do to drive Trina to her diary and give the band the one thing they’re missing … words.

Produced for TELETOON by Fresh TV Inc., in association with FremantleMedia Kids and Family Entertainment, Grojband is created by Todd Kauffman and Mark Thornton. Executive Producers are Tom McGillis, Jennifer Pertsch, George Elliott and Brian Irving. Executive Producers for FremantleMedia Kids and Family Entertainment are Bob Higgins and Sander Schwartz.

New episodes of Grojband will continue to air every Thursday at 7 p.m. ET/PT throughout the fall as part of TELETOON’s Can’t Miss Thursdays programming block.

Viewers nationwide can tune in to Grojband during TELETOON’s free preview from August 15 to September 30, 2013. For more information on the free preview please visit teletoon.com or contact your television service provider.

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