Tag Archives: Adam Pettle

Industry News

Blink49 Studios partners with Vanguarde Artists Management and Vanguarde Pictures to launch first-of-its-kind joint venture in Canada

From a media release:

Blink49 Studios, backed by FIFTH SEASON (formerly known as Endeavor Content) and Canada’s leading representation company, Vanguarde Artists Management have partnered to launch a joint venture to develop and produce content for the global market.

In a first-of-its-kind deal in Canada, the joint venture brings together Vanguarde’s access to creative talent and IP to develop and produce original projects with Blink49’s world-class studio, production and distribution infrastructure. Under the joint venture, Blink49 will also provide development funding to build a slate of projects with Vanguarde and its clients. Blink49 and Vanguarde will serve as co-producers on all projects developed and produced through the deal, with FIFTH SEASON having a first look on international distribution rights.

The announcement comes after Vanguarde recently tapped award-winning playwright and television creator/showrunner Adam Pettle as in-house Executive Producer of its newly formed content label Vanguarde Pictures. Alongside Co-Heads Tina Horwitz and Jay Horwitz, Pettle will develop scripted content for podcast, broadcast, cable, premium cable, and streaming services under the new banner.

“We’re so thrilled to be embarking on this exciting venture with Tina and Jay and the team at Vanguarde,” said John Morayniss, CEO, Blink49 Studios. “With a stellar client roster and a thoughtful, strategic and creative approach to supporting their clients, Vanguarde is the perfect partner for this joint venture that will provide development funding and studio support for a slate of projects that we will bring to a global market. And, with the launch of Vanguarde Pictures with Adam Pettle joining as an executive producer, this joint venture is set up to be prolific.”

“We are very excited to be working with John and the incredible team at Blink49 in this new venture. From our initial discussions to now, we’ve found a common cause in our approach and desire to establish and support opportunities for Canadian creative talent on a larger platform,” said Tina Horwitz and Jay Horwitz, Co-Heads of Vanguarde Artists Management. “This partnership enables us access to Blink49’s considerable studio infrastructure as well as the wealth of knowledge and global reach that John and his team bring to the table. Of course, we’ll continue to work with our key third-party producers and production company collaborators to always seek the best-aligned opportunities for our clients and their projects.”

Blink49 Studios is a content venture with FIFTH SEASON as its anchor investor and lead strategic partner. Focusing heavily on a creative-first approach, Blink49 Studios is dedicated to partnering with best-in-class writers, creators and producers, as well as actively pursuing IP in Canada and throughout the world. The indie studio is committed to applying significant resources to support new and diverse Canadian voices.

ABOUT BLINK49 STUDIOS
Co-founded in 2021 by industry veterans CEO John Morayniss, Non-Executive Vice Chair Patrice Theroux, COO Jeff Lynas and CFO Nelson Kuo-Lee, Blink49 Studios is a full-service indie studio focused on the development, production, and monetization of premium scripted and unscripted content for a global market. Headquartered in Toronto with offices in Los Angeles, Blink49 Studios was formed in partnership with its anchor investor and lead strategic partner FIFTH SEASON (formerly Endeavor Content). With a combined experience of innovative deal-making and strong relationships in the creative community, Blink49 Studios takes a content-first approach by partnering with best-in-class writers, creators, producers, and talent as well as supporting new and diverse voices.

ABOUT VANGUARDE ARTISTS MANAGEMENT
Tina Horwitz (Co-Head/Manager) founded Vanguarde in 2002 and has established a tradition among the company’s representatives including Jay Horwitz (Co-Head/Manager), Amy Stulberg (SVP/Manager), Adam Pettle (Executive Producer) and Nikki Kipp (Agent) of thoughtful, caring, and intelligent representation of Canada’s most sought-after showrunners, screenwriters, directors, cinematographers, line producers, editors, production designers, and composers. With a select roster, extensive producer and broadcaster relationships across Canada, and strategic alliances internationally, Vanguarde is uniquely positioned to build, grow, and individually shape each of their clients’ careers. The Vanguarde team prides itself on representing artists at all stages of their career from emerging to veteran and everything in between.

ABOUT FIFTH SEASON
FIFTH SEASON is a global leader in the creation, production, and distribution of feature films and premium television series. Known for producing and distributing award-winning content that engages audiences and moves culture, the studio’s film titles include the multi-Oscar-nominated THE LOST DAUGHTER from Maggie Gyllenhaal, Michael Bay’s AMBULANCE, Destin Daniel Cretton’s JUST MERCY, the BOOK CLUB franchise, and recent Sundance Film Festival Audience Award winner CHA CHA REAL SMOOTH. The studio produces premium TV series, including the 14 Emmy-nominated Severance, See and Truth Be Told for Apple TV+, Wolf Like Me for Peacock, Life & Beth, Nine Perfect Strangers, and McCartney 3, 2, 1 for Hulu, Tokyo Vice for HBO Max, and Scenes From A Marriage for HBO. FIFTH SEASON also handles global distribution for dozens of hit series in addition to its own studio productions, including Killing Eve, The Morning Show, Normal People, and The Night Manager.

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Burden of Truth

Production begins on Season 4 of Burden of Truth

From a media release:

ICF Films, Eagle Vision, and eOne today announced that production is underway on Season 4 of CBC original drama series BURDEN OF TRUTH (8X60) in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Following lawyer Joanna Chang, (Kristin Kreuk; Smallville, Beauty and the Beast), BURDEN OF TRUTH began production in early September and is set to shoot until late fall. Seasons 1-3 of BURDEN OF TRUTH are available now on the free CBC Gem streaming service. BURDEN OF TRUTH is also broadcast on The CW in the U.S. and on additional networks around the world.

BURDEN OF TRUTH follows Joanna Chang, a ruthless, big-city lawyer who returns to her small hometown in Millwood for a case that will change her life forever. Each season centres around a new life-altering legal case – the vulnerable plaintiffs searching for answers and the boots-on-the-ground lawyers fighting incredible odds to deliver justice.

Reprising their roles for Season 4 are executive producer Kristin Kreuk as Joanna Chang; Peter Mooney (Rookie Blue, Saving Hope) as Billy Crawford; Star Slade (Frontier, Emerald Code) as law student Luna Spence; Meegwun Fairbrother (Mohawk Girls, Hemlock Grove) as Police Chief Owen Beckbie; and Anwen O’Driscoll (Emerald Code, Flint) as new Millwood police recruit, Officer Taylor Matheson. Additional returning cast members include local Winnipeg actors Eugene Baffoe (Ruthless Souls, Our Scene) as Officer Thorpe; Skye Pelletier (Taken, Indian Horse)) returning from Season 2 as Saulteaux teen, Kip Bellegarde; and lawyer Nevin Page returns from Season 2 and 3, played by Paul Essiembre (Chloe, Warehouse 13).

This season also welcomes new additions Brynn Godenir (The Middles, Journey Back to Christmas) as Stevie Nichols, Luna’s new law-student girlfriend, and Cherissa Richards (A Dog’s Journey, The Secret Ingredient) as Joanna’s new adversary, Elise Moore.

Season 4 welcomes a talented array of directors including Doug Mitchell (The Pinkertons, Less Than Kind), Kelly Makin (Flashpoint, Saving Hope), Michelle Latimer (Trickster, Rise), Madison Thomas (Taken, Colour of Scar Tissue), and 2nd Unit Director, Tyson Caron (Wynter, Lovesick).

Writers this season include Brad Simpson, Madison Thomas, Eric Putzer, Shannon Masters, Hayden Simpson, Felicia Brooker, and cast member, Meegwun Fairbrother joins the writers this season.

In Season 4, when a mining company reopens a dormant mine outside Millwood, Joanna and Billy, lawyers and new parents, step in to protect a local woman’s home from certain destruction. When the mine swiftly retaliates, Joanna is forced to confront a long-buried secret from her past and scramble to protect the future of her career and her family. As both sides prepare for war with the fate of Millwood at stake, Joanna and Billy must juggle their life with a newborn with waging a legal battle against a corporate titan. When they come across evidence the mine isn’t what it claims to be, Joanna seizes an opportunity to launch an unexpected legal battle that will bring the company to its knees.

A CBC original series, BURDEN OF TRUTH is produced by ICF Films, Eagle Vision, and eOne. The series is created by Brad Simpson (Rookie Blue, King), who is also an executive producer. Brad Simpson and Adam Pettle (Saving Hope, The Detail, Nurses) serve as co-showrunners and also write on Season 4. BURDEN OF TRUTH is executive produced by Ilana Frank (Nurses, Saving Hope), Linda Pope (Nurses, Saving Hope), Adam Pettle (Nurses, Saving Hope), Jocelyn Hamilton (Cardinal, Mary Kills People), Eagle Vision’s Kyle Irving (Taken, Ice Road Truckers) and Kristin Kreuk (Beauty & The Beast, Smallville). Co-Executive producers are Lisa Meeches of Eagle Vision (Taken, Ice Road Truckers) and Tyson Caron (Lovesick, Wynter).

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Nurses

Season 2 of Global’s hit medical drama Nurses begins production March 2

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From a media release:

Canada’s favourite rookie nurses are getting ready to scrub back in as Global announced today the start of production for Season 2 of breakout hit Nurses. From Canadian broadcaster and production partner Corus Entertainment, with eOne, and ICF Films, the coming of age medical drama begins filming 10 new episodes beginning March 2 in Toronto.

After receiving an early series renewal for a sophomore season – ahead of the show’s broadcast debut –the first season of Nurses has become an instant hit with Canadian audiences, joining Global’s robust roster of hit series. With the premiere garnering nearly 1.3 million viewers**, the series launch became the most-watched premiere episode of a scripted Canadian series in over two years for total viewers*, and was the #1 entertainment program of the night for A25-54 and W25-54**.

Picking up after their first four months as interns, Season 2 welcomes back Grace (Tiera Skovbye), Ashley (Natasha Calis), Keon (Jordan Johnson-Hinds), Naz (Sandy Sidhu), and Wolf (Donald MacLean Jr.), and the old adage holds true: a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing – especially when other people’s lives are in their hands. As the rookie nurses hurl headlong into a new challenges, there are some notable add-ons to the St. Mary’s staff including nurse Kate Faulkner (Rachael Ancheril, Mary Kills People), who turned in her RN for an MBA;  the handsome, lone wolf Matteo Rey (casting to be confirmed), who gets off on the wrong foot with more than one member of the team; and the eternally sunny Candy Kemper (Katie Uhlmann, My Roommate’s an Escort). With new high-stakes medical cases and romantic entanglements, this season the five newbies will heroically endeavor to help their patients, while still struggling as they learn how to help themselves.

While Season 2 is about to begin a new nursing shift, Season 1 continues Monday nights at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Global. On next week’s episode “Achilles Heel”, Ashley receives an ultra-religious patient who is willing to put himself at peril to appease God, forcing Ashley to reconsider her own religious past. Naz supports a pregnant patient through the hardest decision of her life, while Wolf plunges deeper into Red’s drug ring.

Nurses is produced by ICF Films and eOne in association with Corus Entertainment, with the participation of the Canada Media Fund and the Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit. eOne handles international distribution on the series. Executive Producers are Ilana Frank (Saving Hope, Rookie Blue), Linda Pope (Saving Hope, Rookie Blue), Jocelyn Hamilton (Mary Kills People, Ransom), Patrick Tarr (Saving Hope, Cardinal) and Tassie Cameron (Mary Kills People, Rookie Blue) with Julie Puckrin (Killjoys, X Company) as Co-executive Producer. Adam Pettle (Burden of Truth, Saving Hope) is the Series Creator and Executive Producer.Facebooktwitterredditlinkedinmail

Featured, Nurses

Nurses gets personal in Episode 2

Nurses may have only just debuted but with Global’s unprecedented order of a second season, the medical drama has a lot to live up to. That security of a sophomore year could’ve allowed for the writers to have more time to develop the five main characters—Grace Knight (Tiera Skovbye), Ashley Collins (Natasha Callis), Keon Colby (Jordan Johnson-Hinds), Nazneen Khan (Sandy Sidhu) and Wolf Burke (Donald MacLean Jr.)—but viewers will instead get quite a bit of insight into what makes these newbies tick, and how they got to where they are now in the second episode.

The description for “Undisclosed Conditions” is pretty generic stuff: “When a guest of honour at a St. Mary’s fundraiser collapses, Grace grapples with the patient’s refusal to tell her family her secret, while Ashley confronts Grace about her own secret.” That’s what it’s all about with these five: secrets. And for Grace and Ashley, a bit of a rivalry as well, both professionally and personally.

“It’s a misunderstanding,” Skovbye clarified when I met with the five actors at Corus’ headquarters to chat about the show. “It’s two people, coming in, one thinks they know what’s going but when the truth is revealed, they end up forming a bond.”

It’s the final heartbreaking scene in Episode 2 that Callis calls the “turning point” for Grace and Ashley, and will move them “a step in the right direction.” But if you’re hoping they’re going to be besties (which they are in real-life, FYI), think again. “It levels the playing field,” added Skovbye. “But it’s not like they’re going to be buddy-buddy.”

As for Ashley’s actual buddy, we get a peek into Wolf’s past, which MacLean Jr. described as “a life-defining moment.”

“Wolf seems like a goof, kind of wears everything on his sleeve, and maybe gets judged for that, but then you realize that this guy has something figured out within himself from when he was a child,” revealed MacLean Jr., who found parallels between himself and his character. “Before I even auditioned for it, I was searching for that feeling of fulfillment and zeroing in on what’s important and spiritually being enlightened, and then this came across my table and I fell in love. And I think I matured with the character.”

Sidhu shares those same sentiments about her time on Nurses, specifically where her character came from, and what lies ahead. Nazneen may come across as spoiled (OK, technically, she kind of was), but she tries to prove she’s anything but. Some things, though, you can’t fake.

“What I really love about her journey is it’s really a reinvention story,” she explained. “Why is she in Canada, and why is she a nurse? How does someone like that, who comes from such a wealthy family in India, and has had a life of privilege, decide to transplant herself into a totally new environment where she doesn’t know anyone and chooses the most selfless occupation ever?” Sidhu promised her story would be unraveled as the season plays out.

We also got answers as to why Keon would give up a possibly lucrative football career for nursing (“a freak accident” is how Johnson-Hinds described it), but as far as the actor is concerned, he’s only looking towards his—and Keon’s—futures.

“I think once [creator and showrunner] Adam [Pettle] and I sit down and see where he wants to take Keon’s story, more layers will be pulled back,” said Johnson-Hinds. “It’ll be interesting to see where the writers take that. Because I’ll be ready to chime in and say, ‘Yup, this is what I wanna be fighting for for this character.'”

It’s safe to say they’re all going to be fighting for their characters.

Nurses airs Mondays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Global.

Images courtesy of Corus Entertainment.Facebooktwitterredditlinkedinmail

Featured, Nurses

Global’s Nurses brings viewers into the trenches with frontline medical workers

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I first spoke to Adam Pettle during what turned out to be the last season of the medical drama Saving Hope. He and I—along with co-producers Noelle Carbone and Patrick Tarr—discussed, among other things, Saving Hope‘s longevity and its possible end.

Now Pettle is back with a new group of folks in scrubs, saving lives in a hospital. Debuting Monday at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Global, Nurses is a departure from Saving Hope, focusing almost solely on the nurses at the fictional St. Mary’s Hospital. Sure, there are doctors and surgeons flitting about, but the focus is on nurses Grace Knight (Tiera Skovbye), Ashley Collins (Natasha Callis), Keon Colby (Jordan Johnson-Hinds), Nazneen Khan (Sandy Sidhu) and Wolf Burke (Donald MacLean Jr.).

Pettle doesn’t pull any punches on the five in Monday’s debut. Moments after reporting for duty on their first day, they are thrown into the melée following a vehicle attack on pedestrians.

Days before Corus announced Nurses was renewed for a second season, we spoke to Pettle about how Nurses came about, why he was eager to re-visit the medical drama genre and what viewers can expect in Season 1.

Were you champing at the bit to get back into the medical stories, and this time focus on nurses? 
Adam Pettle: My dad’s a doctor. My mother’s a nurse. I kind of grew up in and around hospitals and so it’s always been a genre I’ve been really into. When I was making Saving Hope, [executive producer] Ilana Frank had read a book called A Nurse’s Story, which is a memoir by Canadian nurse Tilda Shalof. Ilana was like, ‘You know, I’ve always wanted to make A Nurse’s Story.’ We started talking about it and then I had been doing a Burden of Truth on CBC, and we continued to kind of talk through some ideas and, and then we landed on writing a show about five young, newly-graduated nurses.

On Saving Hope and most medical shows, the nurses are usually relegated to background performers. We thought it would be really great, especially in this time we’re living in. We know there’s some pretty selfish leadership going on all over the world, and I was really drawn to this idea of a job about caring and how we care for people as opposed to big splashy medicine, and kind of front line heroes. Unsung heroes.

What immediately struck me watching Episode 1 was what I loved about ER. Noah Wyle’s character is the viewers’ in because he was this fresh face coming in and you were learning about the intricacies of the ER through his eyes. On Nurses, you’ve got the same scenario.
AP: That’s exactly it. It’s like we are with them. Their newness and rookie mistakes, which have life and death stakes. It’s one thing to learn a job, but when it’s that job, I find it quite noble and heroic. It seems like it’s a lot of grunt work and shitty work. And it’s not just caring for patients, it’s caring for family members. I’ve talked to one nurse who was like, ‘It’s more about psychology and spirituality than it is about biology.’ And I love that idea.

There’s a guy named Mike Denby, who has kind of been my main consultant who’s a young, super handsome real-life nurse at The Hospital for Sick Children. He’s kind of connected me with a few nurses there. I went to St. Michael’s Hospital and interviewed, I think it was five or six ER nurses at different stages of their careers, which is fascinating too.

Why did you decide to use a vehicle attack as the main event in the debut episode to introduce us to everybody?
AP: I thought it was raw. It’s such a horrific local event that really terrified me when it happened. It’s very loosely based on that event. I really wanted a first-day event that all the stories kind of sprung from. The show, for me, was like seeing the different characters as body parts. Everything stemmed off of an event, I wanted quieter stories like the ICU story and like the pregnancy story, but I wanted them all to spring up out of the same inciting incident.

Something [like that] affects everybody and is so random and senseless. But the impact it has, on all ages, on all races on the whole. And I also wanted to throw them into the deep end as far as work.

Nurses airs Mondays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Global.

Images courtesy of Corus Entertainment.Facebooktwitterredditlinkedinmail