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Children's Programming, Industry News

Exciting new kids formats headline Distribution360 slate at MIPCOM

From a media release:

As it heads into MIPJunior and MIPCOM, Distribution360 is putting new kids formats in the spotlight with the introduction of several exciting new format series including The School Run and Snapshots among its kids & family slate.

Among the format-friendly series that Distribution360 will be introducing to buyers at MIPCOM/MIPJunior is The School Run, following a freshly inked deal with UK producer Silver Bullet Entertainment and Snapshots, produced by Forte Entertainment for CBC Kids.

Produced for BBC Radio 1, The School Run (6 x 10 minutes) surprises a group of unsuspecting friends with a favourite musical celebrity waiting at the school gates to drive them home. With the help of host BBC Radio 1 DJ and former X Factor judge Nick Grimshaw, the celebrity is grilled by the teens with hard-hitting and humorous questions that every fan is desperate to ask. Celebrities featured: Olly Murs, Demi Lovato, Nick Jonas, Little Mix, The 1975 and The Vamps.

Snapshots (6 x 30 minutes) is an unscripted live-action photography competition series where kids compete to take the best photo ever! In each episode three kids go head-to-head, armed with a passion for photography and an eye for the perfect shot, as they use all their skills and creativity to complete the challenges.

Distribution360 will also unveil an additional 4 brand new kids and family series at the market, including:

Driving Me Crazy (20 x 30 minutes) produced by marblemedia in consultation with IWC Media Limited and Proper Television for YTV, is a fast-paced, fun-fuelled reality series that puts first-time teen drivers behind the wheel with their parents. In a series of challenges on a larger-than-life course with the help of a professional race car driver the teens try to become the ultimate drivers. Based on a original format by IWC Media Limited, global rights to the series are shared by Distribution360 (North America, Latin America, and Australia) and Zodiak Kids (ROW).

In mathXplosion (50 x 3 minutes, Live Action), magician Eric Leclerc turns “mathemagican” in this entertaining new short series that shares secrets from the not-so-hidden world of math, proving math really is everywhere! Each episode illuminates the big ideas in primary math that children are already learning to do in a fun, funny and very approachable way. Produced by GAPC Entertainment for TVOKids.

The Mystery Files (13 x 30 minutes, Live Action) – The adventure never stops for Kyla, E.B, and their Aunt Tilly after they inherit a mysterious set of boxes containing ancient objects from their great aunt Hermione. Now it’s up to the team to figure out where these items came from, and how they connect to the present day! Produced by Apartment 11 for TVOKids.

Opie’s Home (39 x 7 minutes) – Opie’s Home explores the fun of family life from a preschool point of view, following 4-year-old Opie as he plays, explores and discovers new things in and around his home. Episodes feature Opie’s day-to-day interactions at home, reading and playing with his family and neighbours, as well as his family routine before and after school. Produced by marblemedia, in association with TVO, The Jim Henson Company, City Saskatchewan and Knowledge Network. Global rights to the series are shared by Distribution360 (Canada, Australia and France) and The Jim Henson Company (ROW).

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Children's Programming, Featured

YTV jumps into horse-based family drama with charming Ride

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Jonny Gray has established himself as a bona fide star for YTV. He leapt onto the network as co-lead on Max & Shred and most recently became Bruno in the Bruno & Boots franchise. Now he’s utilizing his real-life horse-riding skills as Josh Luders in the channel’s newest series, Ride.

But Ride, debuting its first episode of 20 half-hours this Monday on YTV, isn’t all about Gray. Instead, he’s part of an ensemble in the equine-themed family drama about Katherine “Kit” Bridges (Kendra Timmins, Wingin’ It), a young lady who swaps Canada for England when her father, Rudy (Mike Shara), accepts a gig as an equestrian supervisor at Covington Academy, an elite riding school. The Canada-England co-production, between Breakthrough Entertainment and Buccaneer Media in the UK, was created by writers Jill Girling (Life with Derek) and Lori Mather-Welch (Queer As Folk) and has a direct lineage to series like Heartland and Anne of Green Gables.

Ride2

Like Heartland, there are horses and a lot of time is spent on them. It’s a horse riding boarding school after all, so that makes sense, and the beautiful beasts are certainly celebrated. Director Stefan Scaini, a stalwart of Canadian TV from Heartland and Odd Squad to Avonlea and Wind at My Back, spends several moments capturing their movement in Monday’s debut.

But Ride feels more to me like an update of Anne of Green Gables. Kit has a flowing, unruly mane of reddish hair, bursts with enthusiasm and energy, and thinks nothing but the best of people. That, of course, causes her to run afoul of uppity rider Elaine (Alana Boden) and school marm Lady Covington (Sara Botsford). Kit does make a friend rather quickly: a wild and unpredictable horse named TK everyone is afraid of.

There’s a lot to like in Ride. Aside from strong writing—in the first 60 seconds of the debut we know why Kit and Rudy are in England, how they feel about it and their reservations—and the performances (Timmins, in particular, is fantastic), there’s the setting: rolling green English countryside, gnarled tree branches and moss-covered castles.

Check Ride out and let me know what you think.

Ride airs Monday to Thursday at 7 p.m. ET/PT on YTV.

Cast image courtesy of Corus.

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Children's Programming, Featured

Comments and queries for the week of September 2

Is SnapShots returning to CBC?

I have enjoyed the SnapShots show. My daughters would be interested in participating. Are there going to be any more episodes of SnapShot? If so, will there be any more auditions and where and when will they be? —Lisa

SnapShots will be back for another season on Sept. 10 on CBC. for auditions and other information, go to the CBC Kids’ Facebook page.

Readers react to the CRTC’s changes to Certified Independent Production Funds

I live in Australia and most of my favourite TV shows were/are filmed in Canada, frequently with Canadian creatives—Stargate (SG1, Atlantis & Universe), Arrow, Dark Matter and The X-Files. Many are set in the U.S. but are still very Canadian. In fact, I’ve seen so much that I can often look at a film without knowing and say that’s British Columbia—the forests, streets, generally the look and feel.

Canadian creatives are every bit as talented as those in other countries. While my mother and I were initially attracted to Stargate because it was American actor Richard Dean Anderson’s new show, we loved the show itself and all of the actors to which it introduced us. In fact, Canadian Michael Shanks was my late mother’s favourite. For genre television fans like myself, some of the names of creatives that I follow from project to project aren’t necessarily well-known names in mainstream television. Examples: James Bamford, Ivon Bartok, Joseph Mallozzi, Brad Wright, Robert Cooper, Amanda Tapping, Michael Shanks, Kavan Smith, Paul McGillion, David Hewlett, Ryan Robbins and Patrick Gilmore, etc.

So I want to see more Canadian creatives names on-screen. —Webgurl

Bad news indeed. Should the Levys, Reitmans and Balcer be given shows in Canada since they clearly have spent their lives and careers in the USA? Never mind that some of them have no experience producing or writing … leaving local talent unemployed and without opportunity. So tomorrow Kiefer Sutherland, his U.S. career having faded, comes to Canada and gets shows/money thrown at him at the expense of lesser-known local creatives? And then Hart Hanson… What constitutes Canadian and what is fair? Is this question too Harperian in nature?

Canadian tax dollars should be spent on creatives residing locally … too few shows get made and far too often the same Canadian writers/producers get those shows. The executives are largely to blame for this turn of events. How do you develop talent, then, given the new regulations and the collusion of executives to deprive local creatives of opportunities and enhance their own reputation by funding American-Canadian U.S.-based talent? —Mir

Saying goodbye to Motive

One of the best, if not the best, truly Canadian series is ending. The unusual twist of victim/killer made this dramatic very intriguing! Kudos to the crew and cast got an outstanding run! Sorry to see you go! —Brenda

My favourite show is ending. So sad. Hope they will renew it in the future. —Bo

Such a shame that a great show has to end. Well, I can only hope it’s replaced by another great Canadian show! God knows there’s not enough of “our” stuff—and too much of everybody else’s! —Stephen

Got a question or comment about Canadian TV? Email Greg.David@tv-eh.com or via Twitter @tv_eh.

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Children's Programming, Featured

Eric Leclerc plays magical pranks in YTV’s Tricked

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Eric Leclerc had me totally befuddled. He performed two magic tricks less than two feet away from where I was sitting, and I still have no clue how he pulled them off. (You can check out the video below.) I was still talking about his performance days after he’d done them, and you’ll feel that way after tuning into YTV’s new hidden camera show.

Debuting Monday on the network, Tricked stars Leclerc—a two-time Canadian Magic Championship winner—as he messes with the minds of everyday Canadians going about their business in and around Vancouver. Monday’s bow tracks the energetic Leclerc while he approaches folks in Granville Public Market. There, he pulls off several food-related head-scratchers, correctly producing favourite snacks, fruits and a wedding ring from the most unlikely of places and using a cell phone to make juice. I don’t want to give away the tricks themselves, but Leclerc’s targets were as amazed and confused as I was. How does he pull off intricate magic that involves, well, possibly reading one’s mind?

Tricked

“We spent five months in Vancouver filming, and performed 300 tricks,” Leclerc says during a press day in Toronto. “It was the first time in my career where I was doing magic that I wasn’t choosing to be put out there.” Adapted from a series in the UK, Force Four Entertainment auditioned hundreds of magicians before picking the Ottawa-based Leclerc. He and a team of magicians came up with all-original tricks, created and worked with him to perfect them before unleashing the brain-twisters on the public in 20 episodes. Having your angles covered is an important feature of magic, and Leclerc reveals well-placed production assistants and TV camera coordination blocked off key sight lines to keep the magic intact.

And yet, with all of that said, I still don’t know how Leclerc pulled off the trick he performed with a woman’s wedding ring at the end of Episode 1.

“When you experience magic in front of you, you know it’s not a trick,” Leclerc says. “Her reaction was real and that’s what this show is all about. It’s about their reaction when they trust a total stranger who says, ‘Lend me your wedding ring and let’s try something cool.'”

Tricked airs Monday to Thursday at 7:30 p.m. ET/PT on YTV.

Images courtesy of Corus.

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Children's Programming

YTV prepares for more mischief and mayhem with two new Bruno & Boots TV movies from Gordon Korman’s Macdonald Hall series

From a media release:

YTV gets ready for more pranks from the infamous troublemakers at Macdonald Hall Boys’ School with the start of production on two new original television movies –  Bruno & Boots: This Can’t Be Happening At Macdonald Hall and Bruno & Boots: The Wizzle War. Based on the much-loved Macdonald Hall series by best-selling young adult author Gordon Korman, the movies are produced by Aircraft Pictures and filmed in Hamilton, Ontario. Reprising their starring roles from Bruno & Boots: Go Jump in the Pool are Jonny Gray (Max & Shred, Ride) and Callan Potter (The Other Kingdom), Peter Keleghan (18 To Life, Murdoch Mysteries) and Caroline Rhea (Sabrina The Teenage Witch, Phineas and Ferb).

In This Can’t be Happing at Macdonald Hall, Headmaster Sturgeon has had enough. In an attempt to put an end to Bruno and Boots’ high jinks, he declares that they are to be separated; no shared classes and, most certainly, no shared dorm room. This punishment is worse than anything the boys could have imagined. However, if Bruno and Boots can alienate every boy in Dormitory 3, Sturgeon will be forced to re-unite them. The plot almost succeeds, but one misstep forces the girls from the Scrimmage Academy for Education and Awakening to move into Macdonald Hall, leaving Bruno and Boots back where they started.

In The Wizzle War, the Boards of Directors launch an experimental educational program, introducing authoritarian Assistant Headmaster Mr. Wizzle to the boys of Macdonald Hall and the miserable Assistant Headmistress Ms. Peabody to whip the girls of the Scrimmage Academy into shape. With new dress codes, psychological testing, and early-morning wake-up calls with track laps as punishment, the boys and girls decide Wizzle and Peabody have to go. But how? As they pull out all the stops, they ultimately turn to the theory that “love conquers all” to oust the pair once and for all.

Returning cast also includes Hannah Vandenbygaart (Make it Pop), Kiana Madeira (Really Me, My Babysitter’s a Vampire), Joshua Kilimnik (Backstage, Odd Squad), Drew Haytaoglu (Anne of Green Gables), Isiah Lea (The Stanley Dynamic), Jayne Eastwood (Little Mosque On The Prairie) and Scott Thompson (Kids In The Hall).  Joining the cast for the first time in Bruno & Boots: The Wizzle War are Kathleen Phillips (Mr. D, Sunnyside) as Ms. Peabody and Matt Baram (Make It Pop, Seed) as Mr. Wizzle.

As part of Corus Entertainment’s commitment to creating premium kids content, Bruno & Boots: This Can’t Be Happening At Macdonald Hall and Bruno & Boots: The Wizzle War join more than 350 hours of new and returning original programming airing across Corus’ suite of leading Kids networks in 2017. The movies are also produced with the financial participation of the Canada Media Fund and Shaw Rocket Fund.

Bruno & Boots: This Can’t Be Happening At Macdonald Hall and Bruno & Boots: The Wizzle War are produced by Anthony Leo and Andrew Rosen of Aircraft Pictures (Raising Expectations, Todd and the Book of Pure Evil) and directed by Vivieno Caldinelli (Bruno & Boots: Go Jump In The Pool, This Hour has 22 Minutes). The screenplay forThis Can’t Be Happening At Macdonald Hall was written by Adam Barken and Mike McPhaden and the screenplay for The Wizzle War was written by Mike McPhaden.

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