Everything about Industry News, eh?

Straight Shooters Productions and CBC developing new drama series

From a media release:

Award-winning mother-daughter team, filmmaker and producer Gail Harvey (Heartland, Murdoch Mysteries, Lost Girl), and actress, writer and producer Katie Boland (Gerontophilia, Reign) of Straight Shooters Productions are delighted to announce a development deal with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) for their ground-breaking new comedic drama Gold Lamé.

Being developed through the comedy department at the CBC, Straight Shooters Productions will work with Sienna Films (Unless, Riftwood Chronicles, Combat Hospital) on this captivating production. Created and written by Boland and Katie Ford (Miss Congeniality, Prayers for Bobby), the 30-minute serial narrative is a compelling original series centred around an aimless but shrewd young woman who is plucked out of obscurity and hired to work for a genius entrepreneur at the helm of multi-billion dollar clothing empire.

 

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Steve Nash, Insight and CBC team to develop basketball drama

From a media release:

Insight Productions has partnered with Steve Nash of Meathawk Productions to develop Hardwood at CBC, a one-hour, character-driven drama series set in the world of youth basketball, Shannon Farr, Vice President & Supervising Producer, Insight Production Company Ltd., announced today.

Hardwood (working title) follows a flashy, big-city entrepreneur who opens an elite youth basketball academy in a sleepy farming town in exurban Toronto. Skander Halim (Pretty Persuasion, 18 To Life) created the series and is writing the pilot.

Farr (Falcon Beach and The Jon Dore Television Show) recently opened Insight’s Los Angeles office – a move that is part of Insight’s strategy to increase its scripted development and production slate as it looks to grow the company and expand its global business.

Hardwood is executive produced by Insight Production’s John Brunton and Barbara Bowlby, alongside Steve Nash and Ezra Holland of Meathawk Productions and Skander Halim. Shannon Farr is Supervising Producer.

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Rogers and Vice announce new specialty channel Viceland and Canadian production studio

From a media release:

Rogers and VICE Media, the youth media brand and digital content studio, today announced details of the new 24-hour Canadian VICE channel, VICELAND, and unveiled the new VICE Canada production facility, located in the heart of Toronto.

The newest addition to the Rogers Media specialty portfolio, VICELAND will launch in Winter 2016, featuring hundreds of hours of new and exclusive programming developed and produced by the young creative minds that are the heart and soul of VICE. The license currently used for bio. will be rebranded to VICELAND. Additional details will be announced in the coming weeks.

Boasting the country’s brightest young talent and serving as an incubator for the next generation of Canadian creators, the VICE Canada studio, which operates under VICE’s creative direction and ownership, is currently in development and production on nine new, Canadian original series. Since the Rogers-VICE partnership was announced in October 2014, more than 100 writers, directors, editors, producers, and filmmakers have been hired to create sought-after, homegrown content for all screens, to be exported around the world.

VICELAND will launch with a full slate of prime-time shows, including Gaycation with Ellen Page (Freeheld) and friend and co-host Ian Daniel, and Black Market with Michael K. Williams (The Wire). Also a proud home to Canadian content, VICELAND will feature many series produced out of the VICE Canada studio, including Terror with VICE Media Co-Founder Suroosh Alvi.

Focusing on the often underreported issues and topics that matter most to today’s millennials, the world-class slate of Rogers commissioned Canadian-made programming ranges from hard-hitting documentary series – Cyberwar and RISE – to unscripted entertainment series – Abandonment Issues, Dead Set on Life, Payday, and Shroom Boom – to seminal pop culture guides – VICE Essentials Canada, VICE Guide to Comedy, and VICE Guide to Film. Additional broadcast details to be announced at a later date.

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CBC greenlights Catherine Reitman comedy Workin’ Moms

From a media release:

CBC announced today a 13-episode order of WORKIN’ MOMS, a new original half-hour comedy series created by Catherine Reitman.  Based on her personal experiences with motherhood, Reitman will star in WORKIN’ MOMS and will also direct. An alumna of The Groundlings Theatre, Reitman is esteemed both for her work on screen (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Blackish) and off. She recently wrote, directed and starred in 100 episodes of her own YouTube show, Breakin’ it Down With Catherine Reitman. Reitman’s producing partner and husband, Philip Sternberg, will produce with Reitman, through their company Wolf and Rabbit Productions. They are repped by Tina Horwitz of Vanguarde Artists Management Ltd. The series will begin production in Toronto in July 2016, and is slated to debut on CBC in fall 2016.

Can you have it all? For these workin’ mothers, some days you can and some days… not so much. When longtime friends Kate (Reitman) and Anne meet Jenny and Frankie in a judgmental mommies’ group, the four quickly band together and form an unlikely friendship. While the women might not necessarily have started off as friends, at this critical moment in their lives they appear to be fighting the same fight: to continue personal growth in the face of challenging relationships, insatiable babies, horrific co-workers and lastly, a Mommy and Me class filled to the brim with disapproving mothers. Whether it be rediscovering their sexuality or merely having the will to stay alive in the face of postpartum depression, these badass women are doing everything they can to make it to the end of each day in one piece.

Additionally, Reitman and Sternberg have another Reitman-penned project in development with the CBC, half-hour scripted comedy series STARTING OVER; a hilarious look at life post-separation. After April discovers her husband has slept with the majority of her friends and boss, her comfortable and predictable life is put into a tailspin. With nowhere else to turn, she moves back home to her impulsive twin sister and lonely father and in a moment of late night desperation enlists an unorthodox life coach named Georgina Stone.

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