It’s been two years since TV, Eh? began our inaugural spotlight on web series seeking Independent Production Fund support, and the state of those series in Canada is booming. Projects like Save Me, Clairevoyant, How to Buy a Baby and Narcoleap are just a few of the many that received IPF support in the past and have gone on to full-blown web and television series.
Established in 1991 to provide financial support for dramatic television series, the IPF was expanded in 2010 to include financing drama series for the web. That mandate has been extended indefinitely. The result? Dozens of trailers for potential projects have been posted on YouTube. Check them out here.
With a deadline of March 31 approaching, creators are looking for support via views and comments about their potential projects before the IPF makes their decision. In 2018, the IPF approved funding for 17 scripted series (11 in English and six in French) including The Amazing Gayl Pyle, The Communist’s Daughter, Detention Adventure and Short Term Sentence. Here are a few projects that caught our eye, as well as the links to some honourable mentions. Watch, click, comment and help them all gain funding!
The Series: The Wait
The Creator: Matthew MacFadzean
The Idea: July (Keeya King) discovers she is a ghost left haunting a home after her family moves out. July is able to communicate with Melinda (Jessica Clement), the young woman who moves into the house. July realizes a figure named Dark John is on the hunt to collect her lost soul.
The Inspiration: “I had an image of a girl ghost looking at another girl and saying, ‘I see you,'” MacFadzean recalls. “I thought, ‘There’s something in that.’ There is something about the relationship between a ghost and a living person that maybe hasn’t been done to the extent that it could be.” A fan of what the horror genre is turning out now thanks to films like Get Out and the Netflix’s The Haunting of Hill House, MacFadzean wanted to explore what is a tale of possession and, ultimately, consent.
The first season will explore the relationship between these two women; MacFadzean was explaining the premise to writer and producer Mika Collins, who suggested that in addition to being about a haunting The Wait is also an LGBT story. If the project is greenlit, July and Melinda’s tale will be told responsibly.
The Plan: Ten 10-minute web episodes to start, focusing on July and Melinda’s relationship. MacFadzean says that he has plenty of stories to tell and characters to introduce if The Wait becomes an hour-long drama.
The Series: It’s OK to Be Awesome
The Creators: Rebecca Tremblay and Anne Lebans
The Idea: A gaggle of brightly-coloured puppets named Tez, Skye and Pinkerton teach kids aged 6-9 about mental wellness and empowerment.
The Inspiration: Lebans, a life coach, found that self-worth was missing from the female entrepreneurs she was working with. Tremblay, a teacher and puppeteer, used her creations to build self-esteem with adults and children. The two teamed up in 2016 and provided an after-school program in New Brunswick; everything they taught in it has been put into It’s OK to Be Awesome.
“Whether you’re an adult or a child, self-worth and confidence can really stop you from succeeding and they’re not part of the school curriculum,” Lebans says. “I realized, ‘Holy moly, we need to teach this to people so that the world can look different, feel different and have a happy, healthy life.’” The duo, along with producer Jessica Jennings of Hemmings House Pictures, received financial support from the Telus Fund—it supports projects with a health focus—to film a pilot episode, and It’s OK to Be Awesome is endorsed by the Canadian Mental Health Association.
The Plan: A web series to begin with, but the team hopes a broadcaster follows.
The Series: Decoys
The Creator: David Pelech
The Idea:Â In this mockumentary, cameras follow a group of characters competing in the Northern Alberta Duck Decoy Carving Competition.
The Inspiration: The idea is close to Pelech’s heart: his father and uncle both participate in duck carving woodworking.
“The way that they are so into it, and their passion for something that is so fringe and so unique, I thought that world was ripe,” Pelech says. “And it’s not a parody or mocking. I think it can be quite beautiful art, but sometimes they do take themselves a bit too seriously. They do enter competitions, so it is nice to have that driving a show. I’m trying to draw the heart out of it as well.”
The Plan: If it receives IPF funding, Decoys will take the form of six 15-minute episodes on CBC Gem.
“Episode 1 is at the competition and at the end, we’ve heard the finalists,” Pelech explains. “Then we go back in time and start meeting the characters on the road to the competition, six months out, four months out, and then in the final episode, we find out who wins. Who is the best carver in Lloydminster.”
Honourable Mentions
Arties
A coming-of-age tale about a teenaged boy who partners with an Indigenous woman. Together they evade government forces on a journey to bring civil rights to androids.
Triggered
A former event planner-turned assassin seeks revenge on the health-care system who murdered her mother and frames it on the only person she’s ever loved.
Miikshi the Meek Sheep
A shy sheep scientist and her loudmouth journalist best friend (a chicken) solves a subway train mystery. The entire world of the show is handmade using puppets and model miniatures.
La Professoressa
A multilingual coming-of-age comedy about a failing jazz singer who adds new richness to her life, and voice, through teaching Italian to a variety of students in Toronto.
Late Night in the Studio
Archivist and host Moe delves into the catacombs of the CBC archives to dig up wacky (and totally fake) treasures.
Naked Nancy
Socially awkward Nancy is forced to face her greatest fear—the outside world—when her cat escapes from their apartment.
Bobby and Bogey
This project follows Bobby, a kid in Grade 4 that needs a lot of help with … well, everything. He finds that guidance one day when he discovers a crusty old booger living in his nose that doesn’t want to be picked. The booger, named Bogey, agrees to mentor him as barter for staying in his comfy little nose apartment.
Trouble and Strife
A dramatic comedy about loneliness and need and intimacy, and how it’s easier to be a hero to other people’s lives than it is to be a hero in your own.
Begin Again
Denise, Sarah and Toni discover adulthood is not at all what they imagined as children. Now they must hold on to each other before they each fall apart.
Kit & Kat
An unapologetic, thirtysomething slacker and her precocious 11-year-old stepdaughter navigate the conservative world of Vancouver’s upper class.