Volume 3 – 2022
Featured in this edition: Attraction Images Inc., Balloon House Productions, Carte Blanche Films Inc., Epic Story Media, Fifth Ground Entertainment, GAPC Entertainment Inc., marblemedia, Markham Street Films, Productions Avenida Inc., Riverbank Pictures, Sardine Productions, and Shaftesbury.
Attraction Images Inc.
A fifth edition of MAMMOUTH was co-produced by Pamplemousse Média and Attraction Images for Télé-Québec in 2021. This variety event for 13- to 17-year-olds that celebrates inspiration won an incredible five awards at the 36th annual Prix Gémeaux, including Best Children’s or Youth Non-Fiction Program!
Building on the success of its past seasons, Passe-Partout was renewed for a fourth season on Télé-Québec in 2021, with the fifth season coming in August 2022!
Avec Moi is a fictional web series on ICI TOU.TV about a 16-year-old YouTuber who has to deal with the difficulties of adolescence and her new popularity on social networks. Season 3 will be released in 2022.
Love et Lajoie, an educational TV series for 8- to 11-year-olds set in a futuristic world, is a co-production between Attraction Images and ATO Media. A francophone and an anglophone form a newly reconstituted family with their two respective children and their Android. Thanks to the amazing solutions they find to communicate, viewers will be able to enrich their use of the French language. Coming to TFO in spring 2022!
Balloon House Productions
A brand-new season of kids science show, Space Dragon and Kim, has launched. Over 700K people have tuned in, in the first 2 weeks, on the Shaftesbury Kids YouTube channel.
Carte Blanche Films Inc.
Carte Blanche delivered Season 2 of Les Vlogues de Newton, available via TFO’s YouTube channel and website. Newton goes international as he talks about his travels, hosts quizzes, puts on plays, does arts and crafts, and rushes to the rescue of kittens in danger.
On those same platforms, Ellie l’exploratrice, 26 x 5-minute animated shorts will launch this year, featuring a flying squirrel who travels across the continent discovering why certain animal species are becoming endangered.
La petite mairesse is currently in post-production. This 13-episode youth comedy series features a 13-year-old trailblazer who becomes Mayor of her town. Produced in collaboration with Unis TV5 and Group Media TFO, it is expected to launch in spring 2022.
In development is 13 MOONS, a 13 x 10-minute digital animated series for 8- to 10-year-olds, co-produced with Wabung Anung Ltd. The series is a hybrid that frames an animated short with live action. The hero is a modern Indigenous teen embarking on her journey towards becoming an OMGIMAH: a highly regarded female leader of the Anishinabe First Nation Society.
Epic Story Media
Season 2 of Piper’s Pony Tales is in production, launching in March 2022. Toys from Breyer Horses are now available in the U.S. as Season 1 continues to grow on the YouTube channel (9M+ views!) as well as Amazon Prime, KidoodleTV and HappyKids.
Piper’s Pony Tales, Pet Shop Zombies, and Dex and the Humanimals were featured in Kidscreen Magazine, TV Kids Magazine, and C21Kids Magazine.
Epic Story Media is also in production with sister-company Epic Storyworlds on Pet Shop Zombies, set to launch at the end of 2022. It’s a series about a pack of undead animals bringing order to an adorable apocalypse while defending their “brain bites” from a ruthlessly entitled dog and cat bent on world domination.
Commissioned by Radio-Canada, Epic Story Media and Epic Storyworlds are in production with Dex and the Humanimals, an epic action-adventure set in a futuristic world where half-human, half-animal beings mingle with the human population. It will launch on TOU.TV in Q1, and on SRC at the end of 2022.
Fifth Ground Entertainment
Production has wrapped on Leo’s Pollinators, an environmental science series for TVOkids. This is the follow-up to the success of Leo’s FishHeads, playing on TVOkids currently. In the new series, Leo the Catfish is leading the next generation of young eco-heroes on a mission to save creatures that help plants grow by spreading pollen: the Pollinators! Coming to TVOkids in April 2022.
Leo’s FishHeads was nominated at the 2021 Yorkton Film Festival for Best Children’s/Youth Production.
GAPC Entertainment Inc
GAPC is completing post-production on their accessible, engaging, and informative sexual health education program for youth aged 12+. Tout sexplique! was adapted for French Canada and Unis TV based on the highly popular, award-winning format, “Doctor Corrie”, created by NTR.
Finishing touches are being put on The Whiskers demo, a preschool series about social-emotional development that features real dogs as the characters.
After a fun shoot in the fall, Polkaroo Reads! is in post-production. This much-loved character takes kids on a romp through restaurants, museums, parks, farms and more to discover the alphabet and some simple words in 26 chapters of fun in preschool literacy. It is set to be delivered to TVOkids in the spring of 2022, on the heels of Polkaroo Counts! which was delivered last spring and aired in the summer. Polkaroo Plays (working title) is currently in development for TVOkids.
Where’s my Alphabet?, you ask? It’s on the Knowledge Network and coming soon to City Saskatchewan. Self-filmed by families and their children, the series takes kids on a scavenger hunt to discover the alphabet in their own backyards.
Development is continuing on BIENVENUE/WELCOME, a shadow puppet animated series for and about displaced children and host communities. It follows a group of young animal friends from different parts of the world who create a new community based on diversity, acceptance, and building resilience.
On the GAPC Kids YouTube channel, episodes from Are You Ready? continue to garner views, especially for the nose-blowing and hand-washing episodes. MathXplosion and ScienceXplosion are popular both in Canada and internationally, with sales exceeding expectations.
This past year, Hoda Elatawi took over the reins of GAPC Entertainment Inc. as both President and controlling shareholder. Hoda will continue to work on developing exciting new content for children and youth as well as documentaries.
marblemedia
marblemedia celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2021, which concluded with a feature story in Playback’s Best of Magazine. It made Playback’s Indie Top 10 List and was named a Global 100 Company by Realscreen. The company was nominated for 5 Canadian Screen awards in 2021!
Ground-breaking scripted family series The Parker Andersons/Amelia Parker premiered in 2021, garnering great media coverage including Breakfast Television and The Globe & Mail. Star Millie Davis won the Youth Media Alliance Award for Outstanding Youth Performer.
Production wrapped in 2021 on marblemedia and CloudCo’s newest scripted family comedy series, Overlord and the Underwoods. It launched worldwide last fall and quickly became a fan favourite with great reviews and recognition from media including The Toronto Star, Post Media, Toronto Life, and eTalk.
Season 4 of the high-octane competition series All-Round Champion was produced in 2021, launched in the US, and had its Canadian premiere in January 2022. The series accepted the Golden Sheaf award for Children’s/Youth Production at the 2021 Yorkton Film Festival. Sales arm Distribution360 licensed seasons of the series in Australia, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Africa and the Baltics so far.
CAVCO certified YouTube channel, marbleKids, launched Happy House of Frightenstein from Headspinner Productions, and Distribution360 (D360) sold the series to Family Channel in Canada. marbleKids will launch Lady Ada’s Secret Society in spring 2022, from producers Coconut Effect Productions.
marblemedia continues to grow with expanded roles for Donna Luke, SVP Business Operations, and Diane Rankin, SVP Rights & Executive Producer, amongst other promotions and new hires.
Markham Street Films
Year of the Goat, a family-friendly look at rural life and county fairs for CBC, is being distributed around the world by TVF International. It was nominated a for Golden Sheaf Award (Documentary POV). YA thriller Level 16 continues to be a hit around the globe, distributed internationally by MPI.
Markham Street Films struck a 6-film slate development deal with Off the Fence, one of the world’s top documentary distributors and a Realscreen Global 100 Company in 2021.
Productions Avenida Inc.
Season 3 of Jenny, the hit Canadian youth series, continues to conquer audiences around the world, finding eager buyers in France, Belgium, Dubai, Germany, Finland, Brazil and Slovakia.
Xiaojuan Zhou, President of Attraction Distribution, said, “We have learned from the kids buyer of Canal+ France that Jenny was their first acquisition of a live-action French Canadian series, which opened her eyes to Quebec content. She is now buying other series from la belle province!”
Jenny is nominated for Best Live Action – Tweens/Teens Programming at the 2022 Kidscreen Awards. The series has also won two Gemini awards for Best Youth Fiction Series: Ages 13 to 17 and Best Director – Youth Fiction Series.
In 2022, Productions Avenida is developing a series and a film aimed at young audiences.
Riverbank Pictures
Riverbank is in post-production on a new TVOkids Preschool Original called Curious Crafting, starring Mandisa Watts who created the hugely popular Happy Toddler Playtime Instagram account! The series will be distributed by Boat Rocker Studios.
Riverbank Pictures is also currently in development on a live action farming series for TVOkids.
The company is in production on a TLN Original kids series called Junior Senior, an unscripted show where a kid and senior bond over their fun hobbies.
Sardine Productions
The Game Catchers series won its first award in Italy, a 2021 Pulcinella Award for Best Preschool TV Series (2-4 years old) !
Shaftesbury
Production wrapped on Shaftesbury’s mystery adventure series Mary & Flo: On The Go! Episodes start rolling out on March 4th as a lead up to International Women’s Day. Look out for a cameo by Jann Arden!
Post-production is wrapping on hour-long co-viewing series Ruby & The Well. The series was featured in Kidscreen Magazine to lead an article about Family Channel’s new slate of kids series.
A new YA podcast, The Infinite Worlds of Ella Jane, is in production, slated for a Summer 2022 release, and was featured in a Global News article and a CBC article. Creator Loridee DeVilla won the Shaw Rocket Fund Accelerator Writing Contest – an initiative from Shaftesbury, Wattpad, and the Shaw Rocket Fund.
Shaftesbury is currently scripting and casting for POV: me – a new magazine-style show that tackles the big issues of today by amplifying young diverse voices. Screech Owls, a reimagining of the celebrated Roy MacGregor books and cult live action TV show, is also in production. It features NHL superstar and philanthropist P.K. Subban. New animated series What the Stink?, based on the acclaimed Stinky Science books written by Ed Kay with illustrations by Mike Shiell, is in production, too.
Miikshi, a puppet and miniature model series, launched in September 2021 on the Shaftesbury Kids YouTube and TVO digital platforms and was profiled in the Toronto Star. Bonus companion content Miikshi: Ask a Scientist launched on Shaftesbury Kids YouTube. Space Dragon & Kim are back with season 2 of their weird, edgy, snackable web series, packed with surreal science extravagance on the YouTube channel. Season four of ClearWaterKids Challenge has wrapped filming and will air this year on the YouTube channel as well.
The second season of award-winning series The Solutioneers premiered in Fall 2021, whilst season 1 premiered on ABC Australia. STEAM Stars and popular super hosts, Sandhya and Swapna Mylabathula, nabbed a 2021 YMA award for Best Program, Short Form.
