Eighty-five carpenters, 18 electricians and 30 painters worked around the clock for three months to create 47 standing sets and transform an empty lot into a community for Toronto-based Epitome Pictures’ new soap Riverdale, premiering this fall on cbc. The facility is being touted as the country’s largest single-purpose digital studio and the series as English Canada’s first primetime soap.

The decision to build permanent sets and a digital studio was a key element in making Riverdale an affordable undertaking as its per episode budget is roughly half that of the standard primetime drama series, says executive producer Linda Schuyler.

Cost-conscious from the start, Schuyler looked at what it cost to produce Epitome’s Liberty Street series and decided there were two ways she could keep the budget for Riverdale way down.

By shooting on video and shooting volume she felt it would be possible to produce her new soap for under $500,000 an hour.

‘The startup cost was a one-time cost, the more shows we do the cheaper it will be,’ says Schuyler. ‘It was a real leap of faith because cbc had to order a lot of volume right off the top; they are now ordering six-packs of shows, but you can’t expect to get an audience for a soap in six hours.’

Epitome took possession of the Eglinton Ave. E. building on Dec. 24, 1996, and by March 24 the 100,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art digital studio was ready for the people of Riverdale to move in.

The back lot has 11 house fronts plus an apartment facade while the permanent interior sets include messy loft-type bedrooms, posh living rooms, stairs that lead to nowhere and a shopping mall made up of 15 stores and kiosks.

The Riverdale Mall is home to such recognizable names as Roots, The Second Cup and Zellers as the producers wanted to make everything about the show authentically Canadian.

While using digital Betacam equipment may not be a new phenomenon in North America, co-executive producer Stephen Stohn says Riverdale will be the first digital primetime drama series in Canada.

Using cutting-edge equipment from Sim Video, the building itself is wired with 40 kilometers of digital cabling making it possible to plug into any one of the pods throughout. The signal travels to a central room where it is switched on the fly, making the final edit less time consuming.

Next year the producers are considering shooting with a European wide-screen camera and recording in the wide-screen format, which Stohn says is becoming the standard in Europe.

‘It will still be the normal four-by-three North American format but we will be able to do an hour of primetime drama for less than half the cost of a normal hour,’ says Stohn.

Part of cbc’s fall lineup, Riverdale will be marketed internationally by Atlantis Releasing.

‘I am going out on a limb and assuming that the Canadian audience wants a primetime soap opera,’ says Schuyler. ‘There are one of two reasons why one d’esn’t exist: one, the audience has not wanted it, or two, no producers have come along to make it work.’ She chooses the latter.

While the audience may be a slow build she is asking cbc to stay with it.

Aside from the distinctively Canadian shopping mall, the characters and situations and story lines on the show will be identifiably Canadian as well.

Banking heavily on the characters, producers auditioned well over 700 performers. What they ended up with was a very large cast of 35 ­ 26 of whom are optioned performers for four years ­ a dog and a couple of babies.

Riverdale is being done in the tradition of British soaps such as Coronation Street and Eastenders and, Schuyler emphasizes, is nothing like traditional American afternoon soaps. After spending a good deal of time visiting the sets of these long-running u.k. shows, Schuyler picked up some tricks on how to produce a successful soap.

In Britain every major network has a primetime soap anchoring its evening schedule. Their characters and storylines draw audiences to the television for the night and that is what Schuyler is shooting for with her new entry.

Also, the show will run by the British model: a half-hour episode will air twice a week and then on the weekend the two episodes will run as a one-hour show.

With Riverdale, Schuyler is able to watch as they shoot on any one of the many monitors located around the studio, something she picked up during her visit to the u.k. This way she can observe the entire process from wherever she is and buzz down to them to make changes on the spot.

‘For 20 years of my producing life I have shot on film and then the next day looked at the rushes, and at that point if there was something wrong with them, there was nothing that could be done.’

While in Britain Schuyler picked up something else to help her new show ­ a director.

Eugene Ferguson, a 30-year veteran of Coronation Street, made his first trip to Canada to direct the first two episodes of Riverdale.

Other directors on the project include Alan Erlich (Cat Walk, Street Legal), Perry Rosemond (Air Farce, Eric’s World) and Henry Sarwer-Foner (This Hour Has 22 Minutes, Traders).

Each director shot a two-hour block in eight days, which d’es not leave a lot of time for preparation, therefore having several directors was the most efficient way to make the show happen.

According to Sarwer-Foner, it’s all about planning. ‘Most of the work is done before you start shooting and that way while one director is prepping the other is shooting.’

While no one involved with the show is at liberty to disclose who the characters are, or story lines, Schuyler says that the folks of Riverdale have their fair share of illicit affairs and bed-hopping, but unlike the traditional American soaps, her characters won’t be categorized as right or wrong, good or evil.

‘Our characters can be good or bad. To me it isn’t so interesting what people do, like have wild affairs, but why they do it. What is going on in their life that makes them unhappy, that to me is where the interesting story is.’