Once again Canada’s tv types are gearing up for three nights of small-screen celebration orchestrated by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television. This year the Gemini-nominated shows fit the something old, something new bill, with pilots and new series pitted against finales and shows in their mid-series years.

Excluding special awards, 1,409 entries (naming 2,100 individuals) were sifted through, with the deliberations by 56 juries held in eight cities across Canada and in l.a. winnowing the pack down to 264 nominated entries in 56 categories – resulting in 393 individual nominees in the 23 craft, 16 program and 17 performance categories. The final cut is up to the 1,420 voting Academy TV/Joint members.

Alliance Communications’ Due South led the pack with 14 nominations, Sullivan Entertainment’s Road to Avonlea earned 12, followed by cbc’s Dieppe with 11, CBC Prime Time News with 10, Alliance/Alberta Filmworks’ North of 60 with nine and cbc’s the 5th estate with eight. The Credo Group/Atlantis tv movie Heads scooped seven of Atlantis’ 19 nominations. Also tied with seven nominations apiece are cbc’s Street Legal and Kurt Browning: You Must Remember This, which boosted Insight Productions’ nomination tally to 12.

Variety specials pulled in a significant number of nominations as did performing arts shows. Rhombus alone netted a total of 12 nominations – five for Concierto de Aranjuez, four for The Sorceress: Kiri Te Kanawa, and three for Shadows and Light: Joaquin Rodrigo at 90. Not surprisingly, This Hour Has 22 Minutes got the most nods of any Canadian comedy with three nominations, bringing Salter Street Films’ nomination catch up to eight (the others were for drama Life With Billy).

This year the nominations spanned a good cross-section of broadcasters. Fifty-eight of the nominated programs air on cbc, 12 nominees are seen on ctv, eight on tvontario, five apiece on Global and ytv, four on tmn and four on tsn, three on each of The Family Channel and Citytv, and one on Vision tv.

Some categories changed: new this year is best writing in a children’s or youth program and series, and best news photography has been deleted. And some were refined: best tv movie or dramatic miniseries split into two categories – best tv movie and best dramatic miniseries – as did best guest performance in a series, creating a separate category for actress and actor. And best variety program or series and best music program or series are now one umbrella category.

Also new this year is an additional sponsor, Chrysler Canada.

As to the awards galas, the fun begins Feb. 23 with the journalism, technical, craft and design achievement awards hosted by Bill Cameron (CBC Evening News anchor/contributor to CBC Prime Time News), followed by the industry gala on March 4 for program, performance and craft categories, hosted by Patrick McKenna (The Red Green Show nephew of Borchiver, ‘Joan’ Slan name-mangling ‘You know who you are’ fame).

The third night, March 5, is the broadcast gala, telecast live from the Metro Toronto Convention Centre on cbc, produced once again by Joe Bodolai’s Quality Shows for ACCTV Productions. Academy executive director Maria Topalovich is executive producer on all shows.

One big difference this year is the calendar separation of night one from the final two galas. Night one and two producer/director Eric Wiegand hopes breaking up the triple header will enable more people to come out for both events.

‘Night one will thematically explore the future of communications,’ says Wiegand, studiously avoiding any of those infopike catch phrases. ‘It’s this nebulous thing that’s undefined and we’re being hyped for it.’ And in a nod to the journalist end of things, there will be a thematic exploration of the way direct access of info will affect broadcast journalism.

Weigand assures that it’s in no way a too-serious-for-you treatment. ‘That’s the whole point; I’m looking at all this weight of information potentially coming down the line and the joke is we don’t have mapsand a lot of people are frightened of even getting on the gosh darn highway. It’s all this resistance to what could be an opportunity to keep better informed.’

And in further adventures of the adage about the more you know, the more you find out you don’t know (or something like that), Weigand says playing around with the info overload theme is one of the visual directions production design will take.

While exploring the nefarious aspects of the digital domain onstage, behind the scenes the production team will be wholeheartedly embracing the fruit of the digital womb.

Teaming again with Al Mitchell of Toronto-based Post Producers Digital, Wiegand says they will be working in a purely digital environment, using an Avid system for all post to online on both nights. He says it’s allowing them to do some things they haven’t in the past, and relieving the burden caused by the sheer volume of visuals used in a show.

Wiegand, who has produced the non-broadcast nights for the last three years, is abetted by coproducer/writer Karl Pruner, who is in charge of writing co-ordination. Sound and music production is once again being handled by musical director Steve Raiman.

Night two will be a very different show than we’ve seen in the past, according to Wiegand, who describes the spin as ‘a light-hearted industry roast approach.’ A nod to the golden age of tv is one of the ‘light and loose threads carried through the show’ in the ‘is it any different now, are we going in the right direction?’ vein, before an audience responsible for its evolution. ‘That sounds like a heavy theme,’ says Wiegand, chuckling, ‘but let’s deliver it through the eyes of (host) Pat McKenna, who’s an outstanding stand-up comedian.’

Wiegand promises striking sets for both shows.

For the Gemini finale, writer/ producer Bodolai wants to return to more of the Live and Dangerous feel of the show two years ago.

Given the uncertainty of the broadcast climate last year, Bodolai leaned towards a kinder, gentler, comforting, big institutional blankie sort of theme, whereas this year, with the emerging new shows engendering more industry confidence, and a feeling of regeneration rather than cancellation, Bodolai wants to stir up a fun, painterly, lively feel using a ‘broader, brighter palette of color and energy.’

David Rosen is coproducer and Michael Watt is director. Both recently did the Genie Awards. Cameron Porteous of Shaw Festival fame is the designer, and once again co-musical directors Doug Wilde and Matt Zimbel will strum their stuff in a new rendition of The House band.

The writing team also includes Gemini alumnae – David Kitching and stand-up comics Mark Farrell and Lawrence Morgenstern.