Pitching a television series is a bit like pitching a baseball game. With a steady hand, careful observation, and solid strategy, the ballplayer throws his best pitch, hoping to spellbind his opponent. There are a few significant differences of course, not the least of which is that in pitching a series, the broadcaster should be dealt with effectively as a partner and not as the enemy. But if you look at the statistics of how slim the chances are for a pitcher to arrive at an earned run average of less than two and the chances of seeing a series pitch turn into a reality, the analogy works.

It’s difficult enough to get a series up and running, but when the characters are not from the standard tv repertoire of heroes and villains, what do you do?

Alyson Feltes, executive producer of Traders, the new Atlantis Communications one-hour series for Global, describes how Atlantis executive Seaton McLean convinced a broadcaster that brokers and investment bankers, although they don’t carry guns or save lives, are a fascinating bunch of characters who lead exciting lives.

The challenge was ‘to make this trading world as interesting and vital as the precinct in NYPD Blue,’ says Feltes.

McLean knew he had to do more than describe the premise and characters, and decided that show and tell was the answer.

It was March 1994. A stretch limo, hired by McLean and company, pulled into Global’s suburban Toronto parking lot one weekday afternoon. Two Global executives – Loren Mawhinney and Catherine Denson – climbed in, not knowing where they were going or what to expect. In the back seat to greet them was a trader who, during the ride into downtown Toronto, reviewed their stock portfolios and made investment suggestions. By the time the car reached the end of its journey – at an investment bank – the trader had figured out retirement funds for the two broadcasters.

There was another passenger in the car, a mysterious man who said nothing and only once, when the limo stopped briefly outside an office tower, did he make a move. He stepped out of the car, into the building and came back with a briefcase.

Mawhinney and Denson were completely baffled by the time the limo made its final stop. McLean, a familiar face, was there to meet them, in the lobby of an investment bank, but he didn’t seem to be making any sense. ‘I’d like to take you up to our trading floor,’ he said. A few floors up, when the trio approached the boardroom, McLean said to the receptionist, ‘We’ll need the boardroom for awhile.’ ‘Certainly, Mr. McLean,’ she replied.

Inside the boardroom, which looked out onto the trading floor, Peter Mohan was waiting for their arrival. When the broadcast executives took their seats at the boardroom table, Mohan and McLean opened their briefcases and began the pitch.

‘(Mawhinney and Denson) were completely immersed in the world that was being described to them. And I think it worked,’ says Feltes. ‘They were comfortable with us because they understood we would go to the ends of the earth to make this series exciting and interesting and real.’

Atlantis had three series pitches in at the network, and this one got the go-ahead. Global was committed for 13 episodes, in part, because the germ for the idea was planted by Global president James Sward.

Next step was getting the research underway. Atlantis’ recent experience at the time in becoming a public company helped with some leads and contacts. Feltes started to contact the operators in the world of investment and trading.

She met with the deep throats of Bay Street in parks, cafes – different locations to keep the meetings secret. ‘I would say to them, ‘We want our characters to get into this transaction and then this happens, is that realistic?’ ‘

With a fair bit of research under her arm, Feltes then focused on injecting some energy into the idea, looking to give this series the pulse of a cop show or a hospital drama.

Everything was going smoothly until Mohan moved over to produce the Alliance Communications series Taking the Falls. It was the fall of ’94.

The search for an executive story editor to replace him ended in January in Vancouver with writer Hart Hansen. Feltes moved there for a couple of months to work with Hansen, and while he focused on character development, she went after an understanding of ‘deal meat.’

The team turned up the tension and shifted away from deal-making to what Feltes calls ‘the fast-paced, urgent environment’ of the trading floor. ‘It’s as close as you can get to life and death in this world,’ she reasons.

Hansen penned the first episode and Global was happy. Then, in March, he fell ill and was unable to move to Toronto as planned and continue with the series.

Feltes was nervous. She needed someone to run the story department and had to convince Global it should keep going with the series.

David Shore saved the day, acting as supervising producer and heading up the story department. His background as a corporate lawyer helped. So did the input of junior story editor Tim Southam (of the Southam news empire), who had worked as an associate in an investment bank. Writers Jack Blum and Sharon Corder joined the team and, after meetings with security commissions and brokerage firms, the first half of the series was mapped out.

‘We knew we had the wealth of information needed to understand the (financial) world. That became the easy stuff. Now we had to go back to the fundamentals and make five or six characters who can carry the series,’ says Feltes.

Jack Reilly is the central character. Aged about 32, he’s an investment banker in Toronto who was an Irish Cabbagetown kid. He’s the unpolished, but smart and gutsy dealer who knows when to take risks.

It’s late spring of 1995. The first script, final draft, is sent to Global in a briefcase full of fake money. They approve it.

Feltes says the financing for the series – budgeted at just under $1 million per episode – came together beautifully. After examining the series’ franchise, Atlantis Releasing did a marketing plan and sales projections and gave an advance based on assessment of what it can do with it. Atlantis invested an undisclosed portion of the budget, Telefilm Canada came in for $4 million, the Maclean Hunter Fund came in for $400,000, and the Cable Production Fund contribution is still pending.

At press time, plans were to go into production Sept. 5, shooting six days per episode and wrapping Dec. 22. Cinevillage will be home to the trading floor and trading bar sets. A second studio setup as well as some location shooting will round things out. Kari Skogland is directing episode one, and so far, the only cast member that has been signed is David Cubitt (Outer Limits). Mary Kahn is supervising producer.

While Traders gears up, Feltes has her eye on a second series, which she says is close to moving into production, and a miniseries in development that she hopes will start rolling in the winter.

Overall, Atlantis has two series in production and three series in late stages of development where financing commitments are coming in and coproduction agreements are being finalized. An Atlantis spokesperson estimates that between the Toronto and Los Angeles offices there are about 20 series in various stages of development at any given time.