Big Deal, So What, a short for cbc’s Reflections that aired earlier this month and espouses teen skepticism in the polyester-laden ’70s, is the work of director/writer/coproducer Su Rynard and producer Hadley Obodiac – both of whom are on their way to new horizons.

Obodiac is headed for l.a. to develop a feature, Miss Mud, with director Alan Moyle (Pump Up the Volume). Obodiac, who also produced The Darling Family, is writing the film with Brian Boigon (who designed Web sites for Sony and Michael Jackson and is developing, with Moyle, The Wild Wolf, a kids animated series for Nickelodeon).

The feature is set in a theme park in Tampa, Fla., that retirement oasis/hotbed of culture. It’s a mock morality piece, part apocalyptic, somewhat futuristic – ‘a kind of modern-day Fountainhead,’ says Obodiac. The story involves a Walt Disney-esque paternal figure, his son and a surrogate daughter named Mickey, who plays a slinky mouse – Blinkie – at the rundown park but aspires to play her namesake at Universal’s theme park.

Woven into the tale is a virtual world into which Mickey is abducted and where she discovers a virtual version of herself as a ‘cyberspokesmodel from hell,’ says Obodiac.

Plans are to make the film fx-heavy, but it will also be a critique of new technologies. Former Alias owner Steve Bingham is the one who came up with the idea for the feature in the first place and he is working as a silent partner.

On the home front, Rynard is making a short performance piece for Bravo! (one of the first round of successful applicants of the station’s Fact grants) called The Anatomy of Music.

The film – part music video and part documentary on the artistic process – features local vocalist Laurel Macdonald who combines Scottish, Gaelic, Greek, Middle Eastern and East Indian influences in her music. The idea for the film was inspired by sound designer Philip Strong, who produced Macdonald’s cd Kiss Closed My Eyes and was sound editor on Big Deal, So What. Rynard will shoot Anatomy in mid-November and the short will go to air next winter.

Mom’s the word

Marnie Fullerton and Don Young of Ottawa-based Almadon Productions are halfway through an edit of about 300 hours of footage they shot on their cross-Canada holiday, complete with their three young ones in tow. Incredible, but Fullerton – host, coproducer with Young and fundraiser – says the experience of putting together the 13-episode Travels with Mom series for cbc was exhilarating.

Equipped with three cameras – a Betacam, Hi-8 and a finger cam (which was most often worn by the five-year-old to capture a perspective from three feet off the ground) – the brave souls headed out for a 120-day journey across Canada that ended Oct. 2.

Fullerton intends to show off the beauty and diversity of this great land and to inspire parents that holidays can be all about discovery and adventure without being a nightmare. That doesn’t mean, however, the moments of back-seat pinching and whining were omitted from the show.

It’s an antidote to The Brady Bunch and other tv family tales, she says, adding, ‘We’ll be the only real family on television.’

The gang covered every province and both territories, rafting down the Yukon, hitching a ride on a wagon train in Manitoba, and Fullerton swears that ‘everything we do, every other family can do.’

Almadon put together financing of $1 million independently through barter and selling commercial time for the program. The deal with cbc is a services deal and the network is doing the edit.

Plans are to package the show with Street Cents, starting Saturday, Feb. 3 at 10:30 a.m.

Young directed the majority of the episodes and colleague (and now close family friend) Noah Erenberg directed four episodes.

Disney Canada has seen an outline of the series and was interested enough to let its London and Los Angeles offices in on the concept. Fullerton says the u.s. giant wants to see the execution of the series before making any decisions, but she has in mind (if somewhat wearily) European, American, Asian, Australian, etc. versions of Travels with Mom.

I Spy

An update on Harriet the Spy: it’s rolling through Dec. 20 with what is becoming a revolving door of talent who drop in for cameos. Rosie O’Donnell was in town recently playing Golly, Harriet’s mentor and companion (updated from Ole Golly, the nanny). Eartha Kitt is on her way in mid-November to play the very eccentric Agatha K. Plumber, and Eugene Lipinski is Mr. Waldenstein, the man who eventually runs off with Golly.

Cast in the lead is Michelle Trachenberg, an 11-year-old from The Adventures of Pete and Pete. Vanessa Lee Chester (A Little Princess) plays her best friend, 12-year-old Gregory Smith plays Sport (Andre), and Robert Joy and J. Smith-Cameron are Harriet’s parents.

Directing her first feature is Bronwen Hughes and producing are Nava Levin and MaryKay Powell for Paramount. dop is Francis Kenny (Coneheads, Wayne’s World II). Casting in Canada is by Ross Clydesdale; in the u.s. by Joel Greenberg.