Montreal: Prisma Productions has announced its biggest production slate ever, more than $40 million in 1996/97. At the top of the slate is Platinum, a 13-hour international ‘show biz’ drama series plus a two-hour special to be shot starting this fall primarily on location in Quebec.

Platinum is set in the fast-paced world of the pop music performing and recording industry and is being coproduced with two prestigious English partners, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Really Useful Group and George Martin’s Air Studios. The shoot is expected to extend over six or seven months and is budgeted at $20 million, says Prisma president Claude Godbout.

Prisma is in its 25th year of operation.

The music and audio post on Platinum will be handled by Martin’s company.

The shoot is one of the biggest tv investments in English-language Quebec drama in memory, just shy of the $27.5 million invested by Telescene Communications in Sirens in ’93/94. Godbout says most of the financing on Platinum, a majority Canadian coproduction, will be private, either from investors or presales, including a u.s. broadcaster and the International Council of Germany. Negotiations are underway with a Toronto-based broadcaster.

‘The investment in Platinum represents about 100 direct jobs in addition to actors and others,’ says Godbout.

Leopold St-Pierre, a producer/ writer with Prisma, is Platinum’s creator. Writers include St-Pierre and Paul Risacher and others to be named later.

Godbout says Prisma and The Multimedia Group of Canada have formed a joint-venture company to export Prisma’s drama production. A formal announcement is expected shortly. LRB