He’s a Canadian legend who ran fast. And there were no steroid scandals to mar his reputation.

Northern Dancer, who happens to be somewhere in the lineage of at least 59 out of the 90 horses in this year’s Breeder’s Cup, was a great Canadian racehorse born and bred at Windfields, now home to the Canadian Film Centre.

Random Factory Producers’ Group – including principals Gene Mascardelli, John Martin, Dennis Murphy (former director of the NFB Ontario Centre) and Jamie Mandelkau – is developing a ‘major feature’ based on Muriel Lennox’s book Northern Dancer, The Legend and His Legacy.

Mascardelli says there’s interest from a Hollywood studio and director Ron Shelton (Tin Cup, Bull Durham). The screenplay was penned by Frank Peppiatt (creator of Hee Haw!) and Mascardelli projects a budget of us$10 million.

‘Since Windfields is an important part of the story, Norman Jewison has offered his help,’ says Mascardelli.

As well, Random Factory recently signed a deal with British author/historian Colin Wilson to produce a tv series based on his book A Criminal History of Mankind. The plan is to produce four one-hour specials. Mascardelli says a&e is interested and a coproduction with a u.k. broadcaster would be ‘a natural fit.’

‘Our priority,’ he says, ‘is to secure the u.s. and Britain first and then pick up a Canadian broadcaster.’

Produced for around $5 million, the series will explore criminal activity through history, using Wilson’s analysis to open and close each hour.

Random Factory is also developing a music series and has just delivered a bio on female impersonator Craig Russell for cbc’s Life and Times.

-Cambium drama

Toronto’s Cambium Productions is taking off in new directions, namely into one-hour primetime drama.

City Cab, a coproduction with Larry Mirkin (Fraggle Rock), is in development and the first draft of the pilot has been completed by Paul Dreskin. Described by Cambium president Arnie Zipurski as a ‘character-driven series in the vein of NYPD Blue,’ each episode will total about $1 million. Zipurski says his company is in discussions with wic, and mipcom yielded interest from the u.k., France and Germany.

The premise of the series revolves about the lives of cab drivers and Zipurski foresees an ensemble cast. Production could begin as early as next summer.

Despite branching out, family and children’s fare is still of utmost importance to Cambium, as evidenced by Tchaikovsky Discovers America, a $3 million made-for-tv Christmas family movie coproduced with Toronto’s The Children’s Group (Beethoven Lives Upstairs) and written by Heather Conkie. Zipurski says there’s u.s. cable interest from pbs as well as overseas. ‘It’s a natural for the international market.’

Cambium also has three animated features in the works with Vancouver animators Delaney & Friends – a Nilus the Sandman feature called Dreamers, The Shoemaker and The Elves and Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde, which is intended for a teen audience.

Each is budgeted at about $5 million and, says Zipurski, at that price he’s confident they can compete in the theatrical market. ‘We’ll work with a theatrical distributor,’ he says. ‘We’re looking for Canadian and European distributors to help finance.’

Cambium is currently coproducing Flare tv with Deborah Weiss for wtn, and a second season of Nilus (a copro with Delaney & Friends) starts in December.

-Glawson’s up to something funny

Bruce Glawson, the Cambium cofounder who branched out to form his own company last year, is now working with David Atkin and Harry Sutherland on We’re Funny That Way, a feature documentary about gay and lesbian stand-up comedians. Atkin’s directing.

Citytv is in for a window, and Glawson says a deal is near at hand with Channel 4 in the u.k. Films Transit in Montreal has international tv rights for the project – a 90-minute doc which Glawson says will ring in at ‘under half a million’ – but talks are ongoing with a Canadian theatrical distributor.

Following the funny people will mean junkets to Provincetown in Cape Cod (a hotspot for gay/lesbian comedy), New York City and London, Eng. The team has also brought in performers for shows at the Buddies in Bad Times Theatre in Toronto.

‘It should be completed by October of 1997,’ says Glawson. ‘We’d love for it to launch at the Berlin Festival.’

Independently, Glawson is researching a one-hour doc for tv on bisexuality, with interest, again, from Channel 4.

-A first for Inner City, and Canada

Not Yet Uhuru, a dramatic coproduction between Toronto’s Inner City Films (the brother duo of Amos and Alfons Adetuyi) and the South African Broadcasting Corporation, is not only the first official Canada/South Africa copro, but it’s probably the reason the treaty exists. ‘Alfons and I went to South Africa and then began discussions here,’ says production manager/line producer Stephen Turnbull. ‘It would have happened eventually, but we helped speed it up.’

Not Yet Uhuru, written and coproduced by Ryerson Polytechnic film grad and longtime South African exile Clarence Hamilton, is a $3 million, 13-part, one-hour series based on his own story. In it, a middle-aged ‘colored’ (meaning ‘mixed’ in local classifications) South African man living in Canada looks back on his growing-up years under apartheid.

Amos and Alfons are producing eight-minute segments for 12 of the 13 episodes. Alfons, who is directing the Canadian segments, is also directing three full episodes in South Africa. All post will be handled in South Africa.

-More for HBO

David Coatsworth (producer/line producer for hbo’s Sugartime, directed by John N. Smith) is the producer behind Hoover, another cable feature for hbo. Details on the picture’s content were unavailable at press time, but production coordinator Lori Greenberg says shooting is set to begin in Toronto late this month and will run to the end of January 1997. The project will be eating up some studio space in addition to shooting on location.

-Media moguls, watch your backs

Stephen Marshall speaks faster than any other human I’ve ever encountered, and among his river of words are phrases like ‘Noam Chomsky meets Electric Company’ and ‘Oh, for sure we’re going to get sued.’

This is Channel Zero is two hours and 20 quasi-fictional minutes with ‘a Nike look and mtv style.’ Guerrilla footage from around the world was packaged using the latest in sgi, Avid and Protools hardware, aided by a kick-ass funk soundtrack. It speaks directly into the ear of a demographic advertisers lust after. But you’re never, ever going to see it on tv. Anywhere.

‘It’s insanely political,’ says Marshall, producer/director/writer/visionary and former bike courier. ‘It takes direct aim at corps like ge and Shell. Any broadcaster who aired it would definitely get sued.’ And that’s the point.

Under Toronto-based Psychedigital Corporation, Marshall, and his supporters and investors, want to create a new form of socially conscious, commercial-free media – slick, highly designed, hip tv-type programming that, because of its media and corporation bashing content, will never be seen on the airwaves.

Before the moguls laugh it off, consider that Planet Street, the first ‘issue’ of the video magazine (produced with $100,000) has global distribution in over 20 countries through Tower Records, Virgin and hmv, getting top shelf over products from Disney, Fox and Warner Bros.

‘We’ve created our own distribution network, but to be honest, our goal is to create a network, a kind of global community channel.’

The $1.5 million to make This is Channel Zero – which Marshall shot in locales as remote as East Timor and Indonesia and which features interviews with ‘intellectuals and media critics’ – was raised by selling 20% of the equity in Psychedigital. Marshall says none of his investors has holdings in media or any media experience. He expects sales of 200,000 to 300,000 within the year for the product.

This is Channel Zero debuts in Toronto Nov. 7.