Outside Toronto’s old city hall the skies are gray and the rain is steady.

Inside, the crew on Salter Street Films’ miniseries Major Crime are eagerly flocking towards the steaming cappuccinos at the craft services table. The schedule called for exterior pickup shots today, but with the downpour the crew has been hard at work since 6:30 a.m. juggling the schedule and setting up for interiors.

‘Welcome to sunny Toronto,’ jokes set dresser Rob Grant, pouncing on the last cappuccino.

It’s the first of a five-day, second-unit location shoot for the Halifax-based production, which wrapped six weeks of principal photography April 30.

The script, penned by Steve Lucas, who also executive produced with Salter Street’s Michael Donovan, is set in the Toronto area and follows a team of police officers attempting to bring a child molester to justice. But after months of fruitless undercover work that wreaks havoc on their lives, the case appears doomed when the young victims are too terrified to take the stand.

This final leg of production is crucial and the rain is not a good start. Roughly 20 minutes of film, mainly bright and sunny exteriors to link the Halifax-shot scenes, have to be picked up in the five-day span. Needless to say, continuity is going to be tricky if the rain continues.

Even without bad weather, the production team has its work set out for them. The long list of shots on the May 3-7 sked cover the city. To establish the local police and court angle, cast and crew are headed to the Mimico Detention Centre, the Don Jail, Osgoode Hall, and a local police station, plus loads of wide exteriors are required along Toronto’s major roadways. Then it’s off to an east-end gas station, some phone booths, a local Dairy Queen and a sting operation scene in Allen Gardens.

‘It’s going to be a real crunch to get the job done,’ says producer Norman Denver, huddled with Lucas as they watch the crew gear up for the only day of interior shots.

‘We are really going to have to work overtime to get a sense of the town in the show,’ Lucas adds. But with two cameras allowing them to break off a unit, he is confident the team can pull it off.

If the Toronto setting is so imperative, why didn’t they make life easier for themselves and land principal photography in Toronto? Lucas says he originally expected to shoot here but it all came down to the bottom line.

On a limited $5.5 million budget for the four-hour miniseries, getting the project off the ground in Toronto with its comparatively higher production costs and lower tax incentives just wasn’t feasible.

Even in Halifax, the production has been forced to keep a tight rein. ‘I wouldn’t have wanted to go into Toronto with that kind of budget,’ says Denver.

Financing for Major Crime came from Telefilm Canada, Nova Scotia Film Development Corporation, a licensing fee from cbc, the Nova Scotia tax credit and Salter Street’s own pockets.

Brad Turner, whose credits include cbc’s Peacekeepers, as well as the tv series Two and The Outer Limits, landed the director’s chair on the picture. He says some tricky maneuvering was required to ensure many of the Halifax locations could pass for Toronto. The Toronto suburb of Scarborough was created in an area outside Halifax, a Nova Scotia racetrack doubled for t.o.’s Woodbine venue, and Halifax production designer Bill Flemming built an elaborate set to replicate the interior of Toronto’s old city hall.

But the weather didn’t cooperate on the Atlantic coast either. ‘March and April in Halifax is a nightmare ­ it’s hell ­ it’s one of the worst places on earth,’ moans Denver. ‘The winter hangs on and on.’

Turner credits the mixed Halifax/Toronto crew for keeping the cameras rolling. With Imagex’s Writers Block also shooting in Halifax at the time, the crew pool in Nova Scotia was tight and 10 of the 40-member team were brought in from Toronto, including the art director, gaffer, camera operator, the dolly grip, makeup and continuity.

Although seeming to promise yet another disturbing Canadian docudrama in the vein of The Boys of St. Vincent, the cast and production team insist this miniseries is packed with humor as well as intrigue. Lucas bills the film as a ‘cat and mouse game’ focusing on the personal effects of the case rather than the molestations.

Writer of the award-winning doc The Champagne Safari, Lucas spent six years researching a number of reported cases of pedophilia on which he based the fictional Major Crime script. ‘The police and Crown attorneys I met with all had a pretty major sense of humor and I tried to bring that across,’ he explains. ‘Ultimately it’s a sobering show, but it’s a funny ride getting there.’

Lucas went to Donovan with the project and, along with friend and associate producer John Comerford, approached Denver last December to produce.

‘I thought I wouldn’t get through it,’ says Denver of the prospect of making his way through four hours of reading heavy subject matter. ‘But I read it in an evening. It was so good I wanted to keep turning every page.’

After auditioning extensively in Vancouver, Toronto, l.a., New York and Halifax, Law & Order’s Michael Moriarty was cast in the starring role of the head detective. Traders’ fans will be in for a shock when they see leading man David Cubitt in the role of the pedophile, and Mary Walsh sheds her typecast as a comedic actor, playing the mother of several of the child victims. Under The Piano star Megan Follows takes on the role of assistant Crown prosecutor.

The Major Crime cast totals 50 speaking roles, including eight-year-old Vancouver native Lane Gates, all smiles in his miniature suit and tie and excited about his first big role as one of the victims. ‘He’s having a ball,’ says his mother, waving encouragement from behind the scenes. Sabrina Grdevich plays Gates’ onscreen mother and the pair are walking up the colossal city hall staircase to establish the court environment.

‘Its been an exhausting shoot,’ Grdevich says of the role, confessing that after wrapping a long day of work she spent the next day at home in tears.

Grdevich, who played Cubitt’s sister on the last season of Traders, says confronting him as the pedophile who molested her child was quite a different scenario. ‘It will be interesting to see how people react to him in this role,’ she says, ‘but I think he’s going to hook you in and drag you along.’

Despite the bad weather, hectic schedule and a tight budget, some lighthearted goofing off provides the comic relief to balance the intense on-camera moments. Cubitt likens the set to a student film project, with everyone supporting and helping each other, and having a lot of fun alongside the heavy workload.

But Turner is beginning to feel the effects of over 37 days of intense shooting and is looking forward to a week at home in Vancouver before heading back to Toronto to cut the picture at PFA Medallion. Sound mixing is being taken back to Salter Street’s own facilities and post will wrap in September.

Major Crime is slated to air in two two-hour segments on cbc in December or January.