The ramp to tv drama production is getting a little smoother for Atlantic producers.

Creative Atlantic Communications has an eight-year history of commercial, corporate video and segment producing in Halifax, but is actively moving in the direction of proprietary drama. And with Nova Scotia’s inviting tax rebate and equity program, interprovincial copros are paving their way to its door.

‘Ontario companies are particularly looking to our province for partners and it’s creating a real boom in tv programming,’ says Creative’s Janice Evans.

Writer/director Sheri Elwood and Toronto producer Carolynne Bell, for example, approached the company to partner on their half-hour $130,000 drama Eb and Flo, the story of a pair of grandparents who rekindle romance as they chase after a stolen boat.

The August shoot will take place in Hubbards, n.s. and the program will air on cbc’s Reflections series.

With a drama credit under its belt, Creative is now set to produce the $1.5 million The Outlaw League, a baseball-centered feature film currently being developed with funding from Telefilm Canada and the Nova Scotia Film Development Corporation.

But with government funding sources drying up, Evans is increasingly looking to private investment to finance her projects. ‘The world appetite for tv programming is insatiable,’ says Evans, who is now concentrating on developing market-driven properties viable on the international stage.

A $10 million Newfoundland/ Quebec copro is in the works between Jennice Ripley and Barbara Doran’s new St. John’s company Passage Films and Cite Amerique of Montreal. Random Passage is an eight-hour historical drama based on two Newfoundland novels depicting the settling of an early Newfoundland community. The project has a development deal with cbc. Des Walsh (The Boys of St. Vincent) is writing the script.

Ripley has also teamed up with another Newfoundland producer, Ken Pittman, on The Dog and Pony Show, a live-action, 15-minute preschool series with lots of real animal critters. A pilot is being shot in August, with the aim to produce 30 episodes budgeted at $1.2 million.

A live-action kids’ show is also in development at Charles Bishop Productions in Halifax. Producer Charles Bishop started off in commercial production in the 1980s and continues to run this business as a stable base for his company while expanding into the documentary genre. But the tv drama market is his next big push, and Bishop says expanding opportunities to work with conventional broadcasters are spurring his company’s development.

In mid-July production begins on Nan’s Taxi, a half-hour drama through CanWest Global’s Maritime drama initiative. Scriptwriting is also underway for the half-hour kids’ show Oopsie Daisy, which will air in cbc’s preschool morning slot.

‘It’s always difficult for Atlantic producers to find windows with all the broadcasters and decision-makers in urban centers, but cbc, Global and Baton are becoming bigger players in the area,’ says Bishop, who also heads out to all the markets to sell his wares.

‘Really, there’s no disadvantage being based in the regions ­ there are only advantages,’ he says, noting that the Nova Scotia industry is booming as a result of the province’s generous tax credit.

Strategic alliances that shore up resources and expertise between companies are another way producers are expanding into drama where budgets are higher and infrastructure requirements greater than in infomag and doc programming.

Peter d’Entremont says his Halifax-based Triad Film Productions has been growing slowly over the past few years, and two months ago, in an effort to pump up production volume, he formed an association with Imagex’s Chris Zimmer.

‘I’ve worked for years producing one project at a time, but that was always my limit,’ he explains. ‘To get more than one production on the go I need a larger infrastructure base to cope with the work.’

The joint effort is already showing results. D’Entremont has a one-hour doc in production as well as a doc series, a comedy series and an mow in development.