Animation has bombarded the children’s tv landscape over the past few years and the influx of high-budget, flashy cgi has led some to question the fate of live-action kids’ programming. The marketplace has not been overly encouraging, with animation being far easier to transport overseas and version for international sales.

‘There just aren’t many windows for live-action kids’ programs,’ says Lois Walker, who with partner Herb Walker of Vancouver has produced over 471 hours of non-animated kids’ programming over the past 19 years.

‘Broadcasters lean more towards animation, it works better with merchandising campaigns, and that’s what the kids’ market is being driven by – commercial concerns, selling toys, not teaching kids to be creative,’ says Walker. ‘A lot of animated shows try to pass themselves off as educational but this aspect is just window dressing.’

However, the pendulum is starting to swing back in the opposite direction.

Innovative live-action programs, combining creative learning opportunities with entertainment, are re-emerging on broadcast schedules and production slates.

The international market is becoming saturated with animation, says Minds Eye International’s Paul Black, particularly in the eight- to 14-year-old market where buyers do not have much live-action programming to choose from.

This has spelled good news for the Minds Eye/Verite Films coproduced series The Incredible Story Studio. Hosted by comical kid movie mogul ‘Studio Boss’ Camille Devine, the program dramatizes short stories written by 10- to 14-year-olds across Canada, drawing on a 43-member repertory company of kid actors who play multiple characters. The youthful writers introduce their own stories and are profiled on the show.

Launched internationally at last month’s MIP Junior, Black reports that the program piqued the interest of large satellite and cable companies throughout continental Europe, including Canal J of Paris, while in the u.s., Fox Kids, Discovery Channel, Nickelodeon and Disney are looking at the show.

Talks are in the works to bring the show’s young host to Paris to do a live segment on Canal J to introduce the program to the French market.

Also under consideration is building an international version of Story Studio by collecting short stories from students around the world. ‘It opens up numerous coproduction opportunities,’ says Black.

The Incredible Story Studio is also building momentum in Canada. Last season the program launched on regional stations scn and tvontario, where it won its primetime Friday night slot for its target market with over 200,000 viewers per episode.

Based on this initial success, ytv picked up the program for its first national window this season, with another 26 half-hour order to be delivered in January. Five weeks into its ytv launch, Story Studio is already ranked among the specialty’s top 10 shows, alongside long-running programs like Goosebumps.

In the first season, stories from kids in Ontario, Alberta and Saskatchewan were collected; for season two, the story collection process went national.

A creative writing workshop has been developed by the production which teachers incorporate in the classroom, and story collection stringers in each province work with the kids to edit their stories.

Over 4,000 stories were collected for season two and 33 dramatized. The scripts cross the genres of comedy, adventure, thrillers, ghost and gangster stories, and the Studio’s first serious drama.

With a 10% higher budget for the second season, $350,000 per episode, a more experienced acting troupe and a stronger and wider range of stories coming in from kids across Canada, the show’s creator and producer Virginia Thomson says the production values and sophistication of Story Studio is rising.

Motivating kids

Programs which motivate children creatively is top priority at Lois and Herb Walker’s Take Part Productions in Vancouver.

‘Mr. Rogers and Mr. Dressup were models that inspired kids to do things,’ explains Lois Walker. ‘Who is replacing them in today’s market? How are animated shows and cartoons role models? Martha Stewart is popular for showing adults how to do all sorts of things yet all we are giving our kids are a bunch of cartoons.’

Their latest project, Surfs Up! Let’s Cook!, is a cooking show for kids which also incorporates an Internet component to help familiarize youngsters with computers. ytv is financing the $170,000, 26-part, half-hour series.

In each episode, young cohosts surf through the World Wide Web for the featured recipes of the day and visit with special guest chefs. Child actors take part in cooking demonstrations and supermarket adventures.

Take Part’s development slate includes a musical education program built around a well-known children’s entertainer, Paul Hann Music Man.

Walker is also looking to put the financing together to produce and rejuvenate new episodes of the company’s other series – Take Part for Kids!, Tell-A-Tale Town and Hands Up! Hands On! – all of which have aired on ytv.

Take Part for Kids, a magazine-format show for five- to 10-year-olds, features singalongs and arts and crafts, and has been syndicated in five local markets across Canada as well as in Saudi Arabia, Singapore and South Africa.

Tell-A-Tale Town, centering on professional and children’s storytelling, originally produced for CanWest Global, has also aired on ytv and recently sold to aboriginal broadcaster tvnc. International sales have been made to Singapore Broadcasting, Botswana tv in Africa, Iran and the United Arab Emirates.

Hands Up! Hands On! was coproduced with Baton Broadcasting and the Mid-Canada TV Network and features art projects for children.

In French-language Canada, Tele-Action’s sitcom for kids Radio Enfer has piled up a stack of accolades during its four-year run on Canal Famille, sparking the interest of ytv, which has commissioned the English-language adaptation of the format.

The 26-episode Radio Active will be broadcast in January 1999 and follows the ongoing story of a group of students who join up for their school’s radio communications program and learn how to produce a radio show. To make the show more appealing for international sales, the young actors will reflect an eclectic mix of ethnic backgrounds.

Another tween show in the works is attempting to take over where programs like The X-Files and Buffy The Vampire Slayer leave off. Scaredy Cats, a collaboration between Jump Communications’ Jason Margolis and Maureen Prentice and Galore Productions’ Jeanne Harco, guides kids through the world of the paranormal and helps them make their own judgments as to what they choose to believe.

Using a show-within-a show format, Scaredy Cats centers on two graduates of a community college folklore program who investigate paranormal activity on a public access tv show which they produce themselves.

Alongside dramatic reenactments, in each episode the tv hosts take a camera on location to places where paranormal activity has been reported, interviewing real scientists, historians, experts, conspiracy zealots and eyewitnesses.

The show’s budget is roughly $1.5 million for 13 half-hour episodes and the producers are currently talking with a representative of a large American production company who has expressed interest in a coventure. vtv is looking at the project for Canada.

The world of machines is the subject of a series being developed by Toronto’s Canamedia Productions and u.k. partner Dorling Kindersley Vision.

The half-hour series, based on the book The Way Things Work written by David Macaulay, centers on a great woolly mammoth, a long-suffering assistant to an eccentric inventor who unwittingly demonstrates the workings of all sorts of machines – from ovens, microwaves and tvs to calculators and drills.

Each $350,000 half-hour episode will feature the technique of Chromavision, which marries live-in-the-studio, preproduced animation and live-action. The program has been sold to Canal J and La Cinquieme in France and zdf and Kinder Kanal in Germany. Negotiations are underway with Disney for the u.s. and Scottish tv for the u.k. The program is being supported in Canada by tvontario, tfo, cftk and ckvr. Production is planned for early 2000.

A new environmental show for eight- to 16-year-olds launched this season on the chum stations – Barrie’s The New vr, The New ro in Ottawa, The New pl in London, The New nx in Wingham and The New wi in Windsor.

Roger’s New Reality is a half-hour, live-to-tape show which aims to generate creativity and physical activity outside the world of television.

The seeds of the show began three years ago when The New vr launched and Roger Klein was brought on as a vj to produce interstitials for airing in the 3-5 p.m. block. Also the station’s weatherman and an environmental activist, Klein developed a following among kids.

This season, The New vr revamped its after-school block in an attempt to reach an older teen audience and the half-hour, youth-oriented Roger’s New Reality was created. The program explores a wide range of subjects – the environment, alternative energy sources, extreme recreation, jobs, technology, history, music, fashion and recreation – and combines live performances, on-location footage and discussions with young people.

On the preschool front, Radio-Canada’s in-house production La Boite a Lunch is another unique program in that preschoolers are actually the stars of the show. ‘It is a show made for kids performed by kids – no puppets, no cartoons,’ says Lina Danylo, the show’s creator, writer and producer. ‘Everything is seen through the eyes of this five-year-old.’

La Boite a Lunch has won three international awards, including the Prix Jeunesse International 1998 at Munich.

Merchandising is the next step for the show; a deal is being worked out to produce La Boite’s magical lunch box for the retail market and an album of songs is in the works.