No stranger to Gemini Award nominations, TVA International’s (formerly Motion International) science and technology, action-adventure series Popular Mechanics for Kids is in the running again, for best children’s or youth program or series and best direction in an information program or series.

Based on Popular Mechanics magazine, published by Hearst Corporation – the u.s. distributor on the series – ‘the idea was hatched before the concept of the show existed,’ says producer Jonathan Finkelstein.

Originally, Hearst contacted the company to produce a children’s show loosely based on the magazine. Soon after, Finkelstein and exec producer Michel Lavoie were enlisted to come up with the concept, and in April 1997, Popular Mechanics for Kids was born – a 13-part, half-hour series that sends its three teenage hosts on adventures other kids could only dream of.

In ‘Life Savers,’ the episode for which pmk is nominated for best direction, Elisha Cuthbert (one of the show’s hosts) gets a family of crash-test dummies ready for a dangerous test, while cohost Tyler Kyte gets in on the action at an armored car factory and helps build one of the safest vehicles around. Later in the episode, Kyte turns into a modern-day Spiderman when he learns how to rappel down a very tall city building.

A recipient of the Silver Apple Award from the National Education Media Network, the series, now entering its fourth season, has received a total of five Gemini nominations in the past three years.

Broadcast on Global Television and tvontario (second window) in Canada, and syndicated in 95% of the u.s. market by the affiliates of such main networks as Fox, nbc and cbs, the series has also been sold to more than 25 markets.

Budgeted at $100,000 per episode and shot throughout Canada and the u.s., the series succeeds in inspiring interest in science, technology and engineering among kids around the world. ‘We seem to have found a formula that kids really respond to,’ says Finkelstein, who describes the series as somewhere between Real Kids Real Adventures and Bill Nye the Science Guy.

pmk director nominees are Jean-Louis Cote, Sid Goldberg, Marian MacNair and Serge Maral.

Kyte, Cuthbert and Vanessa Lengies host the series, along with ‘Fix It’ guy Charlie Powell.

Lavoie and Andre Belanger are exec producers.

In addition to producing season four, Finkelstein is currently in development with TVA International on a new science series for kids called Explore. Still in incubation, the show will be fully integrated with the Internet and will be more purely steeped in science, as opposed to adventure. *