Up Front Entertainment has a full slate of docs in development for 2001 that move from nostalgic and heartwarming to scientific and heart-wrenching.

To begin with, the Toronto-based prodco has teamed up with A&E Television Networks to produce a trio of World Premiere Biography programs on three legendary teen pop idols – Bobby Rydell, Lesley Gore and Brenda Lee.

The one-hour docs, commissioned by the American network (which also partnered with Up Front on The Bunny Years in 1999), will be directed and produced by Up Front president Barbara Barde.

Inter-mixing performance footage from the past and present, the three profiles will reveal how these pop idols became stars and will include interviews with other musical legends such as Frankie Valli, Paul Anka, Frankie Avalon, Fats Domino, Smokey Robinson and Quincy Jones.

Prep begins at the end of January and the trio of shows, to be shot in New York and l.a., will air in the first quarter of 2002.

Black Light Dreams: A 25 Year Tribute to The Famous People Players is a one-hour special for broadcast on cbc in March, with a second window on Bravo!.

The one-off, produced by Barde and directed by Mitch Ness (Something to Cry About), pays homage to the theatre group that has provided a creative outlet for the mentally challenged over the past quarter decade.

Interviewees include troop members and such famous supporters as Paul Newman and Phil Collins.

Barde and Stuart Goodman are exec producing.

Time of Their Lives is a one-hour doc that looks at the change in the relationship between young Canadian acting talent and the Hollywood studios in light of the increasing demand for tv programming aimed at young people.

‘It seems we’re going back to the old legacy of the studio days when everyone was tied up because of the studio’s fear of losing the next star,’ says producer Barde.

In development with ctv for W5, Barde is hoping to shoot the doc during pilot season in l.a. this year. Matt Gallagher (Cass) is attached to direct.

On the topic of pilots, Up Front is in development with Discovery Canada on two: Beautytech, produced by Barde and directed by Tracy McTaggart, is about the science and technology of beauty and will likely air by March; and The Deep Blue looks at the scientific research of deep oceans. The pilot, entitled Robots of the Deep, focuses on the technology that allows us to explore the depths of the oceans. Produced by Barde and directed by Richard Longley, Robots of the Deep is headed for production this spring off the coasts of b.c., California, Florida and Massachusetts.

Vancouver-based Pauline Heaton will handle the underwater camera.

Barde and Goodman are exec producing.

The Last Princess marks the prodco’s first official coproduction. A partnership with Denmark, the doc chronicles the life journey of Olga Romanoff, sister of the last czar of Russia, who fled with her family to Denmark when her brother was overthrown.

Originally pitched by Danish director Sonja Vesterhold at last year’s Hot Docs, the documentary, which will incorporate existing footage from Russian archives of Olga as a child, is budgeted at roughly $450,000.

It will be shot in Canada, Denmark and Russia, likely next summer, but has already been licensed by the History Channel in Canada and presold to Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands (Avro) and Belgium (Flemish Television).

Falling From the Sky chronicles the life of Heather MacDonald, one of the Vietnamese orphan babies who survived a 1975 plane crash in Saigon.

When her future adoptive father saw the plane crash that killed dozens of orphans, he and his wife rushed out to adopt Heather and bring her back to Cape Breton where she grew up. Now, at 26, she, along with some of the surviving nuns and orphans of the disaster, are going back to Vietnam to visit the crash site, and Up Front will be following close behind, documenting the story from MacDonald’s perspective.

The doc is written and coproduced by former Chatelaine editor Sally Armstrong. Gallagher is directing.

It will start shooting in March when the group heads to Vietnam.

*Landscape developing comedy, family

Landscape Entertainment is keeping tight-lipped about particulars, but the Toronto-based producer is in development on at least $20 million worth of series pilots and movies, says executive vp Christine Shipton.

The ctv-affiliated prodco has 11 hours in development – six hours of movies and five hours of series – for both ctv and cbc and is working with such veteran scribes as Peter Mohan (Taking the Falls), Peter Landrum, Jim Hanshaw and Jefferson Lewis (The Perfect Son).

It is also tapping into fresh talent with such newcomers as Tassie Cameron, Aaron Martin and Emil Sher.

‘As a company we are developing tv movies from $3 million to $7 million, depending on the project,’ says Shipton, who maintains that as exec vp of Landscape she is an independent producer who pitches ctv in the same way she does other broadcasters.

‘I know what they [ctv] want, not because of our corporate relationship, but because my job is to know what every broadcaster wants.’

She does confirm, however, that Landscape, helmed by former hbo exec Robert Cooper, is actively looking for a third partner.

Bringing in a third party would reduce ctv’s ownership from 50% to perhaps less than 30%, which would officially qualify Landscape as an independent producer eligible for some of the $140 million in development and production money that ctv is committed to dole out as part of its benefits package.

Meantime, Landscape is honing the country’s writing talent, looking for good stories in the genres of comedy and family, but not kids or sitcoms, assures Shipton.

‘I like to do what I know about.’

The company’s l.a. office has 26 hours of tv in development, almost all of which are movies for the u.s. networks and one of which is a ‘major’ miniseries for nbc.

*Ganetakos scribbles a storm of hilarity

With five series in development, Alex Ganetakos (daughter of cbc’s George Anthony) could possibly be one of the busiest comedy writers in Toronto right now.

‘I’m juggling a lot because you never know when it’s going to collapse,’ says Ganetakos, who jump-started her career writing for one of the non-broadcast Gemini Awards shows in 1997.

Still riding high from this month’s airing of her second episode of Made in Canada, she is looking forward to seeing the five episodes of Liography she recently completed come to life when the series begins airing in March. A Halifax-based series that satirizes the lives of Canadian and American celebrities, Liography is hosted by Leslie Nielsen and directed by Alan Resnick, with whom Ganetakos says she’s cooking up some more hilarious projects.

She is also writing for Epitome Pictures’ comedy series Borderline. Shot in Toronto on the Epitome soundstages, the 13-part, half-hour series is set on an isolated border crossing where Canadians and Americans are working together in the same border shack.

And for something completely different, Ganetakos is in development on the science/kids series Bugs, 13 half-hours of live action/3D produced by Phil Baker and Bill Davis of Toronto-based AnTenEye Productions for cbc.

The remainder of her work is coming out of Halifax, an ascending hot bed for tv comedy production, especially of the political satire pedigree.

Produced by Topsail Entertainment for cbc, Rideau Hall is a 13 half-hour series starring Bette MacDonald (The Bette Show), who plays a disco queen appointed general of Rideau Hall.

Foo’s Paradise, produced by Ocean Entertainment for ctv, chronicles the daily adventures of Foo McPherson, an unlikely Maritime premier, and his team who scramble to keep the kilt-wearing politician in power.

Finally, Dot.com, produced by Salter Street Films for cbc, is about a girl who agrees to have her final year of high school broadcast live on the Internet 24/7 in exchange for a free ride to the university of her choice. In the early stages of development, Ganetakos has recently completed the series’ bible.

*The View From Here kicks off with Kim Campbell

The North American tv premiere of Kim Campbell: Through the Looking Glass opens a new season of tvontario’s The View From Here, Feb. 7.

A National Film Board production, directed by Michel Jones (Curtain Call) and produced by Silva Basmajian (Hitman Hart), the doc chronicles Kim Campbell’s life and the politics behind her rise and fall as Canada’s first female prime minister and the Tory party’s shortest-term leader.

The documentary, narrated by Ann-Marie MacDonald, reveals how Campbell and her advisors were often at odds and details the many campaign blunders that ultimately buried the Tories.

While Peter Mansbridge and Hugh Winsor offer their views about Campbell and the ill-fated election, Allan Gregg, Randall Pearce, John Tory, David Camp and other insiders reflect on Campbell’s personality and style.

The doc was shot in l.a. and Toronto in 1999 and premiered last year at the Montreal World Film Festival and the Vancouver International Film Festival.

tvo is also launching a new weekly arts doc strand, which will focus on the lifework of some of the world’s most influential writers, musicians, and visual and performing artists. In particular, it will look at Canadian artists and how these people have helped weave our cultural fabric.

To begin, most of the docs will be acquired, but eventually the broadcaster will commission work for the new strand.

It kicks off Feb. 1 with a 12-week tribute to Rhombus Media, starting with the broadcast of September Songs: The Music of Kurt Weill. *