Tween series AD2030 is one of those rarest of Prairie beasts: a Saskatchewan/Alberta/Manitoba coproduction.

The series (13 x 30) is budgeted at $5.4 million and is being coproduced by Minds Eye Pictures, Saskatchewan, Minds Eye Alberta and Buffalo Gal Pictures of Winnipeg. It is being shot primarily in Manitoba.

AD2030 is set after the collapse of contemporary society and worldwide devastation at the hands of a virus called Advanced Aging Syndrome. ‘People don’t live longer than 30. There’s a worldwide body called Praxis providing accommodation and food for everyone in the world,’ producer Josh Miller, president of Minds Eye Alberta, explains.

Society is split between Professionals and Technicals – Praxis decides who will fall into which category.

The series begins when two 15-year-olds who have been at school together and fully expect to become doctors – since no one lives past 30 in this society, people start their careers young – are reassigned to become technicians. It seems there’s a conspiracy in Praxis.

‘We’re calling it a conspiracy-thriller series. It’s aimed at kids and we think it appeals on a number of levels. Kids run this world. It’s aimed at preteens all the way up to teenagers.’

The decision to move filming to Winnipeg was a financial one and in keeping with the Minds Eye’s long-term business plan.

‘Moving to Manitoba was instrumental in closing our financing. We needed a location where we could shoot modern buildings and also have access to a funky warehouse district. As well, we had some support from Manitoba Film and Sound, some equity investment that was significant enough to help us close our financing,’ says Miller.

‘The problem was that we had a gap in financing that required us to look for creative solutions; the one that was available to us was to structure an interprovincial coproduction between Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

‘Manitoba was very keen to have a series since The Adventures of Shirley Holmes [Credo Entertainment/Forefront Entertainment] had finished its run there. There was a confluence of common goals to get the series financed and to have it in Manitoba.’

‘It was always in [Minds Eye’s] business plan to produce in the three Prairie provinces.’

Miller points out other Minds Eye children’s productions are shot in the other Prairie provinces: Incredible Story Studio in Regina, MythQuest in Calgary and Mentors in Edmonton.

‘It worked for us to produce in all three provinces. That way we don’t tax the crews in any one province and we can access all the locations,’ he says.

The other factor that brought the financing together was the decision to shoot in 24-frame high-definition video format, which Miller says ‘helped in trimming some costs off budget and worked especially well in the context of a futuristic show in an austere world.’

Film is expensive to begin with and has to be processed in a lab and transferred to video. ‘Those things cost money and time, which is also money,’ says Miller. ‘With video you don’t do any of those things.’ *

-www.mindseyepictures.com