Barna-Alper Productions is partway through its latest series, and will soon wrap the six-week shoot of its serio-comic Show Me Yours, an 8 x 30 show slated to air this summer on Showcase.

Rachel Crawford (The Ride, Traders) and Adam Harrington (Out of Order, Jeremiah) star as a psychologist and biologist, respectively, who must overcome their differences to co-author a book about sex. Jeff Seymour (The Eleventh Hour), Alberta Watson (Chasing Cain), Rachel Wilson (Sheer Bliss), Jennie Raymond (Blue Murder) and Peter Williams (Love Come Down) also get in on the action.

The show, shooting in Toronto’s newly trendy Distillery District, ‘marks a new kind of production model’ for Barna-Alper, according to Laszlo Barna, who exec produces along with Paul Jay. Directors John Fawcett (Ginger Snaps) and T.W. Peacock (Blue Murder) take turns at the camera, under the watch of showrunner Shelley Eriksen (Stolen Miracle).

Show Me Yours has also been picked up by Oxygen in the U.S., and got cheques from the CTF LFP and the Rogers Cable Network Fund.

The production house is also preparing to shoot a CBC MOW about the life of Shania Twain, and is shopping for a writer to adapt a bio of the Timmins, ON chanteuse in time for a shoot this spring or early summer. Barna will exec produce, again teaming with Phyllis Platt of Platt Productions (Open Heart, Betrayed).

A Mann’s world

Distinct Features is moving fast on its latest project – pushing the 6 x 30 series Mann to Mann into production this month just weeks ahead of its scheduled airdate on Ottawa’s the New RO. The comic drama went to camera Jan. 11 and will air on the local station in February, followed by turns on Bravo! and CHUM’s other NewNet stations.

‘We’re shooting an episode every 2.2 days,’ says director Derek Diorio (Francoeur, Kiss of Debt). ‘I hope we’re not overreaching, but I guess we’ll find out soon enough.’

The series follows two sisters who take over the family business, a male strip club, when their dad goes into a coma. Tori Hammond (Posers, Kevin Spencer) stars with Lorraine Ansell (House of Luk, Kiss of Debt), joined by Patrick McKenna, Chris Clements and Don Kelly. Diorio also produces with Aurele Gaudet, while Distinct regular Jay Bond edits.

The ‘modest’ budget is made up entirely of licence fees. Diorio says he didn’t have enough time/patience to put in for funding.

Tween toon

Cartoons will commingle with people on the new Shaftesbury Films series, now shooting in Toronto for YTV under the working title The Strip. The tween-aimed live-action/animation show stars Paula Brancati (Doc, Radio Free Roscoe) and Alex House (Zoe Busiek: Wild Card) as twin sisters who learn about their future via a mysterious comic book. Jonathan Malen, Danielle Miller and Barbara Mamabolo also star, working for director and coproducer Ron Murphy. At press time, the animation partner had not been named.

The show comes from newcomer Jana Sinyor and writer/exec producer Heather Conkie (The Zack Files). Christina Jennings and Scott Garvie exec produce for Shaftesbury. Sinyor produces along with Suzanne French and Laura Harbin.

The $6.5-million shoot, backed by CTF’s LFP and EIP, will wrap mid-March and air on YTV this fall.

Extra credit

Film student Anthony Green got lucky this month when both Wendy Crewson and Michael Lerner (Elf) agreed to star in his short Pigeon, a 10-minute true-ish story about the Holocaust that shot over two days in Tottenham, a small town north of Toronto known to crews for its vintage train station. It’s about a Jew, Lerner, who gets some unexpected help while fleeing the Nazis.

Green, a Toronto native and third-year film student at NYU, directs and edits, working with DOP Mitchell Ness (Black Hole High) and producer Karen Wooky (Mutant X). He hopes the privately funded $25,000 short will get into the Sundance, Jerusalem and Toronto film festivals.

Green says he tailored the script to suit Lerner, after they met during a doc shoot in New York. Wooky then passed a copy to her agent, who also reps Crewson.

Lock up your sons

Speed bride Britney Spears is expected to visit the set of the MOW she is exec producing for Disney, ABC Family and Lions Gate TV. The untitled project is adapted from the pop tart’s semi-autobiographical novel A Mother’s Gift, cowritten with her mom Lynne, about a Southern gal who gets into a prestigious East Coast conservatory, and shoots in Toronto through January. Bobby Roth (The Elizabeth Smart Story) directs.

Pollack makes a killing

Sydney Pollack is also coming to town to shoot the thriller The Interpreter with Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn. Kidman plays a UN interpreter who learns that an assassination is in the works, and must convince Penn’s skeptical FBI agent to take action. The Universal pic is produced by Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner of Working Title, with Pollack, Kevin Misher, Anthony Minghella and Liza Chasin.