Vancouver: The term ’emerging’ talent takes on new meaning when Monika Mitchell is on the set of Robson Arms. The promising young filmmaker is at the helm of episode eight of the new CTV series shooting in Vancouver until May 7, and is five months pregnant.

‘I still consider myself an emerging director,’ she says between takes. Mitchell is on location with Mark McKinney (Kids in the Hall) and William B. Davis (The X-Files) at an abandoned old folks home on Boundary Road, far from the West End Vancouver apartments it’s made to look like. ‘But there is no vibe from the crew about that. I’ve not had one patronizing moment. Everyone has taken my opinions respectfully,’ says Mitchell.

Robson Arms, a 13-episode coproduction between Vancouver-based Omni Film Productions and Halifax-based Creative Atlantic Communications, is a product of the First Shots Training Program, a joint initiative between British Columbia Film and CTV’s Western development office. The program was designed to give new writers and directors their first jobs on network television primetime series.

‘I never had the opportunity to work better, faster or more thoughtfully,’ says Mitchell. ‘Usually those don’t go together. This has been a terrifically creative experience that has really stimulated my brain.’

Mitchell is American, a landed immigrant who recently relocated to Vancouver with her Canadian husband John Cassini (Paycheck), who stars as the building superintendent Yuri. She has previously directed the darkly comedic, award-winning short films Night Deposit and Witness and the 2003 feature film Break a Leg.

In today’s scene, playing out for the digital video camera and cinematographer Kamal Derkaoui (Firefight), Davis’ drunken and distraught character is trying unsuccessfully to convince McKinney, an immigration lawyer, to help him sue his estranged wife. McKinney’s character, meanwhile, gets visits from his dead wife, played by Made in Canada’s Jackie Torrens.

‘Monika is simply a good director – full stop – and had a thorough grasp of the material and the dramatic arcs of the episode,’ says McKinney. ‘All the discussions about character and pace were really great… particularly the hard ‘talking-to-your-dead-wife while-dreaming-she’s-alive’ scenes.’

Robson Arms has also attracted prominent Canadian actors, including Margot Kidder (Superman), Megan Follows (Anne of Green Gables), Tobias Mehler (Taken) and Gabrielle Miller (Corner Gas). Scheduled guest stars include Gabrielle Rose (Milgaard), Kevin McNulty (Last Wedding) and Zak Santiago (Stargate SG-1). Scrabble, the local dog featured in the infamous, crotch-biting Super Bowl ad, gets a role.

All in the script

‘I think it’s script, script, script,’ says McKinney, when asked why the comedy-drama series is getting the attention of actors. ‘[The series is] dramatically ambitious and really quite moving and funny, too. I haven’t seen anything like it and, when I compare it to a lot of the auto pilot scripts I’m reading, it’s just in a different class entirely. I’d do it again.’

In July 2002, series creator Susin Nielsen was invited by CTV’s Louise Clark and Omni’s Michael Chechik to pitch an anthology-like series that would involve rising writing and directing talent. She sold the idea of a series, originally known as Keys Cut Here, in which every episode visits a different tenant of a creaking, old West End apartment building, and herded together such rising TV writers as Sioux Browning (Alienated), Jesse McKeown (Da Vinci’s Inquest), Andrew Bush (Street Cents) and Tony Sekulich (Blue Trust).

Sekulich, a resident of Fredericton, NB, flew out to Vancouver for his episode, directed by Mitchell. A former journalist, he’d taken a risk to pursue his love of screenwriting, successfully pitching The Rivals – a feature about two buddies, one a Toronto Maple Leafs fan, the other a Montreal Canadiens fan, on the road – at the Atlantic Film Festival. The Rivals is not in production, but the script got him into the Canadian Film Centre, which ultimately recommended him to Robson Arms when the producers needed bright, new Maritime writers.

‘It’s been an amazing experience, the best of my career so far,’ enthuses Sekulich. ‘As an emerging writer, to have a produced network series credit is going to be so valuable going forward. [And] it’s great to see people who you’ve been a fan of for years working on your stuff.’

Funding was secured nearly a year ago, and to help with the low budget and to secure the best possible crew, production was scheduled for ‘off-season.’ CTV has not set an airdate.

‘What this show has going for it, above all else, is that we were given a really nice development period. We had an unheard-of amount of time to get the scripts right,’ says Nielsen, after touring the two-storey facility. It houses both production office space and standing sets such as Yuri’s apartment, which, oddly, features a shoemaker’s workbench.

‘I was really impressed with a lot of [the writers] and would work with them again. They are giving the series a freshness it might not have otherwise,’ she adds. ‘A priority has always been to make a kick-ass show. This isn’t a training program.’

Robson Arms is produced by Brian Hamilton, coproduced by Janice Evans and Greg Jones and executive produced by Chechik. Gary Harvey, most recently with Cold Squad, is the executive producer and lead director on the show, mentoring other directors such as Michael Amo (The Secret Goldfish), Dwayne Beaver (The Rhino Brothers), commercial director Gordon Carson, Jason Furukawa (Cold Squad), Asghar Massombagi (Khaled) and Benjamin Ratner (Moving Malcolm). Each director makes one episode, while some writers work on several.

‘We’ve wanted to give [the directors] a balance between a normal series experience and something that is a little more hands-on from a mentor perspective,’ says Harvey. ‘The response has been great. We had a few bumpy first days and we’re still working on it. But we’re really excited by the enthusiasm of the crew.’ *

-www.omnifilm.com