St. John’s, NF: Pope Productions is gearing up for two interprovincial coproductions with Toronto-based Shaftesbury Films – a comedy series for Family Channel and a miniseries for CBC – in addition to several other projects due to air in the new year.

Senior producer Paul Pope says business in Newfoundland this year is up overall compared to last year.

Life With Derek, a 13 x 30 comedy series, started shooting Oct. 18 in Corner Brook, NF, with plans to wrap Dec. 1.

The series is about two brothers, aged 10 and 15, battling for power after their father remarries, forcing them, their young sister and two teen stepsisters to form an instant family.

Ron Murphy directs and Pope produces with Suzanne French, Laura Harbin and Scott Garvie of Shaftesbury. Executive producers include Shaftesbury’s Christina Jennings and Daphne Ballon, who also story edits with Jeff Biederman.

The series receives funding from the Newfoundland and Labrador Film Development Corporation, the CTF LFP, Shaw Television Broadcast Fund and The Harold Greenberg Fund.

Pope and Garvie are also in late development on Above and Beyond, a $9-million CBC miniseries, which has been greenlit and will start shooting in the new year.

Originally intended to be six hours, the story about one of Canada’s unsung contributions to World War II has been revamped as a four-hour mini, with Sturla Gunnarsson directing and John Doyle and Lisa Porter writing.

The story focuses on Newfoundland’s Gander Airport, then the largest airfield in the world, and the ‘suicide missions’ that left there to bring much-needed bombers and fighters to Great Britain across the stormy North Atlantic.

In addition, Pope is gearing up to produce the series Atlantic Sound, eight one-hours, which he says draws on the striking similarities between Newfoundland and Ireland. Pope is producing with Michael Garland of Dublin, Ireland-based Grand Pictures.

The dramatic series, which Garland says was born from the Atlantic Film Festival’s Strategic Partners 2003, is about a small radio station in an island community and will start shooting at the end of 2005. CBC is backing the project domestically, with additional financing from the NFLFDC. The series will air in Ireland on Irish public broadcaster RTE.

Pope Productions’ daytime soap-opera pitch Changing Tides has also been selected as one of 12 finalists in CBC’s countrywide competition. Changing Tides is about a Toronto business that comes to rural Newfoundland set on making big profits.