To many, Jamie Brown is the face of Frantic Films.

The award-winning exec is a regular at major industry events, and in addition to overseeing the company’s production business, has found time to serve as chair of the Manitoba Motion Picture Industry Association, and continues to sit on the board of the CFTPA.

Brown doesn’t deny that he’s a workaholic.

‘I typically work a 60- to 80-hour week,’ he says. ‘I don’t think you can really succeed in this business if you work 9 to 5.’

As dedicated as he is, Brown, 40, says he never intended to become the head of a production company.

Frantic’s executive producer and CEO trained to be a lawyer, and ended up doing some entertainment law at McMillan Binch in Toronto. Then a headhunter convinced him to take the job of director of business and legal affairs at Sullivan Entertainment.

That led to a similar role at Nelvana, and then an exec producer post at Credo Entertainment, where he created and produced the prototypical ‘living history’ reality series Pioneer Quest, which had two couples spending a year living like Manitoba pioneers.

Credo was looking to purchase Frantic, but the deal fell through. Nonetheless, Frantic heads Ken Zorniak and Chris Bond, looking to expand their FX service company into proprietary production, asked Brown to come on board as a partner, which he did in November 2000. Today, his team at Frantic includes VP Lynne Skromeda, director of development Tom Mudd, project manager Susie Freedman, and associate producer Scott Leary.

Brown has played leading roles in creating and/or producing a number of lifestyle and factual series, including: Quest for the Bay, which recreates the plight of 19th century fur traders, and Klondike: The Quest for Gold, which has prospectors retracing the 1897 gold rush, both for History Television.

Other credits include Discovery Channel’s Guinea Pig, in which the way the human body works is put to the test, and Til Debt Do U$ Part, in which couples in dire financial straits are given much-needed guidance. Brown was particularly hands-on with the latter, which airs on Slice and which nabbed him the award for best lifestyle/practical information series at the recent Geminis.

Last year, CTV aired the one-hour Frantic doc Music Rising, produced with Skromeda. The film tracks an initiative by music industry figures including U2’s The Edge to replace instruments lost by New Orleans musicians during Hurricane Katrina.

Frantic’s ventures into drama include the 2003 CTV MOW Zeyda and the Hitman (a copro with Toronto’s Miracle Pictures) and the 2005 feature film Lucid. The company is looking to grow in this area, and will soon shoot the comedy pilot Retail, about a transvestite makeup counter clerk at a suburban mall, for Showcase. It also has a number of other projects in development with various broadcasters.

‘We always intended to have a diversified revenue stream,’ says Brown. ‘Live action has become very important to us, and we’ve successfully expanded from doc series into lifestyle series, drama and features.’

Just a few years ago, VFX work represented 80% of Frantic’s business, but Brown says that today VFX and live-action production account for about 45% apiece, with the rest coming from commercials and VFX software.

Brown anticipates the company’s live-action division will pull in more than $7 million in revenues for this fiscal year – a number that has tripled in just a few cycles. And if Brown has his way, it won’t stop there.

‘Looking three years down the line – looking any further is just guessing – I would like to see us doing $20 million to $30 million annually,’ he says. ‘Of course, if you manage to get a primetime series worth $17 million, you’re almost already there, so things could happen faster if we’re lucky.’