Vancouver-based Lark Productions hit a unique achievement this year: it has television productions at four of Canada’s major broadcasters.

Newly commissioned this year are CBC procedural Allegiance, created by Anar Ali, and Citytv original Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent, which Lark is producing with Toronto’s Cameron Pictures. Meanwhile, the company is producing a second season of CTV’s reality series Farming for Love, based on the Fremantle format Farmer Wants a Wife, and has a third season of Family Law, created by Susin Nielsen and produced with Calgary’s SEVEN24 Films, in the can for Global.

“We’ve spent years building network trust with our broadcast partners and our format holder partners,” Lark Productions president Erin Haskett (pictured right) — who also concluded a three-year tenure as chair of the board at the Canadian Media Producers Association (CMPA) this fall — tells Playback, noting that finding and supporting creative talent is in the “DNA” of the company.

“When Louise [Clark] first started Lark [in 2010], so much of it was about being talent-driven, creating a space for people to have a voice within what we do,” she says. “Our job as producers is to match the vision and the commerce and bring the best group of people together to tell the most interesting stories.”

Lark also has a strong ally in the global market with minority shareholder Universal International Studios (the studio bought the minority stake in 2014). “That team helps us understand the expectations of the international and the U.S. marketplace so that we’re constantly raising our own game and trying to elevate the shows and the projects that we’re working on,” says Haskett, adding that they have ongoing conversations with the stakeholder on opportunities in the market.

In the case of Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent (pictured left), Universal Television is the distributor, with Universal and Wolf Entertainment partnered on the rights to the Law & Order franchise.

Haskett says Hayden Mindell, SVP of television at Rogers Sports & Media, was the brainchild behind the series, with early talks at Wolf Entertainment beginning about two years before it was announced during Citytv’s June upfront. It was Lark that brought on Tassie Cameron as showrunner, and Haskett says “it all moved quickly after that.”

Universal International Studios was less involved in the development of Allegiance, which was brought to the prodco by VP, scripted development Nicole Mendes, who joined the company in 2020.

The former CBC production executive had developed a separate project with Allegiance creator Ali at the pubcaster. When Mendes made the move to Lark Productions, Ali had been preparing to pitch her a procedural based in Surrey, B.C., about a rookie cop who tries to follow the letter of the law while fighting treason charges against her father, and it was a “perfect marriage” with the B.C.-based prodco.

Mendes says Lark did shop the series to other buyers, but CBC “was the right fit” and a good partner with Universal International Studios, with Flashpoint duo Mark Ellis and Stephanie Morgenstern coming on board as co-showrunners. The series is being distributed by NBCUniversal Global Distribution.

Haskett says the timing was perfect for Allegiance, which went to camera in Vancouver and B.C.’s lower mainland this fall. The commission of three major Canadian dramas out of Vancouver — including CBC’s Wild Cards (Piller/Segan, Blink49 Studios, Front Street Pictures) and CTV’s Sight Unseen (Blink49, Front Street) – has been a boon for crew members in the region, which was hit hard by the 118-day SAG-AFTRA strike.

Projects like Allegiance (pictured right) have also allowed producers to tap into local talent, which has been steadily rising thanks to initiatives like the Pacific Screenwriting Program, of which Haskett is a member of the board. “There’s great talent coming out of that program, but there has to be shows in B.C. for people to actually have jobs, especially for writers,” she says.

Dave Valleau, Lark’s head of production, says one of the draws for crew members to work on their productions is the ability to “shoot Toronto for Toronto” in the new Law & Order series, as well as “Surrey for Surrey” in Allegiance and “Vancouver for Vancouver” in Family Law.

“I think we underestimate how important that is to the crew working on the shows, and how much they appreciate being able to shoot the cities for what they are… [and] get to show the rest of the world,” he says. (Haskett says Family Law has developed a fan base in the U.S. since being acquired by the CW Network).

Lark was also able to showcase B.C. in their latest unscripted series, CTV’s Farming for Love. Tex Antonucci, Lark’s VP, business affairs, says the company worked closely with distributor and format rights holder Fremantle, as well as co-showrunners Ruth Nanda and Grant Greschuk, to create a local version that included “farmers from a wide variety of backgrounds and orientations who are genuinely looking for love.”

Haskett’s work to ensure a wider representation of Canada in all its forms goes her work at Lark. CMPA president and CEO Reynolds Mastin says she was “instrumental” in the introduction of a policy that requires at least 35% of the association’s board of directors to come from Indigenous and equity-seeking communities.

“She made it very clear from day one that it was priority number one for the organization, and, through her leadership, we worked incredibly hard over the past few years to achieve that goal,” he says.

Haskett remains on the CMPA board, but handed over the chair seat to Conquering Lion Pictures co-founder Damon D’Oliveira, who she says has been a big part of the association’s advocacy work around Bill C-11 in the lead-up to his election.

Looking back on her time as chair, she says she came on at a “stressful” time in the midst of the COVD-19 crisis in 2020, but she departs the role feeling optimistic for its future. “I feel the [current] board represents the kind of leadership… and the kind of aspirations for what we can be as an industry.”

As for what’s to come for Lark, Haskett says the team is “entrenched in production,” adding that they’re taking the time to observe audience trends and buyer interest before building up their development slate again.

“[The reason] we’ve been so successful in the last year is we always try to be as targeted as possible in terms of the market,” says Mendes. “But we do projects that we’re passionate about and we love, and I don’t think those two things will go away.”

Top photo by Darko Sikman; Photo of Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent by Steve Wilkie, courtesy of Citytv; Photo of Allegiance courtesy of CBC

This story originally appeared in Playback‘s 2023 Winter issue