TVO is exploring thematic pairings, using strategic acquisitions to complement some of its original commissions.

For Black History Month, TVO acquired short-form series Sounds & Pressure: Reggae in a Foreign Land from co-director Graeme Mathieson as a complement to his documentary feature Play It Loud! How Toronto Got Soul (Ultramagnetic Productions), commissioned by TVO.

Play It Loud! focuses on the life of Jamaican-Canadian singer Jay Douglas (pictured) in the 1960s. The feature doc is directed by Mathieson, produced by Andrew Munger and executive produced by Clement Virgo. The film will premiere digitally on Friday (Feb. 14) via TVO Docs’ YouTube channel, website and smart TV app before its broadcast premiere on Sunday (Feb. 16).

The five-part Sounds & Pressure (National Film Board of Canada [NFB]) was directed by Mathieson alongside Chris Flanagan. It was produced by Sherien Barsoum and Lea Marin and executive produced by Chianda Chevannes and Anita Lee. The series explores Toronto’s reggae history in the 1970s and 1980s.

The first episode was released on the NFB’s YouTube channel on Aug. 23, 2024. The series was broadcast in its entirety on TVO on Feb. 7 and the pubcaster will air individual episodes throughout the month. It is also available on TVO Docs’ YouTube channel.

The titles will be programmed together at the end of the month after their respective debuts. The two programs will be connected online via recommendations and direct references in their descriptions.

The programming team uses the complementary offerings to “enhance and amplify subjects and themes” for audiences, according to TVO Docs programmers Aidan Denison and Shane Smith.

Play It Loud! had already been commissioned by the time Smith and Denison were brought onto the docs team, so they first saw it via a rough cut last August. Denison was also involved in the edits for the film. From there, it was a matter of finding organic connections between the projects.

“We saw [Sounds & Pressure] as a natural extension on our original [Play it Loud!], because with Jay [Douglas], we get his individual perspective, and the people who he played with,” Denison tells Playback Daily, “But Sounds & Pressure [offers additional context] for the audience. If you want to know more, there’s five other [short films] that people can delve into.”

“We increasingly look for ways to engage in ongoing conversations through our programs, respond to evolving viewer trends,” adds Smith.

The programs also support TVO’s mandate as an educational broadcaster. Both the film and series are stories about Canada’s cultural past that are little known to a wider audience. Smith highlighted Sounds & Pressure‘s runtime, with each episode between 15 and 17 minutes, as ideal for classrooms but also for audiences watching on their phones.

“We’re looking at how a program works for both linear and for the online platforms,” says Smith. “Short-form on YouTube is great, and then also short-form works on linear as well to fill in gaps as interstitials.”

Denison and Smith have also programmed several previously acquired international titles for Black History Month, including 2022’s Darryl Jones: In the Blood, 2019’s Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am, 2020’s The Sit In: Harry Belafonte Hosts the Tonight Show. The programming also includes a rare scripted title with Steve McQueen’s 2020 Prime Video anthology film series Small Axe.

Smith says they previously explored program pairings with the 2024 original documentary Red Fever directed by Cree filmmaker Neil Diamond and Catherine Bainbridge with the 2009 NFB feature documentary Reel Injun from Diamond, Bainbridge and Jeremiah Hayes. Although this pairing wasn’t built around a specific day or month, both were produced by Rezolution Pictures and offer different perspectives on Indigenous stories.

Sometimes the connections are based in genre rather than thematic, as is the case with original documentary All Too Clear (Inspired Planet Productions) and the six-episode series acquisition Lift the Ice from Singapore-based Beach House Pictures. Denison says the former was an Ontario-focused story, while the series took an international approach.

“We don’t have the constraints of commercial broadcast, which means we can be quite flexible and open in terms of the runtimes of the programming that we’re looking for,” says Smith.

For the programmers, a four to six-month window is ideal when planning for commission-acquisition pairings. Smith says he and Denison are currently planning complementary programming for Pride Month in June.

Image courtesy of TVO Docs