Calgary-based White Iron is one company involved in actively putting together product to feed the starving maw of specialty channels.

‘The specialty channels are looking for product that they feel has a strong place,’ says president and COO Lance Mueller. ‘They have strong audience desires for their channels. What we do is we watch a lot of TV, talk to a lot of broadcasters and ask, ‘What don’t you have that you need? What would you like to see?’ So we’re not just sitting here flogging idea after idea [that misses the mark]. We try to have intelligence so when we go to them we have a sense we’re already ahead of the game.’

One show close to production, Bugs and Blooms, is a perfect example. Approached by the two experts who will be the on-air talent for the series, Mueller took on Bugs and Blooms on the basis there was nothing else like it on TV. The series (13 x 30) is a magazine show aimed at urban gardeners. It is budgeted at $5 million and licensed by HGTV. Shooting was slated to commence the last week of March, with a June delivery date.

White Iron made its Bugs and Blooms presentation to HGTV at the Banff Television Festival last year ‘and we ended up working together [with HGTV] on the pilot,’ which was completed last fall. Content with White Iron’s approach, the broadcaster had a hand in shaping the project. ‘Their role was to work with us and define the show to fill a gap in their schedule. They’re involved in all the approval stages. They had some input on the bible and ensuring we met all the goals and objectives of their audience targets,’ says Mueller.

Another series in development is From the Hip, which Mueller describes as ‘a really hip show dealing with teen issues – for teens, about teens, from teens.’

A coproduction with Calgary-based Combustion, the series will be composed in part of material already shot by Combustion before White Iron’s involvement.

‘They had the idea for From The Hip and realized they needed another production partner with more experience,’ Mueller explains. ‘We’ve taken it and with them redefined the show somewhat. We’re focussing the show a little tighter and we’re bringing synergy to who we think the broadcaster will be and who the audience is.’

The show, for which potential hosts are being auditioned, has attracted some interest from Canadian broadcasters. With only 10 days of shooting required to finish the series – some segments are hosted and in some cases the hosts will only be providing the links between items – the pilot is due to be available by the end of April. Finding a distributor will wait until the show has a broadcaster.

‘We want to make sure that the broadcaster in North America concurs with the production bible, the focus of the show. We’ll seek a distributor after we know how the show is focussed,’ says Mueller.

Another series based in part on pre-existing material is Island Extreme (13 x 30), which covers such extreme sports as cave diving, kite surfing, land luging and wakeboarding among a community of extreme sportsmen in Hawaii. Footage shot by ‘extreme videographers,’ who are, Mueller says, ‘as extreme as the extreme sportsmen – if they have to jump out of a plane after someone with a helmetcam [to get the shot] they do it,’ will be intercut with newer material.

With this footage making up a large part of the show, the entire series is budgeted at $1 million-plus. ‘When you’ve got a lot of stock footage to work from the dollar level comes down dramatically,’ says Mueller.

The focus for White Iron is to get international interest. ‘We’re trying to get a fairly prominent U.S. broadcaster for this series. We’ve had strong interest out of the States from a production company that does international distribution as well as acquisitions. My concern is that we get places in the U.S. and Europe. It’s being done with the international market in mind. [We have 13 episodes planned, but] if someone turned around and said ‘Can you do 26?’ we’d say ‘Yes.’ ‘

A coprod with Tomali Pictures of Calgary – the company that bought the raw material to White Iron – Island Extremes will shoot bridging segments in Hawaii as soon as a U.S. deal is finalized.

In Training is another (13 x 30) series White Iron has in development. Mueller describes the show as ‘looking at careers that are rare, that take extreme knowledge.’

The series covers the ins and outs of training for these unusual jobs. ‘Who trains you, what you have to go through [on] some of the toughest jobs there are. A professional tank commander would have to have a high level of knowledge. If you’re going to be trained as a tank commander, how do you go about that? It’s taking someone who is at a very competent level and taking them to a level most people can’t even envisage.

‘We’ve had interest from a Canadian broadcaster. We are moving into development and will be going stateside fairly quickly,’ says Mueller.

‘Sometimes we do things to better fit a Canadian broadcaster. We’ll start the production bible with our focus being a specific Canadian broadcaster. When we go to the U.S. and they say they want to skew it differently, we’ll skew it differently. It’s efficient that way.’

White Iron has the advantage of a company with several arms to back these efforts at effective skewing.

‘We do [series] a certain way for international exposure that is different for the North American marketplace. We own a digital production company [White Iron Digital] so it makes sense to do those things [in house],’ says Mueller.

‘I think the fact is we are very good at building television programs. What does it take to build it? How do you work with a broadcaster to define their needs? With Bugs and Blooms, we basically delivered the bible and they said ‘great,’ ‘

Building a television show depends on ‘a complete and fully extensive production bible,’ Mueller says.

‘Once you’ve defined those blueprints, you don’t change them. Everybody involved knows what their role is and what the show is going to be. You define the project, you need a blueprint and you execute from that. We’re very good at being able to do that. We put a lot of time into the bible and then there are no surprises.’

Bugs and Blooms appears to be a case in point of this approach working perfectly: ‘The pilot was exactly what they wanted. Normally you don’t take the pilot and use it as an episode…they said they would use it as an episode. It’s a nice compliment about working together to know what you’re building,’ says Mueller. *