‘I was filled with complete terror,’ says director John N. Smith of the making of Random Passage, a $16-million tv series. ‘But that’s how one starts any project this size. It’s a leap in the dark. The bigger the project, the higher the diving board.’

Smith and editor Jean-Pierre Cereghetti (Omerta) are currently playing beat-the-clock with an Avid, editing the eight one-hour episodes of Random Passage for April’s delivery date. They’re on episode number two this month, on schedule. The cbc, Radio-Canada and rte in Ireland plan to air the series next fall.

Random Passage, based on the best-selling books by Canadian author Bernice Morgan, is an epic coproduction involving Cite-Amerique of Montreal, Passage Films of Newfoundland, and Subotica Entertainment and Full Works Media in the Republic of Ireland. The Irish percentage of the deal is just under 30%.

The budget of $16 million involved an impressive list of funding sources: the cbc, rte, the Newfoundland and Labrador Film Development Corporation, Telefilm Canada, Canadian Television Fund, fidec, Showcase, src and the Newfoundland and Labrador Film and Video Industry Tax Credit, with additional help coming from Quebec and federal tax credits.

‘It’s an incredibly sophisticated financial package,’ says Cite-Amerique producer Lorraine Richard, who is no stranger to producing serial epics after Les filles de Caleb and Marguerite Volant. ‘You can’t imagine the paperwork. The system of financing [in Canada] has changed so much over the years that it’s becoming more and more difficult to finance longer series. The system has been designed to better suit two-part series or ongoing tv series. Bigger sagas fall through the middle, because of the caps and rules per episode.’

Producer Barbara Doran, president and director of Passage Films and Morag Productions in Newfoundland, began the project five years ago with writer Des Walsh (The Boys of St. Vincent). They were producing outlines, then teamed up with Richard before securing Smith to direct two and a half years later.

Are Doran and her coproducer at Passage Films, Jennice Ripley, worried about recouping the budget? ‘What we have going for us is a product with global appeal, even though it’s set in Newfoundland, and we’ve got the sales team at Cite-Amerique. They’re old hands at distributing and selling historical epic dramas globally,’ says Doran, who is currently planning Random Passage’s final winter shoots for late January in Newfoundland, while looking for a composer to score the film.

The series’ sound, the mixing and the music will be done at Ireland’s famous Ardmore Studios. Random Passage’s 16-week, two-country shoot took full advantage of Ireland’s tax scheme, known as Section 481.

The story is set in the early 1800s, tracing the difficult passage of young Mary Keane (Aoife McMahon) from servitude in Ireland and England to the squalor of St. John’s. After being banished by her employer following an attempted rape, and later abandoned by the father of her child, Mary moves to a remote outpost of Cape Random. Colm Meaney plays the boss at the local fishing station, where a small community struggles to get along while they eke out a living.

‘This was my second film in Newfoundland, the first being Boys of St. Vincent,’ recalls Smith, who is solely occupied editing Random Passage and won’t commit to a new project until he’s completely available. ‘So I went into the project with a greater understanding of Newfoundland, which is highly important. Luckily, I’ve achieved almost honorary citizenship. Barbara and Des [Walsh] approached me, I think, because of this, and they just wouldn’t let me off the hook because of my connection with Newfoundland. Plus, Des and I had developed a shorthand for working during The Boys of St. Vincent, so it was easy for us to work together and keep polishing the script throughout the shoot.’

Smith and the producers had to recreate 19th century Newfoundland – no small task. They finally found their location near Trinity Bay, near White Point, where wild horses and eagles were living among abandoned root cellars.

‘I needed to see 360 degrees with no signs of modern life,’ says Smith, who was overwhelmed by how isolated the site felt. ‘It’s always desirable to shoot in the zone, 40 miles from the centre of town and supplies, but it was nearly impossible.’

Richard describes production for Random Passage as a big puzzle to put together. The story takes place over 20 years, so the set had to grow with the script.

Would she take on another epic historical series?

‘Well, not tomorrow,’ she laughs, adding that Cite-Amerique is in post with Lea Pool’s new feature film, Lost and Delirious, and is developing a u.k. coproduction with Feel Good Fiction that starts production this winter. ‘You need time to recover from big projects,’ concludes Richard. *