Cellar Door Productions of Charlottetown, p.e.i. is in development with ctv on Mary 2 1/2 D, the first-ever adult animated series to come out of Atlantic Canada.

Budgeted at roughly $6 million for 13 half-hours, the series, which is targeted at a primetime audience, combines cg animation with live action, the sum of which adds up to a bizarre ‘2 1/2 dimensional’ world of ‘toonality’ and reality.

‘The show is a sitcom, a satire on new-age thinking, and is designed to make us laugh at ourselves and our own foibles…it’s a character-driven show with a very dark sense of humor,’ says producer Gretha Rose.

The series’ central character, Mary, is a live-action, talk-show host with a massive fan following who turns out to be a very advanced molecular hologram created by Martha, a has-been cartoon character who is finally able to recapture her lost fame by inventing the ultimate alter ego, Mary (Martha’s Alter Reality Yahoo). To clarify, Mary, who has yet to be cast, will be played by a real-life person, but it is discovered early on in the series that she is an inanimate character disguised as a live talk-show host.

‘Even our style of animation, which most of our show happens in, is twisted. Real faces are manipulated to become animated, so that the animated characters are live characters that are animated and the real character is not real,’ says Rose.

Writer Tricia Fish (New Waterford Girl, Kids In The Hall) and creative producer Paul Bellini (Kids In The Hall) are working together to script the series. Cage Digital in Halifax is taking care of the character and location design for the development stage.

Still waiting for ctv’s production commitment, Rose is expecting to start key animation by May 2000. She has yet to decide on an animation house and the door is still open for distributors and/or coproducers.

‘I always work toward doing everything in Atlantic Canada. We’ve never done an animated series out of this region, so I want Mary to forward that; then out of the series have the capabilities, or at least the training, for the next one to be completely done here.’

Meantime, Cellar Door has gone into production on Eckhart, a 2D animated children’s/family series, coproduced with Toronto’s Catalyst Entertainment for Teletoon.

Celebrating the pioneering spirit of growing up in p.e.i. from the perspective of a mouse named Eckhart, voiced by Jessica Pellerin (Emily of New Moon), the series – 13 half-hours budgeted at $5 million – was spawned from last year’s Christmas special The True Meaning of Crumbfest.

All writers, with the exception of animation producer David Beatty, are Maritime natives, including creator David Weale, Cheryl Wagner (Big Comfy Couch), Ed Kay (This Hour Has 22 Minutes), Karen Jannigan and Jack MacAndrew (former head of development for cbc National News).

Kevin Gillis from Catalyst and Rose are exec producing and producing the series, which is scheduled to wrap production by November 2000.

*AFF welcomes Blair Witch Project producers

The 1999 Atlantic Film Festival is the first Canadian festival to host the three producers of one of today’s most talked-about films, The Blair Witch Project.

Robin Cowie, Gregg Hale and Michael Monello will take part in the Nova Scotia Film Development Corporation’s Industry Series conversation What’s The Buzz? Tell Me What’s-A-Happening? What Makes The Magic? As its title suggests, the conversation will focus on the hype surrounding the film.

Also taking part in the conversation will be Paul Gratton, head of ChumCity’s specialty Space: The Imagination Station, who was instrumental in creating buzz for the film in Canada by being the first to air The Curse of the Blair Witch Project, a mockumentary produced by u.s. distributor Artisan Entertainment on the making of Blair Witch. Steve Comeau, president and founding partner of Halifax-based new media company Collideascope, will lead the discussion.

‘Steve is an up-and-coming, very versatile and informed new media guy in Halifax – he’s perfect for it,’ says Jan Miller, producer of the Industry program.

The Industry Series’ objective is to celebrate talent and independents and to salute those who have found the way, fighting all odds, to get stories made and on the screen.

The Blair Witch Project, a $30,000 video feature, started as a buzz at Cannes and is now grossing a reported $120 million at the box office.

*Collideascope ventures into new territory

Speaking of Collideascope, the company is in development with ctv on the prodco’s first two live-action projects.

Written by Ed Kay and produced by Steve Comeau, The Big Day is a half-hour, dark romantic comedy about a repressed young man whose life is turned upside-down when he picks up a free-spirited hitchhiker en route home for his coming wedding.

The Heart of Laughter, also produced by Comeau, is a one-hour doc about the physiological side of laughter.

Comeau hopes to have both projects in production (in Halifax) by next year.

Meantime, Collideascope has just finished development on Olie’s Under the Bed Adventures, a ‘high-pace, super-octave cartoon’ about the imaginary adventures of a boy afflicted with a severe case of add (Attention Deficit Disorder).

Written by Kay, produced by Comeau, and designed, animated and directed by Sean Scott, the series, which was developed with Teletoon, is comprised of 10 two-minute shorts to be used as interstitials.

Scott will be employing a new animation technique called Flash, which basically allows the artist to draw directly onto the computer. ‘It’s the best of both worlds – you get the efficiency of the computer, but it looks like cel without using paper,’ says Comeau, adding: ‘There’s a significant time and cost savings of about 60% to 70% of traditional cell-based animation.’

The budget for the series is roughly $450,000, and although the prodco has yet to get the green light from Teletoon, Comeau intends to be in production by the end of the winter.

And last, but certainly not least, Collideascope, in conjunction with ntt and the Province of Nova Scotia, has developed, and is in the process of test marketing, Collideavision, a new client/server Internet application that allows broadcasters to deliver programming over the Internet and develop an interactive relationship with viewers. It streams video content, and it takes care of demographic tracking, ad placement and many other management activities essential to the business of cable tv networks. Broadcasters can house their libraries on the server and make specific program episodes available to the end user upon request.

The prodco’s test tv station can be found on the ntt broadband (so it can only be accessed in Nova Scotia). It’s an independent film channel with content provided by a bevy of independent producers including ImX communications’ Politoons and music videos from Murder Records.

‘Really, anyone who has a lot of tv content to put online could use our software,’ says Comeau.

*Sweet Angel Mine finally hits U.K.

Despite the departure of its original distributor, HandMade Films of the u.k., and the subsequent delay of its release, Sweet Angel Mine is finally opening in the u.k. on Sept. 17.

Shot in Nova Scotia in 1995, the psychological thriller is a coprod of ImX communications and the u.k.’s Mass Productions, directed by Curtis Radclyffe. u.k.-based Optimum Releasing is its new distributor.

*Correction:

Michael Mahoney is the producer on Blackfly, a Salter Street Films/Global Television Network production, in association with the broadcaster’s Atlantic Drama Initiative. Mentoree Jono Nemethy is the associate producer.