‘Homicide. Scandal. Racism. Politics. Fraud. Abuse. Rape. Suicide. It makes for a tough living, but great journalism.’

Indeed. The above is an excerpt from the series bible of Toronto production company Inner City Films’ (Ekaya: A Family Chronicle) new urban drama Front Page, which has snagged a two-script development deal with the cbc.

Created by Inner City principals Alfons and Amos Adetuyi, the one-hour series is slated as a Canada/u.k. coproduction with Tony Dennis and u.k.-based Orange Grove Films. Dennis, a Cable Ace Award-winning producer/writer, has produced television series and tv movies for Channel 4, a&e and bbc including Deep Secrets, Silent Witness and Bands of Gold.

‘The media is a great taking-off point for a drama set in the urban city,’ says Amos Adetuyi, who feels the time is ripe for another gritty series set in Toronto to be seen on Canadian tv. ‘It’s something fresh that we haven’t seen and it’s something that’s lacking in Canadian drama.’

Amos’ brother Alfons, who would direct several episodes of the series, adds that ‘Front Page is definitely something new for North American television drama. The series reveals a Toronto where the bloom is off the mosaic. . . the timeliness is self-evident.’

Skedded to be shot on location in Toronto, Front Page is a character-driven show about the tabloid journalists, cops and municipal politicians who make the front page news in Canada’s biggest city.

The lead character, Coleman Sembela, is a talented investigative reporter who has recently jumped ship from the broadsheet competition to join The World, a tabloid that Amos calls a cross between the Toronto Sun and Toronto Star.

At his new paper, Sembela runs headlong into The World’s star columnist, Lisa Da Costa, a character that Amos describes as a Christie Blatchford/Rosie Di Manno hybrid. Other series characters include a hard-nosed editor, a police detective, and a local ethnic politician with aspirations to be the next mega-city mayor.

Adding to the likelihood that a British broadcaster will license the series, u.k. actor Colin Salmon, who costarred with Helen Mirren in Prime Suspect and has been called ‘the British equivalent of Denzel Washington,’ has agreed to play the starring role.

Screenwriter/critic Cameron Bailey (The Planet of Junior Brown) and Dennis penned the first two scripts, which were delivered to cbc creative head of series programming, Susan Morgan, late last month.

At press time, discussions were underway with u.k. broadcasters, including Channel 4 and the newly launched Channel 5. Amos says CBC Program Sales – (likely to increase big time as the Corp looks for ownership of more shows), as well as heavyweight distributor Pearson International have expressed interest in distributing Front Page.

Amos says that with a Canadian and British broadcast licence, tax credits, ctf funding, and a healthy distribution advance, the series could be produced for under $1 million an episode, as long as they get an order for at least 13 to amortize the cost over.

But like nearly all indigenous drama series, Front Page will require funding from both the eip and lfp sides of the ctf, and Amos says the slashed ctf allotment of funds for official coproductions this year is a ‘concern.’ This year’s guidelines cap both eip and lfp funds at $5 million each for official coproductions. Last year there were no caps.

‘We, like Wolfram Tichy [president of Germany’s TiMe Medien Vertriebs GmBh, (pb, Jan. 25, p. 6)], would like to see what Sheila Copps says about that,’ says Amos. ‘Why did they cap that? Coproductions are becoming a way of moving forward for broadcasters.

‘In our financing structure, the ctf played a role. For that to fall out is obviously not good.’

If greenlit, Front Page could shoot this summer and be ready for cbc’s fall sked, but a 2000 shoot and debut is more likely.

*Notes from Sound Venture

Down the road in Ottawa – Ontario’s other big city – 19-year-old prodco Sound Venture Productions looks to have another busy year planned with more proprietary productions plotted, rounded out by the padding of some service work at its expanded post-production facilities.

Partners Neil Bregman, Katherine Jeans and Tim Joyce recently opened their newly expanded 10,000-square-foot facility to contain all the activity going on.

Sound Venture’s six-part documentary series Whole Notes – currently running on Bravo! Saturday nights at 8 p.m. – has received an order for six more half-hours examining some of the best-known composers of classical music.

The new episodes will shoot this summer and the National Arts Centre Orchestra will once again perform the composers’ works. At press time, the composers to be profiled were being finalized.

Bregman, Sound Venture president, is currently preparing both eip and lfp ctf applications for the doc. series. ‘We did have eip and lfp last year, and this is a series renewal, so we hope this is a project that they would finance again,’ says Bregman. The budget for Whole Notes is roughly $125,000 per episode.

A French-language version of the series has been licensed to MusiMax through the show’s distributor, Pixcom International of Montreal.

scn and Knowledge Network have second windows on the series.

Another 13 episodes of Homes By Design for Life Network are also slated to go this year, dependent upon a renewal and lfp approval. This season’s episodes of the architecture series would bring the total to the magic 65. ‘This will in all likelihood be the last season,’ says Bregman.

Sound Venture is currently posting a one-hour doc it produced for cbc’s Adrienne Clarkson Presents series. Titled Behind The Backdrop, the doc profiles Carol Spicer, the production designer on nearly all of David Cronenberg’s films. Bregman says he expects the show to be broadcast around April to coincide with the release of Cronenberg’s new film eXistenZ.

Bregman remains tightlipped, however, about The Toy Castle, a children’s series the company is developing for ytv/Treehouse that’s close to getting the green light. But indicative of the increase in proprietary production, Sound Venture has hired Susan Stranks to spearhead the company’s development projects.

On the post side, Bob Toole has been engaged as manager of post-production services. The in-house post facility now includes three Avid Media Composer editing suites, four ProTools Digital audio studios, a graphics suite and an original music composition studio for in-house composer David Campbell.

Besides its own productions, Sound Venture is handling all the audio post on the DECODE Entertainment/Funbag Animation animated series Freaky Stories ii.

*More conflict on Earth

Expect more conflict on the streets of Toronto over the next couple of years as Alliance Atlantis has received a two-year renewal for Gene Roddenberry’s Earth: Final Conflict from u.s. syndicator Tribune Entertainment.

Now in its second season, the show airs on ctv in Canada and has been cleared in 38 of the top 40 markets in the u.s.

aac distributes worldwide excluding the u.s.

In other aac production news, subsidiary Citadel Entertainment’s tv movie Caracara at press time was set to begin principal photography Feb. 1 in Toronto.

Starring Natasha Henstridge (Species, Standoff) and Jonathon Schaech (Houdini, That Thing You Do!, Hush), the thriller will be broadcast on hbo, which will also handle video distribution in the u.s. aac genre division Le Monde will handle worldwide distribution, with Alliance Atlantis Releasing distributing in Canada and the u.k.

aac has also received an order for 26 more episodes of the teen series The Famous Jett Jackson from Disney Channel. This brings the total to 39. aac owns worldwide rights, excluding the u.s., to the series, which shoots in Toronto.

The company has also finally announced production on the $25-million cbc/cbs miniseries Joan of Arc (pb, Nov. 30, 1998, p. 15) shooting in Prague, Czechoslovakia, and Toronto. The film stars Leelee Sobieski as Joan and Chad Willett. Jacqueline Bissett, Powers Boothe, Maury Chaykin, Olympia Dukakis, Neil Patrick Harris, Kris Lemche, Robert Loggia, Peter Strauss, Jaimz Woolvett and Peter O’Toole round out an all-star supporting cast.