Radical Sheep Productions, the producers of The Comfy Couch, are currently shooting two separate pre-school shows Ruffus The Dog and Panda Bear Daycare in Toronto.

Both puppet shows will shoot 13 15-minute episodes and air next fall on ytv. The two series are budgeted at $2 million combined.

‘It’s two different shows, but it’s all being treated as one big production,’ says Radical Sheep’s Rob Mills, executive producer of both programs. Mills says Panda Bear Daycare, set in a daycare center, has children puppet characters, adult characters in full-size costumes and other on-set characters such as a talking grandfather clock and a fridge.

Ruffus The Dog is a more technically challenging show. Set in a bookshop, resident Ruffus the Dog reads classic fairy tales and becomes part of the action as the classic stories are told with puppets.

‘This whole illustrated world comes alive with puppet characters,’ says Mills, ‘and we’ll be using ultimatt or blue screen effects to combine the puppets with this virtual set that looks like an illustrated story book’

Panda Bear Daycare was originally in development with then creative head of children’s programming at cbc, Peter Moss, but when Moss moved to ytv as vp programming and production, the show was revived with the new broadcaster.

Ruffus The Dog was originally a character in a series of educational health videos. When Moss was looking for more preschool production, ‘We showed him Ruffus, and he really liked it too,’ Mills recalls. ‘He didn’t want to pick one over the other, and he said `Can we do both?’ And we said `Sure,’ ‘

Along with Mills, John Leitch is also exec producing the shows. Mills and Cheryl Wagner are co-creators and co-producers. Wagner is a writer and story editor. Mills is also writing, directing and puppeteering on both series.

The tandem productions have also just inked a distribution deal with Coscient Group subsidiary Motion International’s pre-school division Kids Motion International. Kids Motion will represent video audio and merchandising in Canada, and Motion International will represent all broadcast and video sales internationally. Radical Sheep Productions currently retains all publishing and interactive rights, all u.s. rights, and all international merchandising rights.

Although shooting the two shows together does make economical sense, Mills says that the format is still a bit of a compromise. ‘The idea with any preschool programming,’ he explains, ‘is to rack up as many episodes as you can, as quickly as possible, because of the volume, the turnover and the airtime that you want to achieve. So it’s a bit of a compromise in that we’re only doing 13 of each instead of 26 of one, but what it allows us to do is to get both shows off the ground.’

– Cohens chronicle Egoyan op

They’re not the Coen Brothers, they’re the Cohen Siblings. Brother and sister producer team Robert and Shari Cohen are in post-production on their $150,000 documentary chronicling director Atom Egoyan’s experiences mounting his opera Elsewhereless.

Directed by Shari, who has also helmed a few Body Inside Stories docs for Barna Alper, the Cohen Siblings Production followed Egoyan for seven months as he rewrote and prepared to direct the opera that he first penned 15 years ago.

The result will be the hour-long Road To Elsewhere, which has been licensed by Adrienne Clarkson Presents for the cbc and Bravo!. Shot on a variety of formats, including 16mm, betacam SP and digital handycam, the doc was funded in part by the Rogers Documentary Fund and by opera fund Joey and Toby Tannebaum Foundation.

Viewers will be surprised at how candid Egoyan is in the film’s interviews, says Shari, adding that the doc captures the auteur at a crossroads in his career as he revisits an early work while receiving two Academy Award nominations.

The Cohens are also developing a feature based on David Eddie’s novel Chump Change. Robert Nienstein has penned a script based on the book that follows a 20-something starving writer who makes a deal with the devil and ends up working at a broadcaster that closely resembles the cbc. The Cohen’s option on Chump Change has roughly a year left and say they are looking for an executive producer.

– Bravo!Fact films do Palm Springs

Nine Bravo!Fact-funded short films have been selected to unspool at this years’ Palm Springs International Short Film Festival running July 29 to Aug. 4.

Among the selected Bravo!Fact films are John Greyson’s Herr, Bruce McDonald’s Elimination Dance, Julie Trimingham’s beauty crowds me and Cosimo Zitani’s Blind Man’s Bluff.

The Palm Springs International Short Film Festival is one of a handful of short film fests recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as a qualifier for Academy Award contention.

New to the festival this year is a spotlight series for which Canada has been chosen the inaugural nation. The retrospective will highlight 50 years of filmmaking in Canada with two 90-minute programs on August 3rd. Included in the Canada series are 14 Academy Award Nominated and/or winning films including The Old Lady and the Pigeons from director Sylvain Chomet. Twenty-two Canadian shorts will be in the series including the Genie-winning The Hangman’s Bride from Naomi McCormack, Norman McLaren’s Neighbours, and Don McKellar’s Blue. McDonald’s Elimination Dance will close the Canadian retrospective.

The two first-prize winners in the non-student competition at Palm Springs will qualify for an Academy Award nomination.

– Skinnamarink TV returns

Production has started in Toronto on Skinnamarink TV’s second season. Sharon, Lois & Bram will return with 26 episodes in October on the cbc, The Learning Channel (in Canada and the u.s..) and select pbs stations. More than 20 of the u.s. pubcaster stations have picked up the Canadian trio’s second television show (The other was The Elephant Show) since they first aired in the u.s. in May, and that number is expected to exceed 50 by the end of the year.

The program is created by Lynn Harvey and Richard Mortimer at Twist Productions for Skinnamarink Entertainment, in association with Craftsman & Scribes Creative Workshop, the cbc and Learning Channel.