For the functioning member of society who hasn’t completely abandoned the last vestiges of adolescence, it’s a dream home, complete with gadgets of every conceivable misuse – a hydraulic fire-breathing dragon head to greet visitors, a virtual-reality chamber, life-sized models of aliens, and lots of heads, pleasantly arranged.

It’s the loft of effects wizard Rollie Tyler, the star of F/X: The Series, shooting in Toronto through to mid-December. A coproduction of Toronto’s Fireworks Entertainment and Rysher Entertainment of l.a., f/x is one of three Canadian-based series set to air on ctv and in u.s. syndication this fall. Executive producers are Stephen Downing and Fireworks’ Jay Firestone; Norman Denver is producing.

The 20-episode series takes its name and concept from a pair of late ’80s and early ’90s Orion action films which featured rugged Aussie Brian Brown as Rollie.

The series brings special effects and movie magic to a detective/mystery show updated with end-of-century special effects capabilities and characters, with studios and Toronto locations providing the New York City backdrop of Rollie’s world of film glamor and high adventure.

Australian Cameron Daddo (Models Inc.) plays Rollie, a handsome effects genius who becomes involved in crime-busting with renegade cop Leo McCarthy, played by Kevin Dobson (Knots Landing). Christina Cox (Due South) is Rollie’s hip, hacker assistant Angie Ramirez, and Carrie-Anne Moss (purely by coincidence, Models Inc.) plays Lucinda Scott, an actress who brings many of Rollie’s illusions to life.

Co-executive producer Miles Dale says the series had the benefit of a longer preparation period than most, and the time is reflected in script and character development. Dale says he and Downing were working on the sci-fi series Robocop for Skyvision (purchased by Firestone in January and renamed Fireworks) as the company was attempting to gain the rights to the f/x movies, and when Robocop was shelved, the f/x series started to come together.

‘They got the rights, we figured out a way to do the show, Rysher came in to distribute and we got on with it,’ says Dale. ‘The syndication route, particularly with a brand name like f/x attached to it, was the best idea.’

Firestone says F/X: The Series was a key factor in his acquisition of Skyvision, and says viewing the pilot convinced him of the show’s quality and international appeal.

Dale says although the original plan in October 1994 was to create a pilot and 22 episodes of the show, a survey of the tv terrain indicated that action hours in u.s. syndication in fall ’94 had nose-dived, so they held off.

‘It was a sober evaluation of the market. We had something so potentially strong we didn’t want to risk screwing it up,’ says Dale. ‘We opted to pay for the extra six months or a year of development to work on the pilot script and the bible and characters. We had time to get it right.’

Dale says the budget for the series is about $1.1 million per episode, with about 10% devoted to effects, of which there will be many. ‘In this kind of show, the gauntlet is thrown down,’ he says. ‘You can’t not do effects well.’

On set at Cinespace studios, episode director Allan Eastman and crew bustle around Rollie’s loft avoiding amphibian beast here, ape head there. In a sort of living room under a partial brass brewer’s vat, an abrasion is touched up on the face of Rollie’s ne’er-do-well father, Dingo, played by Australian Nick Tate.

Daddo ambles about with his shirt unbuttoned to his navel, applying dressing to an ostensible rib injury sustained in a beating he and his old man have taken in a previous scene. As the camera rolls, he exchanges barbs with his father, who is marveling at the commercial potential inherent in Rollie’s other partner, Blue.

Blue, a small six-legged metal, wire and circuit contrivance, was created as a thinking man’s sidekick, an intelligent agent who reconnoiters for Rollie, as well as providing comic relief.

Production designer and producer Stephen Roloff says Blue was modeled on research into robotics based on the movements and chilling efficiency of insects, and adds the character has tested spectacularly well with audiences.

Each episode begins with a movie within a movie where visual effects are used to increase the scale of the movie scenes.

Roloff says the production is a challenge by its nature, with a shooting schedule of eight days per episode and about two months from the end of each shoot to the final mix.

The diverse effects work for the series is being handled entirely out of Toronto, indeed, most of the visual effects are being created in an on-site post facility. The series employs extensive physical effects as well as prosthetics and animatronics and visual or computer-generated effects.

Four animators, under the direction of visual effects supervisor Julie Kealey, toil in an in-studio suite on Amiga computers and pcs with 3D animation and motion-tracking software on the show’s effects. Kealey, who, like many involved in f/x previously worked on the effects-intensive Robocop series, says about 90% of visual effects are done on-site and the show acquired a digital Betacam to output directly to digital format.

With work done in-house, Kealey says visual effects are completed at about one-eighth of the cost of a typical project that takes most of its cg component to another facility

Heavy compositing shots are taken to the Flame suite at dave, which has facilitated the requisite New York skyline. Additional sequences have received the care of Toronto’s C.O.R.E. Digital Pictures and Toronto-based Calibre Digital Design contributed to the pilot.

Supervisor of special makeup effects and animatronics Paul Jones says the series gives him an opportunity to bring the whole spectrum of his expertise to the table. Jones, who works out of his own studio and workshop and co-ordinates his efforts with special effects supervisor Michael Kavanagh, has provided werewolf transformations, six-foot robotic sentries and has added decades and a gender change to Moss’ Lucinda.

Firestone says location shooting for f/x interacts with host city Toronto. For example, he says an episode was shot to coincide with the Benson & Hedges Symphony of Fire fireworks display at the Toronto waterfront and incorporates the spectacle into the show.

‘It was something we wanted to do, to have the fireworks and f/x and a big international Canadian event rolled into one,’ says Firestone. ‘We want to take advantage of all the things that happen in Toronto.’

In addition to a fitting living space for Rollie, the f/x set features a comprehensive and suitably grungy police station complete with drunk tank. Its loving assembly may be owed in part to the involvement of Downing, himself a veteran of 15 years of service with l.a.’s finest. While working his way to the rank of deputy chief, Downing churned out numerous thin blue lines in the form of screenplays and eventually went on to work as an executive producer on MacGyver and Robocop.

Dale says reprising an Aussie in the lead role of f/x was an unplanned perk. Daddo, who will also showcase his didgeridoo skills in the show, first read the Rollie part in his American accent. Producers later saw a tape of the actor in natural tongue, and Dale says the consensus was to go with it – that it added a charm and freshness to the show. Dale says f/x combines the best of the ‘wow factor,’ good characters and professional execution. ‘I think it’s going to surprise a lot of people,’ he says.

A two-hour episode of F/X: The Series is set to premier ctv on Sept. 9.