Regina’s Heartland Motion Pictures is working with the assumption held by many youngsters – that it would take nothing short of magic to make them understand mathematics – and is bringing this concept to Saskatchewan’s first children’s series.

Max, named for the titular star who brings his world-famous magic talents to a wacky yet educational show for kids, is a coproduction of Heartland and Toronto’s Owl Communications. Max began as a pilot in March 1995 and a few festivals and markets later, and with a u.k. broadcaster on board, will go into production this fall as a half-hour kids’ series.

The show is designed to bring the mystical and the mathematical together to the amusement and edification of youth aged eight to 11, and in the process will fortify a growing Saskatchewan film industry with its 26-episode scope.

While the show will be produced and posted entirely in Saskatoon, the birthplace of Max was Banff. Owl president and Max producer Annabel Slaight brought the concept in early development to Heartland’s Stephen Onda and the two met at the Banff Television Festival in 1994 to discuss the pilot project.

Max features somewhat otherworldly-looking magician and mentalist Max Maven in a show-within-a-show format set in a tv station run by adolescents. Max is trapped in the world of local tv where he has a show on the fictional station, consulting various historical figures and using magical tricks to demonstrate basic math concepts to kids.

Max Maven (his real name), has appeared on magic specials on u.s. network tv and appears on a Swiss sitcom.

Onda says while ‘zany’ is an overused word, the show employs that particular brand of irreverent humor to deliver its message.

Other cast members, a mixed bag of gender and ethnicity, are young actors from Ontario and Saskatchewan.

With investment from CanWest Global, the $250,000 pilot was shot in March 1995 with an eye to having it ready for mip-tv that spring.

While sets like Max’s magical dressing room and the pizza place across the street were recreated in-studio, the set for most of the show was a real tv station, CanWest’s stv in Saskatoon. ‘We were able to take a tv station and turn the cameras in on itself,’ says Onda.

Slaight and Onda undertook a pre-mip print campaign aimed at buyers prior to the completion of post-production, which allowed Slaight to follow up with potential backers and arrange meetings at the market.

In advance of the mip trip, the partners were able to arrange a development deal with the u.k.’s Children’s Channel, a pay service catering to the little blighters. When Slaight journeyed to mip, however, she discovered the broadcaster had changed owners and was no longer engaging in pre-licence deals, only acquisitions.

Onda says he and Slaight went back to the think tank, recut a tighter version of the pilot, put together a snappy three-minute promotional and off Slaight went to mipcom. ‘That’s the advantage of having an executive producer who can consistently be at the major markets and who is well known in the children’s programming world,’ says Onda.

Onda and Slaight met in December 1995 to create a new strategy for the project’s financial structure, followed by a trip to mip this spring. Based on the mipcom meetings and this year’s mip, says Onda, the partners secured a presale to Scottish Television Enterprises. Onda says he anticipates having the Scottish deal locked in when he returns to Banff this year to tie up the remaining Canadian financing.

scn is a confirmed broadcaster and tvontario is anticipated to be on board, as is Vision tv and Alberta’s Access Network.

‘The u.k. element to this project allows us to scale it so that licence fees are within the range of broadcasters like tvo, Vision, scn and Access,’ says Onda. CanWest, which played an important role in producing the pilot, is also hoped to be a supporter.

Onda says he is also looking to the Cable Production Fund, the tax credit, Shaw Cable and Saskfilm for funding. Owl’s distribution wing, Owl International, will also play a role.

Shooting is planned for late fall on the series, budgeted at about $180,000 per episode, with some of the production slated for Scotland.

Max will be manned by a 100% Saskatchewan crew, a segment of the local industry, which Onda says has grown to about 200 members since he started his company in the late 1980s. With a busy summer forecast for Saskatchewan-based productions, with shows like Minds Eye’s miniseries The Lost Daughter shooting at the end of June, Onda says the province’s crews may be stretched to the limit.

Max will have a significant amount of special effects and Onda is looking in Canada and the u.k. for a facility to handle the project.

Onda says he’s also ‘hopeful about The Dog,’ in reference to The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be, an on-again-off-again project which may be on again in the near future.