For Toronto-based Headspinner Productions, the door to Aunty B’s House opened as a result of a chance encounter and “good timing.”

As announced last week, CBC Kids has commissioned the prodco’s 20 x 7-minute live-action preschool series, which is now in production in Toronto. Khalilah Brooks is creator and star of the show, which is set in a foster home, with Headspinner president Michelle Melanson (pictured left) and CCO Ken Cuperus (pictured right) serving as executive producers.

Melanson tells Playback Daily she met Brooks through a children’s entertainment writing program at Toronto’s Centennial College. Brooks was a student and Melanson, who was there taking pitches, was impressed with the Aunty B foster mom character she had created from her own experiences in the foster system in Canada.

“I reached out to her during the pandemic because I was concerned for her; her income was going into schools and doing these [Aunty B] plays and I was like, ‘How is she earning a living now that it’s the pandemic?'” Melanson says. “She was turning it into some YouTube videos, and I think she needed some assistance in that area. So I helped her get the Ontario Creates development fund, and we created a demo.”

Things took off when CBC called Melanson asking if she had anything in the live-action space. Aunty B’s House turned out to be exactly the type of project they were looking for, she says, noting it was “the right project at the right time.”

“We had just finished the demo and the bible, so I was able to share and pitch that out to them,” Melanson recalls. “They loved it and gave us a quick development round where we were able to write a couple of scripts and bring on a showrunner, Kara Harun, and get it into better shape. We got a quick greenlight and were off and running.”

Headspinner holds worldwide rights outside of English Canada to Aunty B’s House, which Melanson describes as a “preschool sitcom” and “Full House for littles.”

The show comes on the heels of the February launch on CBC Gem and CBC Kids of Headspinner’s animated preschool series Gisele’s Mashup Adventures (20 x 3 minutes), which is part of Headspinner’s digital-first content strategy.

Melanson says the company, which is celebrating its fifth anniversary, aims for “as many places and as many eyeballs” as possible for a show while exploring various ways to hold onto IP rights. There are “a lot of sacrifices” with that approach, including putting in all of their tax credits and almost all of their producer fees, in some cases. But it allows them to own their own shows, she adds.

That strategy saw the company launch its Headspinner Kids YouTube Channel last month, with more than 80 videos from preschool performer Gisele Corinthios (Gisele’s Big Backyard) and her content brand The Gisele Mashup, including Gisele’s Mashup Aventures. The series will also stream soon on video on demand service Kabillion in the U.S.

“A lot of broadcasters are now really open, especially in the kids space, to being both on linear broadcast and digital,” says Melanson. “There was always that separation, and now it’s like the more places it is the better. That’s my new strategy, is trying to hold onto rights, where I don’t necessarily have to be in one place and not the other. Selling and distributing traditionally, where we sell it all over the world to traditional linear broadcasters, the rates have gone way down and it may not be in our benefit — versus having it on a bunch of AVOD, SVOD and FAST [free ad-supported TV] channels and having the opportunity to be non-exclusive everywhere.”

Melanson says Headspinner has submitted an application to get its YouTube channel certified by the Canadian Audio-Visual Certification Office. While YouTube is a key space for kids and family prodcos, Melanson notes “there’s really not a lot of money to be made” on the platform due to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, which imposes restrictions on targeted advertising and the collection of personal information online from children.

“So my thankfulness as a Canadian independent right now is to people like the CMF [Canada Media Fund] and Ontario Creates and Shaw Rocket, who I really wouldn’t have a business without right now,” she says.

Gisele’s Mashup Adventures’ budget of about US$400,000 had assistance from the Shaw Rocket Fund/Canada Media Fund (CMF-SRF) Kids Digital Animated Series Program as well as tax credits. Support for Aunty B’s House, which has a budget of $1.5 million, also comes from the CMF and Shaw Rocket Fund.

Other Headspinner shows that have been supported from the CMF-SRF Kids Digital Animated Series include Happy House of Frightenstein and Denis and Me, both of which are up for Canadian Screen Awards this week: Denis and Me: Santa Who is nominated for Best Animation Program or Series, and Happy House of Frightenstein is in the running for Best Preschool Program or Series, Best Direction, Animation, and Best Writing, Pre-School.

Headspinner is also up for several Youth Media Alliance Awards in May, including the Award of Excellence for Best Program, Short Form Content for Happy House of Frightenstein, and the Award of Excellence for Best Podcast for Gardenkeeper Gus.

Gardenkeeper Gus speaks to another strategy of Headspinner’s: “audio-first.” The company launched the six-part Audible original podcast drama Mistletoe Murders last November and has created two pilots for a kids series that it plans to launch in audio form first. Headspinner is also exploring spinoff audio content of its shows, says Melanson.

The Rockie Award-nominated Mistletoe Murders was written by Headspinner’s Cuperus and narrated by a cast including Vancouver-born Cobie Smulders (How I Met Your Mother). Melanson says Headspinner was able to retain the film and TV rights to the project and is “always looking for opportunities to prove our content ahead of time.”

Headspinner Productions also has several dramas in development, on which Cuperus would showrun while he and Melanson serve as executive producers. Melanson says they’ve partnered with larger production companies and have Canadian broadcaster development attachment for the dramas, but Headspinner wants to hold on to as much of the IP as they can or share it.

The company’s slate also includes My Shadow is Pink, a preschool series from Headspinner and Australia’s Sticky Pictures. It’s created by Scott Stuart, based on his book, as well as Cuperus and is in development as part of the Kindred ABC/CBC Animation Collaboration.

Also in development, with Australia’s Emma Watkins of The Wiggles fame, is preschool series Emma Memma: Sing. Dance. Sign.

“We’re just trying to stay small and nimble and mighty and think, ‘At least we can control our own little destiny on a much smaller scale,'” says Melanson. “We own our shows and we can hopefully get them out for the world to see in all different places without this fear of it being taken away out of the world with no warning.”

Photo courtesy of Headspinner Productions