It’s every Canadian producer’s challenge: how to build a more globally focused company, while retaining enough creative flexibility to keep doing what you do best.

“In Canada, you either want to be a boutique player or a larger player, and you don’t want to be in the middle,” Virginia Thompson, co-founder and executive producer of Vérité Films, told Playback about going big or staying small to meet growing global demand for Canadian TV shows.

A host of industry players have already gone big by opening production and distribution offices in Los Angeles and London to get themselves into major English-speaking TV markets.

But going big has downsides, Thompson added.

For example, the dollars spent to open foreign offices and hire lawyers, accountants and other administrative suits diverts resources from working with established and emerging screenwriters to develop and produce new series.

So Vérité Films has inked a first look deal with Muse Entertainment, announced Monday, to remain a boutique producer that can expand beyond the Canadian market to reach international broadcasters with its new shows.

“We’ve been seeking out this alliance for the last year, where we can form an alliance with a larger player so we can dig in and do what we love the most, which is to incubate great series,” Thompson explained.

Vérité Films already has a growing development slate to show Muse.

The indie producer has Matt and Jeff, a buddy comedy about a young investment banker and his best friend, a personal trainer, parked in development at CTV.

And Vérité Films is developing a one-hour drama for the CBC entitled Almost Family, about three families that act like one big messy family.

And the indie producer is hot-housing additional comedies and dramas with Canadian screenwriters to pitch to broadcasters.

With the Muse tie-up, Vérité Films has in effect signed a pod deal to develop projects for the world market that allow Thompson and Vérité VP Robert de Lint as non-writing producers to collaborate with screenwriters, while Muse uses its global heft to get new shows to international broadcasters.

That’s one solution to the dilemma that all Canadian producers face: stay small to push your shows abroad, or take the leap to a bigger and more complex business.

“We thought, in order to have experts in all of that, you have to be big, and for us, we felt at the end of the day, if you don’t have exceptional creative, you don’t have anything,” Thompson said.

So, as a pod, Vérité Films will develop and produce new TV projects with screenwriters, whether established or emerging voices, that Muse can coproduce to expand its own slate.

And Muse’s distribution arm will sell the series from Vérité Films into the world market.

“Vérité Films is a vibrant production company with an accomplished track record, including the long-running Canadian hit Corner Gas,” said Michael Prupas, president and CEO of Muse Entertainment, in a statement Monday.

“We look forward to helping Vérité Films become a significant player in the world of international television production,” he added.

That assistance, Thompson said, will come in the way of vital market intelligence that allows Vérité Films to expand beyond the Canadian market to reach global viewers.

After all, Muse, with TV coproduction credits like The Kennedys and Pillars of the Earth, is a veteran of the global TV drama game.

And that will allow Vérité Films to continue making Canadian series like earlier credits Corner Gas and Insecurity, while also bringing new shows to the world market.

“We will be making shows for Canadian broadcasters, but with Muse, this [first-look deal] allows us to get market information from the U.S. and Europe to up our game for our Canadian writers, and also to up our game for our Canadian broadcasters,” Thompson argued.