By ADELLE LARMOUR
It’s refreshingly pink, upbeat and coming to a Canadian television station in the near future.
G2G, a spunky fun-natured girl-oriented series, is March Entertainment’s latest animated television production. The Sudbury-based digital production company is renowned for its five-year running half-hour animated television series Chilly Beach, one of the first original web shows to hit Network TV. It is still aired every Saturday afternoon on CBC.
In their 10th year, March Entertainment has six series running in various incarnations around the world, and will be releasing the new Chilly Beach movie on DVD Feb. 5, 2008. As well, it will be aired on Super Channel, Jan. 2, 2008.
“We’re pretty excited about it,” says Daniel Hawes, president of the company. “It has been many years in the making.”
Unlike the young male-targeted humour of Chilly Beach, G2G’s audience is specifically geared toward six to 12-year-old girls.
“It is unabashedly pink,” Hawes says, explaining that the focus is on a select target market in order not to dilute the content.
This Canadian Australian co-production began airing on Australia Channel 9 since October 2007, and to date has been well received, says Hawes.
The term “G2G” is Internet blog speak for “Got to Go.” The series features Maddie, a 12-year-old girl and school blogger, who leads a secret life as Miss Communication, an advice columnist for the school website. While she experiences the daily challenges of school life with her friends, she provides advice through her blog column. That dichotomy creates a myriad of conflicts and interesting plotlines.
Maddie, a level-headed insightful behind-the-scenes player, is supported by her two close friends Saffron, a blonde fashion expert, and Rainbow, a yoga/reiki, 21st-century flower child. Each episode speaks the language of its target audience, addressing situations of young “Tweens” with light-hearted humour, delivering honest messages.
March Entertainment shares a 50 per cent ownership with creators and co-producers Gillian Carr and Kyla May.
The production value ranged between $5 and $6 million, and it generated approximately 50 jobs.
Hawes says they have a DVD deal in Canada for 26 one half-hour episodes to be aired weekly. Currently, they are talking to a number of different networks.
“Often an annual order is 13 episodes, so this is like a double order,” he says. “It is a fairly big season.”
Although Hawes could not reveal the details for legal reasons, he alluded to another production in the early spring for which they are ramping up, with plans to increase the employee base to about 120 people. Other rumours stated that a second Chilly Beach movie is also in development.
As more exciting prospects lay on the horizon, March Entertainment has provided a progressive diversion from the North’s resource-based economy.
“It’s art, culture and creativity,” Hawes expounds, “and is exactly what Northern Ontario needs in order to start to provide real opportunities for the youth.”
