TELENOVELA BLOCK.pages 24 - 30: - Discop

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FULL OF WESTERN PROMISE
By Bob Jenkins
Who hasn’t been to a wedding at
which at least some of the
guests quietly ask, “what does she
think she’s wearing Or, “who chose
those flowers” But Californian distributor
Rive Gauche has the series that
goes one stage further! WILD WED-
DINGS, 6 x 60 minutes, is the wedding
series that will make everyone question
the sanity of one or both of the
happy couples. Rive Gauche says the
material, which is collected from
around the world, details weddings
that are, “bizarre, dangerous, dramatic
or funny,” and include a wedding in
which the bride attacks a guest, and
the ceremony is halted when the
police arrive and take her away; a
groom who wants to set his bride’s
heart on fire – but only manages to
torch his tuxedo when he wanders too
close to candle, and couple who really
do ‘take the plunge’ – marrying on the
end of a bungee jump!
Not known as the marrying kind,
Casanova’s life is retold in
CASANOVA’S LOVE LETTERS starring
Patrick Bergen and distributed by
British distributor Centre Film Sales.
Filmed in HD, and shot in Venice, the
Czech Republic, France and England,
CASANOVA’S LOVE LETTERS is available
either as 6 x 50 minutes or a 105
minute special. Centre Films also is in
pre-production with THE ADVEN-
TURES OF RAHIB AND MAHMOOD
planned as 26 x 10 minutes, and,
aimed at 7-12 year olds, the series will
tell the story of an old man journeying
to Mecca with his grandson, and is
intended as “a young person’s guide to
Islam.”
Californian distributor, GRB Enter -
tainment, launched a new series
THE SUMMIT, also available as a format
at NATPE. Produced by New
Zealand’s Teleola, and set against that
country’s spectacular scenery, THE
SUMMIT, sets twenty men and women
a series of daunting mental and physical
tasks over a period of ten weeks as
they battle, individually, and as teams,
to be the only one to reach THE SUM-
MIT.
Macbeth (BBC & Horsebridge Productions)
Four new offerings from the UK’s
High Point Films could hardly be
more different. Four modern day
adaptations of some of Shakespeare’s
most popular plays, co-productions
between the BBC and Horsebridge
Productions, they include Sally Wain -
wright’s THE TAMING OF THE SHREW,
David Nicholl’s MUCH ADO ABOUT
NOTHING starring Sara Parish, Peter
Moffat’s MACBETH, starring James
Mc Avoy, and Peter Booker’s A MID-
SUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM.
If High Point are offering food for
thought, fellow British company, Icon
Animation, is offering food for thought
about food! VITAMIX is 104 x 2 min
episodes educating pre-schoolers on
the issues around healthy eating.
Of course, NHK, Japan’s state
broadcaster, was the pioneer of
High Definition television, but it is also
true that the US platform Voom has
developed it to a greater degree than
Much Ado About Nothing
(BBC & Horsebridge Productions)
anywhere else in the world. Voom
operates 22 Hi Def channels stateside,
and they have entrusted
International Broadcast Communi -
cations (IBC) with the placement of
these channels in the international
market place. IBC Chairman Jon
Helmrich says, “although a number of
factors, in particular the falling cost of
plasma and large screen sets have
‘tipped the balance’ in favour of Hi Def,
caution is still necessary. We are,”
states Helmrich, “still at the beginning
of the real Hi Def revolution, and Voom
have not cleared all of their programming
for international exploitation.” As
a result, IBC is initially offering a ‘taster
channel’ made up of programming
from the full US offering, but that still
includes over 400 hours of high quality,
High Definition.
Canada’s state broadcaster CBC
has completely em braced HDTV.
Amongst the new offerings from CBC
in HDTV are: GREAT BEAR, NAKED
JOSH and 72 HOURS. GREAT BEAR
(20 x 60’) is set in a remote, fictional,
mining town of that name, where
ancient beliefs are often in conflict with
modern technology. Jean-Charles
Lapointe, a former star journalist
about to dead-end his career by crawling
into a bottle, stumbles into town as
a well-loved spiritual community leader
is mysteriously murdered – he has no
idea what he’s in for. The second season
of NAKED JOSH (26 x 30’) tells
the further adventures of Josh Gould,
the world’s youngest professor of sexual
anthropology, and his own, less
than brilliant, sex life. Every detective
knows that the first 72 hours after a
crime are crucial to its solution, and
the 33 x 30’ second series of 72
HOURS TRUE CRIME focuses on this
period in true crime mysteries.
Remember THE TELETUBBIES
Well, the creative and business
partnership that delivered the world’s
most successful pre-school brand are
working together again on a new preschool
series, IN THE NIGHT GAR-
DEN, which will be 100 x 30 minutes.
Anne Wood and Andrew Davenport
are the creative team, and Ragdoll,
the company Wood founded, has
again chosen to partner with BBC
Worldwide, its partner on the TELE-
TUBBIES phenomenon. Also included
in the agreement is the production of
TRONJI, 30 x 30 minutes, and aimed
at the 6-8 demographic. }
discop link 03 www.discop.com march 2006 05