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News :: Economy : Environment : Housing : Media |
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Canadians Reality TV Focuses on Environment |
Current rating: 0 |
by Reuters
(No verified email address) |
28 Mar 2006
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Perhaps there is hope for the vast wasteland that is TV these days. |
TORONTO (Hollywood Reporter) - The grim urban jungle of Toronto is getting a makeover in U.S. cable channel Home & Garden Television's upcoming reality series ``Green Force.''
The show's Canadian producer, Tricon Films and Television, will return green space in the country's biggest city to hospices, prisons, daycare centers and senior citizen homes.
``We will create beautiful landscapes and bring communities together,'' says Shaam Makan, Tricon vp production. ``But most importantly we will be touching people with real-life stories, struggles and victories.''
A pilot will be shot in May, and 13 half-hour episodes will debut next year.
Other Canadian producers similarly see green in combining dream fulfillment with feel-good environmental concern.
Vancouver-based filmmaker Mark Leiren-Young went up a tree in coastal British Columbia to make ``Green Chain,'' a mockumentary about tree huggers he hopes will have cinemagoers throwing aside their popcorn to help clean up the environment.
``This has always been the story that defines British Columbia -- our relationship to trees,'' Leiren-Young says, now safely back on the ground.
The feature, starring Shirley Douglas (Kiefer Sutherland's mother) and Brendan Fletcher, portrays activists protecting forests from loggers and forest company executives.
Elsewhere, state-owned broadcaster CBC's reality series ''Code Green Canada'' has taken an environmental slant to the home renovation format by having Canadians compete to make their homes the most energy efficient.
``Code Green Canada,'' to air over six episodes beginning May 27, will see 12 families receive CAN$15,000 ($13,000) each to retrofit their home. The family scoring the greatest water, gas and electricity consumption savings after home renovations will win the grand prize, a hybrid car.
Series executive producer Daniel Leipnik insists there really is drama in homeowners in winter woollies comparing new windows, doors, insulation and lighting at the local Home Depot.
``It does get competitive. The families really want to win the car,'' Leipnik says of his parable of Canadian fortitude amid gloomy, brutal winters.
So competitive, apparently, that ``Code Green Canada'' families sign contracts promising not to cheat, whether by taking showers elsewhere or wearing winter parkas indoors in cold, dim homes.
This crop of Canadian eco-themed content wrapping itself up in alluring chic follows a tried-and-true reality TV format of promising winners something happier, more desirable and glamorous.
But Tricon's Makan insists ``Force of Nature'' departs from earlier, nastier reality TV fare by giving TV audiences an unselfish reason to tune in.
``We need to go deeper than just looks and other superficial qualities. We need to make a human connection,'' he argues.
Reuters/Hollywood Reporter
Copyright 2006 Reuters Ltd.
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