Tag: documentary

  • Go Button Media Doubles 2022 Production Slate and Promotes Key Execs

    Go Button Media Doubles 2022 Production Slate and Promotes Key Execs

    Toronto-based prodco Go Button Media has promoted four team members amid plans to double its production slate to record numbers for this year.

    Key promotions announced Monday (Jan. 10) include Robin Webster from director of development to VP of development and casting, and Sarah Hewitt from manager of development to director of development.

    Webster and Hewitt will drive the development of new IP and talent for the business, including the recently announced series Forgotten Frontlines (Super Channel Fuse), Colossal Machines (Super Channel Fuse), Mysteries of The Ancient Dead (Super Channel Fuse), Call Me Mother season two (OUTtv), and Secret Societies: In The Shadows (Super Channel Fuse).

    Stephanie Baird – who has worked on Go Button’s Secret Nazi Bases (UKTV, CBC’s documentary Channel), The Animal Within (Autentic, Spiegel TV Wissen, NTV), Phantom Signals (Science Channel, Super Channel), A World Without NASA (CBC’s documentary Channel, CuriosityStream) and Call Me Mother – is being bumped up from line producer to director of production. She’ll oversee the company’s production slate both in Canada and internationally.

    Previous post supervisor Rebecca Costa has been promoted to director of post-production and will supervise the expansion of the company’s edit team, post schedules, network deliveries and systems.

    Go Button says its slate of confirmed  factual and entertainment productions for 2022 is its largest and most varied yet for domestic and international clients — and more than double the number of hours produced in 2021 — with returning series including Call Me Mother and new titles including Mysteries of The Ancient Dead.

    Last month Edmonton-headquartered Super Channel extended its partnership with Go Button for four new factual series.

    “As Go Button continues to find international success and growth, we are thrilled that this outstanding team of production professionals, who have been with us since our earliest projects, will continue to drive the company into a thriving 2022 and a dynamic new chapter of production and partnerships,”

    Go Button founders and executive producers Daniel Oron and Natasha Ryan said in a statement.

    Read more on Playback Magazine and Realscreen.com.

  • OUTtv renews most-watched original Call Me Mother for second season

    OUTtv renews most-watched original Call Me Mother for second season

    Canadian LGBTQ+ channel and streamer OUTtv has renewed Call Me Mother, its competition reality series in which renowned drag performers adopt and mentor the next generation of drag talent.

    The show, hosted by Dallas Dixon, sees contestants battle it out over the course of eight weeks for the title of First Child of Drag and various prizes. Drag mothers Miss Peppermint, Crystal and Barbada served as mentors in the first season, each one overseeing a different ‘house’ and deciding which performers stay in the competition.

    Produced by Toronto-based Go Button Media and OUTtv in association with RedFlame TV, the format made its debut in October and has gone on to become OUTtv’s most watched original series.

    Read more on C21 Media.

  • Canada’s Super Channel pushes Go Button for factual originals

    Canada’s Super Channel pushes Go Button for factual originals

    Canadian pay-tv channel Super Channel Fuse has ordered two new factual docuseries and acquired two others, all from local producer Go Button Media.

    The two new commissions, Mysteries Of The Ancient Dead and Secret Societies: In The Shadows, are set to debut next year, while acquisitions The Animal Within and Colossal Machines will receive their premieres in December and January, respectively.

    Super Channel Original Mysteries of the Ancient Dead (6 x 60-minutes) will investigate the secrets of ancient civilisations, exploring complex religious beliefs, strange ceremonies and bizarre rituals around death and the afterlife. It will be distributed internationally by Bossa Nova.

    Secret Societies: In the Shadows (6 x 60-minutes), meanwhile, will look at the mysterious purposes of secret societies, revealing everything from dark ceremonies and hidden rituals to fraternal orders and blood oaths. The series will be distributed by DCD Rights.

    Read more on Television Business International.

  • Super Channel adding four new factual series from Go Button Media

    Super Channel adding four new factual series from Go Button Media

    EDMONTON — Super Channel announced today it is extending its partnership with Go Button Media to bring four new factual series from the Toronto-based production company to Super Channel Fuse.

    “The deal includes two new acquisitions, The Animal Within (6×44) premiering this month and Colossal Machines (6×44, above) premiering in January, as well as two new Super Channel Originals, Mysteries of the Ancient Dead and Secret Societies: In the Shadows, coming later in 2022,” reads a press release.

    In total, seven factual series from Go Button Media have been acquired or commissioned by Super Channel to date. These include Phantom Signals, which premiered in 2020, and Secret Nazi Expeditions and Forgotten Frontlines, both Super Channel original productions announced by Go Button Media earlier this year and slated to premiere in 2022.

    Read more on cartt.ca

  • All in the family: How Call Me Mother stands out in a sea of drag competition shows

    All in the family: How Call Me Mother stands out in a sea of drag competition shows

    Featuring drag artists of all genders from across Canada, the series pushes the genre in a familial direction.

    The mammoth that is the Drag Race franchise has become a genre of television to itself as of late. Currently, there are two Drag Race editions airing concurrently (the third season of U.K. and the second of Canada’s very own) with a third on the way next week (the latest spinoff, this time from Italy). But the RuPaul Industrial Complex finally has a bit of competition.

    On the heels of Shudder’s spooky The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula (currently in its fourth season of naming “The World’s Next Drag Supermonster”) and HBO’s non-competitive We’re Here (which is in its second season and just aired an episode set in Selma, Alabama that deserves all the awards), OutTV recently debuted the Canadian-produced Call Me Mother. The show, which was filmed in North Bay, Ontario earlier this year, stands out as a drag competition series for being both fully inclusive to all drag artists and for being centred on drag family.

    “I had some hesitations about going on a reality TV competition, despite the fact that I would obviously be a judge this time rather than a contestant,” says Miss Peppermint, a Drag Race alum who is one of the show’s three titular mothers. “But [the producers] let me know that the approach would be different than other drag reality competitions that we’ve seen before in that they wanted to be inclusive as possible, and that it really is about that family element. So once I heard that idea, I said yes immediately.”

    “I was really excited for the opportunity to be able to show that, of course, drag can be cutthroat and competitive — but it can also be loving and nurturing.”

    Read more on cbc.ca.

  • Extra: Hollywood Suite and CBC acquire WWII doc

    Extra: Hollywood Suite and CBC acquire WWII doc

    Hollywood Suite acquires No Roses on a Sailor’s Grave documentary

    Canadian broadcaster Hollywood Suite acquired the award-winning documentary No Roses on a Sailor’s Grave, production company Go Button Media announced on Monday (Aug. 23).

    CBC & Radio-Canada Distribution, meanwhile, took the worldwide rights, excluding Canada, for the documentary (pictured). The CBC will soon announce the film’s launch into the global market.

    The documentary tells the story of a lost World War II ship, and how a young archeologist and the last survivor of the wreck work together to recover the ship from forgotten history, more than 70 years later.

    The ship, LCH185, was part of the first wave on Sword Beach on D-Day. It helped protect the landing beaches from German attack for two weeks, until it was struck by an acoustic mine. LCH185 sank, taking all but a few surviving crew members with it. Patrick Thomas, a veteran telegraphist in the British Royal Navy who was on that ship, has lived with the memory ever since then.

    John Henry Phillips, a 25-year-old British archaeologist, promised Thomas that he will find the lost, wrecked ship and see that a memorial is built for its missing crew. The documentary film follows this work.

    “With only a small number of World War II veterans still among us, it is critical we help tell and record these stories before they move on from living memory,” said Daniel Oron of Go Button Media, and the director and executive producer of the film, in a news release.

    Sharon Stevens, vice president of programming at Hollywood Suite, added that the film mixes history and personal testimony, and that with time running out to hear WWII stories first hand, opportunities to see a film like this are becoming rarer.

    No Roses on a Sailor’s Grave was an official selection at several film festivals, and won Best Feature Documentary at the Sweden Film Awards, Best Narrative at the Amsterdam World International Film Festival, Best Director: Documentary at the Berlin Indie Film Festival and Angeles Documentaries Festival, as well as Best Feature Documentary at the Rome Independent Prisma Awards and Angeles Documentaries Festival.

    The feature documentary is scheduled for a worldwide TV premiere on Nov. 11 at 9 p.m. ET.

    Read the full article on Realscreen.