The pandemic has forced the industry to pivot and adapt like never before, with innumerable lessons being learned along the way. Daniel Oron, co-founder at Canada’s Go Button Media, reflects on five experiences over the past 18 months that will remain with him as the industry slowly emerges to some sort of normality.
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Among the genres that are performing particularly well at present for Autentic is people and places, which tackles topics from travel, escapism and adventure to foreign cultures, people and their passions, crime and culinary programming. “Especially escapism and adventure factual content is still high in demand,” says Strasser. “Another well-performing genre is science—be it human, technology or natural science. One of our best-selling titles last year was The Animal Within, an archive-based six-part series combining elements of nature programming with scientific aspects.”
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Toronto-based Go Button Media has announced that Super Channel in Canada has commissioned its new historical docuseries, Secret Nazi Expeditions, with Cineflix Rights on board as its international distribution partner with a focus on pre-sales.
The 6 x 60-minute series focuses on the work of an elite team of Nazi scientists who searched the far reaches of the globe for ancient artifacts alleged to possess mystical powers in the name of Hitler’s regime.
“Super Channel has been an incredibly supportive broadcaster to our business this year, so we couldn’t be more pleased to move into production with them on this second history series,” Daniel Oron, Go Button Media’s co-founder and series executive producer, said in a release. “We are also thrilled to be working with Cineflix Rights for the first time. The team was extremely enthusiastic about this new series from the first conversation and, given Cineflix’s impressive track record and extensive international network, I have every confidence that Secret Nazi Expeditions will soon find a raft of excellent homes across the world.”
Secret Nazi Expeditions is set to begin production soon. It’s Go Button’s second Super Channel Fuse Original commission this year, following the World War Two series Forgotten Frontlines (6 x 60 minutes), co-commissioned by SBS Australia and Off The Fence.
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Multichannel operator UKTV and Canada’s documentary Channel have commissioned a second season of their historical factual series Secret Nazi Bases.
The 8×60’ second run will be produced by Toronto-based Go Button Media and distributed by London-based sales house DCD Rights.
The series explores the mysteries and secrets surrounding decaying Second World War structures and the nefarious plans put into motion to further Hitler’s plan to dominate the world. It will air on UKTV’s Yesterday channel in 2021.
DCD has already sealed deals for the second season with A+E Networks in CEE and Scandinavia, Discovery for Spain, Andorra and Benelux, and Planete for French-speaking Europe and Africa.
Producers, broadcasters and distributors are venturing into largely uncharted territory as the COVID-19 pandemic upends production activities across the globe.
With ‘Weathering the Storm,’ Realscreen will examine the impact of the disruption upon various sectors of the non-fiction screen content industry, and reveal how different companies and stakeholders in the business are coping with the changing landscape.
Daniel Oron, co-founder and executive producer of Toronto’s Go Button Media, says the company is focused on “continuing the supply chain” for broadcasters.
“If you look at our industry, basically there’s a supply chain of television, right? It’s much like any supply chain. It’s conceived somewhere, then it’s developed, then it’s manufactured, then it’s sold,” he says. “We can’t, as an industry, flick a switch and then instantly go into production that day we’re allowed out of the house.”
The objective for Go Button, and other producers in the same boat, is to (as much as possible) keep development and production firing on all cylinders.
“How do we produce content in spurts over the next cycle of, say, 12 to 18 months that allows broadcasters to continue to function without relying wholly on their library or acquisitions that they are picking up from their competitors or other networks around the world?” Oron (pictured above with co-founder Natasha Ryan) says.
Myx TV, the leading English-language Asian American entertainment network, continued its winning season this year when its show, Mom vs. Matchmaker, won the Platinum Remi Award at 51st annual WorldFest for Best Reality-Based Program in Houston, Texas.
Mom vs. Matchmaker is a series focused on finding the perfect match for millennials. Matchmaking professionalCarmelia Ray challenges the mothers of the contestants in finding a suitable date for their kid. Each will set up a date in the hopes that their pick will be chosen. The singles find out at the end of the episode who prepared which date.
Founded over 50 years ago as an international film society, WorldFest became the third competitive international film festival in North America, following San Francisco and New York. It is also the oldest independent film and video festival in the world. As one of the oldest and largest film and video competitions globally, it drew over 4,500 entries from over 43 countries this year. Only 10 to 15 percent of entries were awarded a Remi.
Festival winners have at least passed what WorldFest founder and organizer Hunter Todd called as the “egg timer test”. Long films were given a 10-minute view test, shorter works a five-minute test. Some entries didn’t even make the one-minute mark.
Mom vs Matchmaker is produced by Go Button Media with Daniel Oron and Natasha Ryan as executive producers. Myx TV General Manager Miguel Santos is executive producer for Myx TV. The show is distributed by Electus International. It is now seen in 84 countries.
Earlier this year, Myx TV nabbed finalist nods for its shows, Discovering Routes and My Motto: Veterans Edition at the 2018 Cynopsis Short Form Video Festival & Conference, and for My Motto: Veterans Edition, another finalist slot in the Digital Media-Short Form category at the 2018 National Association for Multi-Ethnicity in Communications (NAMIC) Vision Awards, presented in partnership with NAMIC Southern California.
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