May Martin is to tell Hair of High Parka 3D animated and live-action preschool series from Little Engine Moving Pictures and TVOkids, was announced at the Banff World Media Festival on Monday.
Martin created and stars in the Netflix series stray, A thrilling drama about the inner workings and dark secrets of a fictional school for troubled teens. Now they’re heading into a feel-good series for preschoolers that follows best friends Hare and George and their community of animal friends as they discover nature, friendship and everyday adventures in a setting inspired by Toronto’s High Park.
Hair of High Park In a statement dedicated to the Banff World Media Festival, creators Tarun Padmakumar and Joanna Fishbein welcomed Martin to the series: “Mae brings warmth, humour, authenticity and a little bit of deception to the series, making her the perfect guide for our young audience.”
Hair of High Parkdirected by Ben Mazzotta, includes a Canadian cast including Payne Hoffman, Skyla Balogh, Bruce Dow, Stephanie Secchi, Isabel Kanaan, Rodrigo Fernandez Stoll and Taha Arshad. Martin’s narration of the series comes at a time when the Canadian preschool and children’s series has seen a significant drop in funding support due to the advertising stagnation of legacy broadcasters and US broadcasters and social media platforms have been in a standoff with the country’s regulators and the federal government over being forced to support local independent productions via the OTT Act.
financing for Hair of High Park It has come from local funders such as Knowledge Kids, Canada Media Fund, Ontario Creates, Rocket Fund Canada, National Bank of Canada, and TVOkids. After Ottawa yielded to American pressure and backed away from the so-called foreign broadcast tax, it announced that it would provide annual funding worth $600 million to the country’s media and music sectors.
This new taxpayer support is expected to be split between traditional funding agencies, going directly to Canadian independent film and television production and to challenged sectors such as children’s television programming and documentaries.
Also on Monday, the CBC, the largest investor in local documentaries, in Banff announced $7 million for two new non-fiction programming funds, the CBC Creator Catalyst Fund and the CBC Co-Production Fund, to support emerging producers and international documentary partnerships.
