#bill brioux

[4thelonghaul]

Saint-Pierre is back Monday nights on CBC and costar Josephine Jobert could hardly wait to jump back under her character's skin.

▶️▶️▶️ Podcast here

At the start of this conversation recorded before Christmas at the CBC broadcast centre in Toronto, Allan Hawco reminded me that I’ve been tailing him for 20 years — back to the launch of Republic of Doyle in 2005. 

Hawco and French costar Josephine Jobert are back with 12 new episodes of Saint-Pierre, the highest-rated sophomore series on CBC. The police procedural is shot on location on a tiny part of France off the coast of Newfoundland. I keep asking Allan, what, did somebody steal another baguette? Is there really that much crime in Saint Pierre and Miquelon, an eight island archipelago, pop. 5,819? Mais qui, say the stars, with stories about international smuggling, among other things, based on real crimes. 

If there is any real crimes to solve, Jobert is trained and ready for action. While working on a previous series (Jobert played Detective Sergeant Florence Cassell on the BBC One drama Death in Paradise). Jobert received live ammunition gun training.

This is the first half of a two-part conversation on Season Two of Saint Pierre. Next week, hear my interview with the co-creator of the series, Robina Lord-Stafford, who happens to be an Orangeville neighbour. Hear about her rapid rise up the ranks of Canadian content creators, from writing on Frankie Drake Mysteries and Moonshine (where she met Hawco) to work on Pretty Hard Cases, Wild Cards, and now Saint-Pierre. 

[4thelonghaul]

Allan Hawco on CBC's new Saint-Pierre - brioux.tv: the podcast

 No man is an island. Allan Hawco's new series, however, is shot and set on an archipelago of eight islands represented by the French g

No man is an island. Allan Hawco’s new series, however, is shot and set on an archipelago of eight islands represented by the French government off the coast of Newfoundland. I spoke with Allan live and in person at the CBC’s Winter Media launch in December in Toronto.

Hawco, who played a detective on Republic of Doyle and was also on Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, plays Donny “Fitz” Fitzpatrick. He’s a cop who gets too nosy about police secrets and is therefore banished to Saint-Pierre and Miquelon. There he is paired with local police officer Geneviève “Arch” Archambault (Joséphine Jobert from Death in Paradise). Sparks fly and plot lines ensue.

Hawco talks about creating the series with Robina Lord-Stafford and Perry Chaffe, and starting a TV production base pretty much from scratch with Saint-Pierre — an even bigger challenge than getting Doyle off the ground years ago in Newfoundland. James Purefoy also stars in Saint-Pierre, which airs Monday nights after Murdoch Mysteries on CBC and CBC Gem.

I spoke with Allan live and in person at the CBC’s Winter Media launch in December in Toronto.

[4thelonghaul]

O yeah! Doyle drives off into the sunset after six seasons

(Dec 10 2014)

Wednesday night, CBC airs the final regular season episodes of Republic of Doyle. The two-hour Doyle-fest begins at 8 p.m.

It wasn’t another formulaic, procedural, Canadian cop show mimicking a formulaic, procedural, American cop show. It screamed St. John’s, Newfoundland, in all that city’s pink and green glory. It was a welcome hour of crime-bustin’ action in an era when dark, anti-hero edginess was starting to feel, for me at least, a tad overplayed. Given the choice between riding shotgun in Jake Doyle’s GTO, or astride a Harley with the Sons of Anarchy dudes, I’ll take the bench seat in the Pontiac, thanks.

This was a series that was easy to embrace for me right from the beginning. For one thing, it wasn’t another formulaic, procedural, Canadian cop show mimicking a formulaic, procedural, American cop show. It screamed St. John’s, Newfoundland, in all that city’s pink and green glory. It paid homage to the great detective shows of the ’70s, especially The Rockford Files, so there was a retro coolness about it. It was a welcome hour of crime-bustin’ action in an era when dark, anti-hero edginess was starting to feel, for me at least, a tad overplayed. Given the choice between riding shotgun in Jake Doyle’s GTO, or astride a Harley with the Sons of Anarchy dudes, I’ll take the bench seat in the Pontiac, thanks.

Or the seat on the couch next to my son. Before he headed off to university to learn how to make the next Republic of Doyle, Dan would join me each week in front of this series. It was the kind of shared experience you treasure later, not unlike the one Allan Hawco enjoyed with his dad back when Rockford reruns were their TV bonding experience.

Republic of Doyle was also a place to watch a Who’s Who of Canadian acting talent guest star as villains of the week. Nicholas Campbell, Paul Gross, Gordon Pinsent, Victor Garber and Rick Roberts all made multiple appearances. Pretty much every member of This Hour Has 22 Minutes showed up at least once. (Rick Mercer and Mary Walsh are in on the finale.) Other Canadian TV leads, such as Yannick Bisson, Craig Olejnik, Anna Silk and Enrico Colantoni, have a Doyle credit. If your name was Doyle, such as Alan or Shawn, you were in,

There was good old fashioned stunt casting as well. Oscar winner Russell Crowe was the big get, but Luis Guzman, Shannon Tweed and even original Rockford sidekick Stuart Margolin made the scene.

Hats off to the regulars–Krystin Pellerin, Sean McGinley, Lynda Boyd, Mark O’Brien, Martha Bernard, and in the early days, Rachel Wilson–for bringing these characters to life. Main star Allan Hawco often went shirtless, but he still managed to keep his head after six seasons producing and writing and everything else on the series. It was always his passion project and if the show didn’t win enough awards and recognition–as another Doyle, John of the Globe, has suggested–F-it. Hawco and his pals at Take the Shot, John Vatcher and Perry Chafe–with a big assist from Toronto mover and shaker Michael Levine–got to make the show they wanted to make. In Canadian TV, that’s the Stanley Cup.

[laresearchette]

[laresearchette]

Good show for a good show!

[laresearchette]

And here is Bill Brioux to answer my Shomi questions...

[katiebrx]

I love making items for print.

There’s just something special about creating something digitally and then being able to hold it in your hands when it’s all printed and glossy.

I recently completed a project for the Canadian Media Production Association. It’s a 60-page booklet about Canadian Television, a “current snapshot of Canada’s prime time television production.”

I’ve been working on this booklet since this summer and (although I haven’t actually seen the real printed booklet yet since it’s in Ottawa), it’s finally finished! Canadian TV critic Bill Brioux, and consequently my dad, asked me to design this document for him and it’s been a long journey. 

After many revisions and updates, the booklet was printed last week and (judging by the photos I received from the CMPA team) it looks great. The photos above are mockups I threw together quickly to show a nice visual of what the booklet looks like. 

Design

Since this is a booklet showcasing all-Canadian content, I really wanted to emphasize and promote that Canadian feel. I used only red and white in the design, really trying to keep it simple, and not go too crazy with the Canada theme. It’s really easy to make it cheesy or overly patriotic so I kept the design to a minimum as much as I could. A few design elements I particularly like are the little red maple leaf peeking out from the bottom of each page (centered and indicating the current page number), and a subtle white maple leaf in the center of the TV illustrations (see photo below). Although there are actually a lot of maple leafs throughout the booklet, I never felt that it was too overwhelming or tacky, and tried to use the national emblem in a tasteful way. 

I wanted to make it feel like the booklet was proud to show off its collection of Canadian content. 

The TV set illustration I used was a little nod to the writer of the booklet, Bill Brioux, as this was the TV I designed for his professional website, a blog dedicated to -- you guessed it -- television. 

This illustration is intentionally based on an old television set, complete with bunny ears and channel toggles on the side of the screen. Although it might look outdated -- with TV being watched at a more mobile level, on smartphones and tablets -- it was important to me to use this representation of the TV. I wanted it to evoke a sense of history and old knowledge -- while still looking modern and hip. I used a simplistic and minimal style, and kept it clean with only black lines and some grey. 

You can see this little TV with some blue static if you hover over it at BRIOUX.TV.

The booklet is not a all-encompassing, be-all-end-all document by any stretch, but it covers a lot of ground in notable Canadian television (from 2014 to present). The CMPA has asked me to continue working on this for them, as a work-in-progress document, to which I am very happy to do so. 

You can check out the entire document here. Free to download.

[tvworthwatching-blog]

Bill Brioux pays tribute to Saturday Night Live legend, Don Pardo.