Gemeaux Award-winning teen

program Zaps a third season

Montreal: Zap, Verseau International's critically acclaimed series for young teens, has been confirmed for a third season, says Verseau president Aimee Danis. Broadcast on Radio-Quebec where audiences tend to be smaller than on the other Quebec networks, Zap is seen weekly by about 250,000 youngsters. But there's hope the show will be given a second window on another network and enjoyed by more viewers.

This season, 20 new hours of Zap, produced by Verseau vice-president Lyse Lafontaine, are being videotaped on a budget of $3.8 million.

Winner of the 1994 Gemeaux Award for best dramatic youth series, the show features gritty, realistic storylines and lively performances from its young actors.

Jean-Paul Le Bourhis, the series' creator, leads the writing team of Joanne Arseneau, Nathalie Petrowski and Rene-Daniel Dubois.

Among the Zap leads are Mathieu Grondin, Antoine Toupin, Maxime Collin and Andy Leblanc. Other cast members include Caroline Dhavernas, Marie-Claude Lefebvre, Tobie Pelletier, Patrice Godin, Corinne Chevarier, Danielle Proulx, Yvan Ponton, Anouk Simard and Michel Forget.

Directors on the series are Yvon Trudel, Regent Bourque and Stephan Joly. Daniel Fournier is the dop, Jean-Marie Benoit wrote the original music and post-production services are supplied by Daniel Arie and Telepoint.

Verseau is also producing Qui Vive, a popular TVA Television Network health show with the emphasis on specialized medicine. Created by Jacques Despins (Flash varicelle, Chambres en Ville), Qui Vive has been drawing spectacular audiences of 750,000 and more each week. Lighter subject matter is on the menu with great topics like: Does country music lead to suicide? and, Why do young girls get the hots for pop stars?

An industry activist and former president of the apftq, Danis has worked hard over the years promoting Quebec exports, but she is discouraged by the present situation because so few Quebec drama programs are being sold to the obvious foreign market, France.

"They don't accept our accent, or so they say," says Danis.

Looking ahead, Verseau has announced an early spring date for shooting on an $8 million, four-hour miniseries called La riviere rouge (Red River), coproduced with majority partner GMT Video of France for broadcast on TF1, with additional coproducers from Italy, Germany and the u.k.

A turn-of-the-century saga about the settlement of the West, the miniseries is a bonafide double-shoot, with filming taking place near Calgary and in Quebec.

Canadian broadcasters associated with the project are Global Television and Radio-Canada.

On the English side of things, producer Peter Pearson is part of a team at Verseau developing Greed, a drama series proposal for cbc head of series Susan Morgan. The hope is cbc and Telefilm Canada will shortly find the will, and the funding, to shoot a major network series in our highly photogenic city.