{"id":2529,"date":"2014-01-02T22:00:04","date_gmt":"2014-01-02T22:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2014\/01\/02\/thunderbird-films-burnaby-soundstage-is-canadas-sitcom-central\/"},"modified":"2014-01-02T22:00:04","modified_gmt":"2014-01-02T22:00:04","slug":"thunderbird-films-burnaby-soundstage-is-canadas-sitcom-central","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2014\/01\/02\/thunderbird-films-burnaby-soundstage-is-canadas-sitcom-central\/","title":{"rendered":"Thunderbird Films\u2019 Burnaby soundstage is Canada\u2019s sitcom central"},"content":{"rendered":"

Glen Schaefer \/ The Province<\/em><\/p>\n

A Burnaby soundstage has drawn a new style of young performer \u2014 teenaged entertainment prodigies with formidable multiple skill sets.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re working in the TV sitcom style \u2014 some scenes filmed before a live audience, performances bigger than film usually requires, and snappy dialogue with pauses to give the viewers and the live crowd the chance to catch up on rapid-fire gags.<\/p>\n

Leading the latest charge is Ontario native Kolton Stewart, who stars in the new series Some Assembly Required as Jarvis Raines, a kid who takes over a toy company in a lawsuit after a chemistry-set mishap. The show\u2019s premise has Jarvis hiring his school friends to help him run the factory.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone\u2019s got a cool talent on this show,\u201d Stewart said during a filming break. \u201cWe all hang out, we jam and play music together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now 14, Stewart auditioned successfully for Ontario\u2019s Stratford Theatre Festival at eight years old, looking for something to do after he was sidelined by a football injury. He spent two seasons at Stratford, then toured North America as Simba in The Lion King. After that he was featured on Ellen DeGeneres\u2019 TV talk show after a singing duet he made with a friend went viral on YouTube.<\/p>\n

Stewart\u2019s Ellen appearance sold the new sitcom\u2019s producers on him. Some Assembly Required started filming in August and will continue until February.<\/p>\n

Sitcoms have taken hold in Canada over the past couple of years, a new cultural import from the U.S. This latest YTV sitcom is from B.C.\u2019s Thunderbird Films, the writing-produced team behind the earlier hit sitcom Mr. Young. That show about a teenaged high school teacher lasted three seasons on YTV and the U.S. Disney XD channel, coming to an end when the cast got older.<\/p>\n

On a typical Friday afternoon at the Some Assembly Required set, the audience of a couple hundred kids and their parents start filing into bleachers around 4:30 p.m. Dominating several three-walled sets is a toy-factory floor with a fanciful roller coaster running through it.<\/p>\n

Lights and four cameras are pointing at the stage. Video monitors play the already finished pilot episode for the new show, giving the audience an idea of what to expect when filming starts.<\/p>\n

Comedian Dave Dimapilis warms up the crowd, MCing several contests \u2014 who\u2019s got the oldest phone, what\u2019s the weirdest thing in someone\u2019s pocket, who\u2019s got the craziest dance moves. Then the set is lit up and the cast and crew take the stage.<\/p>\n

Stewart and the rest of Some Assembly\u2019s cast can seem like they sprung fully formed from some entertainment-industry genetics lab.<\/p>\n

Just turned 15 is Calgary\u2019s Charlie Storwick, who taught herself to play piano at age seven. She found herself the winner of the TV singing competition series Next Star Canada when she was 12, and nailed her first-ever acting audition \u2014 this role as a teen computer whiz who joins Jarvis at the toy factory.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went from singing into the mirror to singing on television,\u201d Storwick said. She never took piano or singing lessons, saying figuring out complex piano chords was \u201clike a puzzle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Acting is the latest new thing for Storwick. The producers brought a coach up from Los Angeles before filming started, to train the young cast in the sitcom style.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of us are brand new to this,\u201d Storwick said. \u201cIt\u2019s really neat to see everyone progressing together as a group.\u201d<\/p>\n

Seventeen-year-old Harrison Houde grew up in Qualicum Beach, and started his own Youtube channel when he was eight, writing and filming his own short sketches and music parodies.<\/p>\n

Sixteen-year-old Sydney Scotia, the Arizona-raised child of Canadian parents, said she stumbled into acting after dancing competitively since she was seven.<\/p>\n

Castmate Travis Turner looks like one of those young prodigies, but in fact he\u2019s in his 20s. He too started doing theatre as a teen in his hometown of Penticton, heading to Vancouver for acting training at Langara College in 2008.<\/p>\n

Turner starred in the direct-to-video prequel Marley and Me: the Puppy years and did various guest spots on B.C-filmed TV before landing this job, his first series regular.<\/p>\n

\u201cDoing the live audience is a bit of a learning curve,\u201d Turner said, adding they have to memorize an entire 22-page script for their big filming day, unlike the usual film or TV routine, of between three and 10 pages of script in a day.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce you get into it, it just becomes second nature,\u201d Turner said.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll take his word for it.<\/p>\n

Also playing younger than his years is 21-year-old Dylan Playfair. As the sweetly dim extreme athlete Malcolm Knoxford III (AKA Knocks), he\u2019s the guy who got held back a couple of grades.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a happy-go-lucky, energetic, crash-test-dummy kind of guy,\u201d Playfair said.<\/p>\n

Playfair\u2019s early career trajectory was as a hockey player \u2014 his Dad is a coach with the Phoenix Coyotes, and Playfair played Junior A hockey in Merritt at 19.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a couple of offers from U.S. schools, but my heart wasn\u2019t in it,\u201d he said<\/p>\n

He came to Vancouver, took acting classes and quickly found work, parlaying his hockey skills into a role in the TV biopic The Gordie Howe Story, as one of Howe\u2019s sons.<\/p>\n

\u201cI apply a lot of the same stuff I learned playing hockey to film,\u201d said Playfair, sounding a bit like a coach doing the third-period pep talk. \u201cThere\u2019s a luck aspect, but if you\u2019re prepared when these opportunities come up, then you\u2019ll end up working.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brendan Meyer, the now-19-year-old actor who came to fame on the previous series Mr. Young, has served as a friend and mentor to the new players, Stewart said. The two go over the Some Assembly scripts together.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe told me \u2018You\u2019ve got to make sure you have fun,\u2019\u201d Stewart said, adding that he\u2019s also taking inspiration from his castmates.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to be a musician as well as an actor,\u201d he said. \u201cThere are things I want to do that people are already doing here. We\u2019ll see what happens.\u201d<\/p>\n

TV premiere<\/strong> Some Assembly Required Where, when: YTV, Monday 6:30 p.m. PT\/ET<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Glen Schaefer \/ The Province A Burnaby soundstage has drawn a new style of young performer \u2014 teenaged entertainment prodigies with formidable multiple skill sets. They\u2019re working in the TV sitcom style \u2014 some scenes filmed before a live audience, performances bigger than film usually requires, and snappy dialogue with pauses to give the viewers … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThunderbird Films\u2019 Burnaby soundstage is Canada\u2019s sitcom central - Thunderbird Entertainment<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2014\/01\/02\/thunderbird-films-burnaby-soundstage-is-canadas-sitcom-central\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Thunderbird Films\u2019 Burnaby soundstage is Canada\u2019s sitcom central - Thunderbird Entertainment\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Glen Schaefer \/ The Province A Burnaby soundstage has drawn a new style of young performer \u2014 teenaged entertainment prodigies with formidable multiple skill sets. 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