Post by Champ on Aug 31, 2007 17:20:28 GMT -3
CBC show rides into Heartland
Hey girls- Heartland premiers October 14th!! Heres the news feed:
By THERESA TAYLER -- Sun Media
Life in small town, southern Alberta is about to become prime-time Canadian television.
Heartland, CBC's new TV show (set to hit airwaves mid-October) is currently shooting on location in Calgary, Millarville and High River -- it's the story of a family who live on a horse ranch in the fictional town of Hudson, Alberta.
The show is based on the Heartland series of books by Lauren Brooke and stars Amber Marshall.
Marshall is best known for playing the role of, kidnapped teen, Elizabeth Smart in The Elizabeth Smart Story (2003).
In Heartland, Marshall plays Amy Fleming, a 16-year-old, who is gifted in the art of horse training.
Marshall says she feels a definite kinship with the character -- back home in London, Ont., the 19-year-old has a palomino quarter horse.
She says she has been riding since she was a pre-teen.
"I can relate to Amy so much -- I love being here in Calgary, I didn't know places like this existed. The western culture is really foreign to me being that I'm from Ontario," says Marshall.
In the show, Amy lives with her grandfather (played by Shaun Johnston) and sister (played by Michelle Morgan).
She is coping with the sudden loss of her mother and the re-emergence of her estranged father, played by Chris Potter.
Potter plays Evan Owen on the daytime soap opera The Young and the Restless.
Marshall's on-screen love interest is Ty Borden, played by Graham Wardle, a Vancouver-based actor.
Calgary film and television producers, Michael Weinberg, Tom Cox (Brokeback Mountain) and Jordy Randall (Tom Stone) of SEVEN24 Films, are behind the series in partnership with Dynamo Films, a Toronto-based company.
While the writers are from Toronto and Montreal, and the actors hail from all over Canada, Heather Conkie, executive producer and head writer, insists the story is true-blue Albertan.
"I hope we're doing justice to Albertan life -- it's a crash course for us," says Conkie.
"But, because we're all new to Calgary we tend to see things with new eyes and catch glimpses of the culture which others may take for granted -- I absolutely love Calgary, I would live here in a second."
Cox says CBC approached SEVEN24 last November to shoot the pilot episode for the show and they jumped at the chance to produce the series.
"It just had the right energy and the character of Amy is great -- she's a normal teen in the modern world going through all of those normal things, but she's also attracted to this other world where she has a profound understanding of horses," says Cox.
Heartland shoots for the next two months (14 episodes) in the Calgary area.
The family drama will air on Oct. 14 at 7 p.m. on CBC.
