Suzanne French

VP, Children’s & Family
Shaftesbury Films

When Life with Derek launched on Family Channel, in 2006, it made ratings history for the Canadian kids’ network, becoming its highest-rated series premiere ever. International success soon followed, with pickups by Disney Channel in the U.S., Italy, Germany and Latin America; Boomerang (Toonami) in the U.K.; France 2; Nickelodeon in Australia, Southeast Asia and New Zealand; and RTL in Germany, among others—in all, more than 110 territories. Four seasons in, the show had spawned a line of DVDs and other merchandise and a significant online presence. Now, with its main characters all grown up, the next step in the franchise is a feature film for a limited theatrical release to check in with this fictional blended family and its sibling rivalries.

The show was ushered into development several years ago by Suzanne French as her first project after joining the Canadian producer Shaftesbury Films to head up its kids’ and family business. (She had met the creator of the show, Daphne Ballon, while working at Alliance Atlantis.) French is not surprised by how much of a chord the series has struck with tween audiences worldwide. "Everybody has a sense of family, the wackiness of what that entails, the ups and downs of those relationships. One of the things that struck me in the early testing with Family Channel was the fact that we had some kids who lived in big families, who were taken with the fact that this reflected their lives back to them, and then there were kids who lived in smaller households, who were like, ‘Oh my gosh, that just looks like so much fun!’"

French is now working to replicate that success with two new live-action tween series, Connor Undercover—about a teenage boy whose life changes when the president’s daughter comes to live in his home—and Overruled!, about 15-year-old Jared "Coop" Cooper presiding over his school’s Teen Court.

A challenge of producing live-action for this demo can be the age of the actors. "It’s a tricky thing," French notes. "If a series is going to live for four years, the difference between a kid going from 13 to 17 is pretty phenomenal. My tendency is to cast a little bit older, so that the difference between 16 to 20 is not quite as pronounced. [The lead] needs be somebody who you just know kids are going to want to hang out with or want to be. It’s a little harder to find that in kids that are younger. They evolve into it."

French has spent much of her television career in kids’ content. Getting her start as a talent agent before moving into production, French landed at YTV to head up its original-programming efforts. "My first or second day I was getting acquainted with all the programming. I popped in a tape of Sticking Around and I just had this epiphany–I was going to get paid to actually work on stuff that was that much fun! It just felt like the right fit for me, with my sense of humor and sensibility."

Over her years in the business, French has developed a deep appreciation for the camaraderie formed on the sets of the shows she’s worked on. "I love the family feeling that we’ve got. There’s a real community feeling. It’s very hard to do these shows. We work on a 2-and-a-half-days-per-episode schedule, which breaks down to 40 minutes per scene. Which is daunting. Before doing it, I would have said it’s near impossible. The only way you can achieve that and achieve that well is if you’ve got an environment around you where everyone is bringing 150 percent. That’s what we have."

Click to view clips of Life with Derek and Overruled!