Fonds - Epitome Pictures Inc.

For close to thirty years, Epitome Pictures and related companies have been producing award-winning television and educational programs. CEO Linda Schuyler co-created and executive produced the multi-award-winning original Degrassi series, including The Kids of Degrassi Street, Degrassi Junior High, and Degrassi High. These series have won two international Emmys, 9 Gemini Awards, two Prix Jeunesse and countless other honours from festivals around the world. The Degrassi series was continued in the telefeature School’s Out! and in a series of six documentaries called Degrassi Talks. Schuyler was awarded the Order of Canada in 1994 for her contributions to Canadian television.

President Stephen Stohn has worked in the entertainment industry for over 30 years as a performing artist, songwriter, executive producer and as an entertainment and copyright lawyer. He is a founding member in the entertainment law firm, Stohn Hay Cafazzo Dembroski Richmond LLP.

In 1993, Epitome Pictures produced the movie of the week X-Rated, which later inspired creation of 26 episodes of the dramatic series Liberty Street. The program, about young twenty-somethings struggling to establish grownup lives, was broadcast on CBC and in more than 40 countries around the world. In 1996 Epitome Pictures bought a 100,000 sq. ft. warehouse, converting it into a digital single-purpose studio. The studio is used as a home for the company’s productions as well as a rental property. From 1997 to 2000 the studio was home to Riverdale, Canada’s first English primetime soap opera. Created by Schuyler and her longtime collaborator, writer Yan Moore, Riverdale was broadcast on the CBC and followed the lives of four families, separate in temperament, background, values, generation and social standing but united by the neighbourhood they share. The studio is now home to the youth oriented, multi-platform series Degrassi: The Next Generation. The series has received numerous accolades including 11 Gemini Awards, 7 DGC Awards, 2 Teen Choice Awards and the Television Critics Award.

Building on its strength in youth programming, Epitome launched the half-hour teen drama Instant Star in 2004. Now wrapped after four seasons, Instant Star followed the story of a teenaged girl who went from high school obscurity to a life as a notorious singer. The program is currently airing in over 150 countries around the world .

In 2011 Epitome started another half-hour drama called The L.A. Complex which follows a group of young people living in an apartment style motel in Los Angeles with dreams of making it big in Hollywood. The L.A. Complex wrapped in 2012. In 2014 Epitome Pictures Inc. was acquired by DHX Media for $33 million Canadian. Later in 2014 Epitome announced the beginning of production on a show called Open Heart for YTV in Canada and Teennick in the U.S. Open Heart is described as “a gripping mystery series, folded into a sprawling family saga, set against the high-stakes workplace and relationship drama of a hospital.”