Roll 01 · Toronto · Spring 2026
Confidential · For Matty McLachlan

Board
of the Season

Consultation Notes
Subject 6 × 30min Doc Series
A Note Before You Read

Matty,

Appreciate you sending the sizzle and pitch materials. After spending some time with them, I wanted to put down my thoughts through the lens of a development producer.

I've structured this the way I work through development internally, in two parts.

Creative

How an EP or commissioner will read the material. Where I see risk, where the strengths are hiding, and the adjustments that could move the needle.

Strategic

Two distribution paths to a broadcaster greenlight, what each one costs you, and the resources to consider along the way.

Keep in mind, this is one producer's opinion. I've spent a lot of time in the development world, with some success and some failure trying to get mental-health-focused work made. At the end of the day, the most important thing is having the right people championing the vision.

Knowing you're working with a production team, some of this may be painfully obvious or already discussed. Hopefully it's still useful as context-setting. Take what's helpful; drop the rest.

01
Section One · Editorial Read

Creative Considerations

Brief+Context

At this stage of development, you have one of two audiences to win over with your pitch, depending on which path you take to get this made for a broadcaster.

The first is an EP with strong ties to existing networks, bringing them a slate of projects to review. The second is going directly to the broadcaster and pitching a commissioner.

In either scenario, they're running a risk assessment. Where does this fail in production or with an audience? Does it expose us editorially? Does it compete with something already on the slate?

Ultimately, the job of the pitch is to hook them on what's great about the show, then de-risk or answer those concerns so they stay excited about the project.

Probably the single biggest unknown they'll have... Can you, as the host, carry six episodes? Removing my bias from knowing you personally, the package needs to position your hosting through three lenses.

01 · STRENGTH
Earned Vulnerability

The backstory and the journey you're on are raw, vulnerable, and compelling. Don't rush past it with fast edits or quick hits. Make sure to sit in that stillness and let the audience feel the heaviness. There's no synthesizing this. It's the foundation the show is built on.

02 · STRENGTH
Genuine Access

You're a rider, not a host parachuted into the culture. Authenticity comes from showing, not telling. I'd move away from creative elements that feel too scripted. Who you authentically are is what will bring people in.

03 · UNKNOWN
Interview Presence

The big question the sizzle doesn't yet answer. We don't see how you sit with another rider, how you draw them out, how you respond when they open up.

The antithesis of extreme-sports-bro television. In a category dominated by adrenaline edits and Red Bull-energy hosts, this is the show where someone actually listens.
Recommended Positioning Line

A different rider every episode is clean and easy to pitch, but it's a known commissioning concern: they flag that audiences may not get hooked into "what happens next" the way they do with serialized arcs.

Streamers in particular will worry about whether Episode 1 actually makes you watch Episode 2.

Three ways to mitigate this without breaking the concept.

  • Series Thematic Arc. Each episode contributes to a larger discussion or statement the show is making about board sports and mental health: ideas around masculinity, therapy, and what physical movement does to the brain. By the end, the viewer has built that thesis with you by following along. Closing each episode with you reflecting on what you just heard, and tying it back to your own story (especially the moments with your Dad and your journey as a father), is the connective tissue.
  • Real Variety Across Episodes. Five versions of trauma to therapy to recovery will get repetitive fast. Different conditions (depression, anxiety, PTSD, addiction, grief, postpartum), different sports, different geographies, different ages. A 19-year-old skater who lost a sibling lands very differently than a 37-year-old surfer in long-term recovery who's about to become a father. From the sizzle, this is somewhat evident already, but could be made stronger.
  • Matty As The Serialized Spine. Even with anthology guests, your own arc as son, father, and rider, addressing your own mental health, is the through-line that carries across the season. That's the show's emotional architecture.

This is where I see projects take a hit before they can even move into financed development. Broadcasters have learned hard lessons in mental health content, and they will absolutely ask the following.

  • Clinical advisor attached? A named professional, ideally a psychologist or social worker specializing in trauma with Canadian credentials, listed in the package. Low cost, very high impact.
  • Mindset reporting guidelines? The Canadian guidelines for suicide and mental health reporting. Reference them by name.
  • Subject support during and after? A documented plan for how participants are looked after through production and once cameras leave.
  • Episode-end resources and standards? Crisis lines, audience care, broadcaster S&P involvement.
  • Informed consent and capacity? Particularly when subjects are talking about active or recent crisis.

If Episode 1 is your story, it has to do double duty. We need to buy into you as a host while also being invested in your journey. The strongest version is structural.

The pilot is Matty's own story, but it ends on the road, on his way to meet someone whose story he can't stop thinking about as he reflects on his own.
Proposed Pilot Structure

Your backstory is what earns viewers' attention for the rest of the season. Your sizzle reel needs to imply real stakes, goals, tension, and risk in what you're doing. The dramatic tension comes from the audience asking, "Can he pull this off?"

Matty and his father on the boat
FIG. 02The intergenerational throughline. Son, father, now becoming a father himself

The five other subjects will determine whether the show works. Commissioners pay close attention to the casting plan because it tells them whether you actually understand what they need. Four dimensions of range to plan against.

  • Demographic And Identity. Not five white guys on snowboards. Women, BIPOC riders, LGBTQ+ subjects, different ages, urban and rural. Mental health is universal; a show that only profiles one demographic looks dated to a 2026 commissioner.
  • Condition. Depression, anxiety, PTSD, addiction, eating disorders, grief, postpartum, OCD. Each has its own visual and narrative texture.
  • Sport. Snowboarding, skating, wakeboarding, surfing, BMX, mountain biking, longboarding. Each has its own culture, geography, and visual signature.
  • On-Camera Capability. Some people live extraordinary lives but can't communicate them. Others have ordinary stories told so well you can't look away. Cast for the latter.

In the sizzle, it looked like you had a lot of these elements already in place, but if you have the footage, lean harder into it.

Mental health content is everywhere. Action sports content is everywhere. The pitch has to answer why this show, why now. From reviewing the materials, I believe you have two areas that will help you cut through the noise.

  • Non-linear Recovery. The idea that recovery is linear or the same for everyone is both boring and clinically harmful, something a surprising number of shows get wrong. In your case, the relationship between flow-state physical practice and trauma recovery has real neuroscience underneath: embodied flow, vestibular regulation, somatic intervention. Cite your clinical advisor if you can secure one to make sure this element lands with impact.
  • Canadian Specificity. Mental health here has a particular cultural temperature: the Bell Let's Talk decade, the loneliness epidemic, the rural-urban divide on access to care. Canada is in a transition period and the challenges around national identity actually work in the show's favour.

The following is an outline of how the above notes could be applied to the sizzle, with a 2:30 run time as the goal.

Opening with strong action footage is the right call. Make the viewer think we're about to get your standard adrenaline-fueled action sports doc, only to pull the switch and bring in a vulnerable moment. Once hooked, you anchor yourself as the authentic POV taking the audience on this journey.

Visual Direction

  • Five to seven high-energy impact shots, montage-style.
  • Last shot is a hard bail, cut to black; sound design introduces the vulnerable register.
  • Home video footage, a line or two from you, then a quiet moment in the interview chair calibrating something very real.
  • Show us why you stopped riding. Not physical pain. Emotional.

What makes a quiet host compelling is what they do when they're not talking.

Introduce what boarding means to you so we understand why you stopped and what it took to come back. Plant a motif that lives through the show: motion means something.

Visual Direction

  • Alternate stillness and reflection with one beautiful breathing shot per sport and season: a snowboard cutting through powder, a skateboard on an empty street at dawn, a wake fanning behind a boat. From the sizzle, you already have most of these.

Now you've earned engagement (by showing) that you can tell. How the series works, why the host-as-conduit is the right format.

Visual Direction

  • Quick collage signalling scope and variety: Matty meeting a subject, shaking hands at a trailhead. An intimate sit-down. A road shot, Matty driving, country passing. A subject riding (different sport from Beat 2). Another subject's face.
  • The collage should signal demographic and sport range. The sizzle already has the raw material for this.
  • Variety of seasons and geographies goes a long way to showing how expansive the show can be.

Possible VO

"Six riders. Six stories. The thing they all have in common is what nobody talks about." Or something in that register, so we know you're guiding us through.

Remind the viewer what's at stake for you in taking this on. Recovery isn't linear. Your own arc is the reason to tune in next episode. Demonstrate that a single episode can land emotionally, and that we want to follow you through to the end.

Visual Direction

  • A quiet interview moment where the emotion is real and unforced. Hold longer than feels comfortable.
  • A story-context image: a photograph, a hospital wristband, a journal page, a family video frame, a personal object. Something that grounds the story in reality and tells us why this project, why you, why now. Some of that is apparent in the sizzle, but I would avoid inserting digital photos and instead have them printed off and film them as physical artifacts. Has way more emotional impact and doesn't get lost in the mix.
  • Transition out with a strong board sport moment that ramps intensity from quiet to accumulating.

Prove that beyond Matty's story, the show has range, ambition, and casting depth. This is the deck's "casting page" rendered as video.

Visual Direction

  • Faster cuts now, but still grounded. A montage of riders, sports, places that signals what episodes 2 through 6 will deliver.
  • Show demographic and identity range: women, BIPOC, different ages, geographies. If footage is missing, use proxies. Location plates, photo stills, or stylised text-on-screen with rider names and one-line story tags.
  • Stack three to five SOT bites from other subjects. "I lost my brother." / "I didn't think I'd make it past 25." / "The board is the only place I'm not in my head." Real bites if you have them; otherwise capture them in your next shoot.

Audio

Music builds, but contained. Closest the reel comes to a swell, without tipping into bombast.

Introduce a challenge or blocker that tells us the host isn't going to have it easy. Make it specific and personal. Avoid generic at all costs. This beat is your CTA.

Visual Direction

  • Return to the visual register of Beat 1: quiet, intimate, held.
  • One specific image that carries the weight. Your boys. A family photo with your Dad. A board leaning against a wall. Whichever image best carries the motifs set up earlier.
  • Resist cleverness here. The weight of the obstacle needs to be there.
  • End on the title card.
02
Section Two · Distribution Roadmap

Two Paths to Production

Brief+Context

In the Canadian media landscape, episodic doc series at a meaningful budget need a domestic broadcaster licence fee to trigger CMF Broadcaster Envelope dollars. That broadcaster commitment is what unlocks the rest of the financing stack.

Which leaves you with one of two paths to get this show developed.

Your team partners with a production company or EP that has the credentials and relationships to bring a broadcaster to the table, OR goes directly to Canadian broadcasters (pitching the commissioner or head of programming) to work toward a Letter of Interest and, eventually, a formal licence fee commitment.

The paths differ in who walks the project into that meeting, and what gets traded for the access to do so.

Path A·Attach a ProdCo / EP

Pros
What you gain
Strengths of this path
  • Real meetings, faster. Established prodcos have live conversations with Crave, CBC, Corus already underway. Your project slots into a pipeline rather than starting cold.
  • Delivery confidence. Broadcasters need to believe the production entity can deliver. A prodco with a track record passes instantly.
  • Development funding access. CMF Development, broadcaster development deals, sometimes their own internal capital.
  • Live commissioning intelligence. They know what's being bought now, what slots are open, what got rejected last week.
  • Better terms with broadcasters. Leverage you wouldn't get as a first-time series producer.
Cons
What you give up
Trade-offs to plan for
  • You give up IP. Most deals leave the prodco with controlling or co-controlling ownership.
  • Creative authority becomes negotiated. "Created by" credit is usually defensible. Showrunner control is not.
  • The host can become negotiable. If they want to replace him for "broadcastability," that's a fight you may not win.
  • Producer fees and back-end thin out. First-position fees go to the prodco.
  • You can become a development candidate, not a partner. Some shops will move it in 6 months. Others, 18.
Path A · Playbook
01 / 05
01

Packaging the Pitch

You lead with a sizzle reel and one-pager, but they'll want to see a more formal deck with materials in place. Basically, what are you coming to the table with that supports the creative and logistics? It's also not uncommon for a team to self-finance a pilot episode or proof-of-concept piece to bring to the meeting.

02

Your Target List

If your producer and director have broadcast experience, leverage any relationships they already have. But really, there's a select group of EPs and prodcos across Vancouver, Montreal, and Toronto who are the go-tos. Don't cold-email.

03

Align Internally

Make sure you and your team have already written out what you're willing to trade/give up/alter in order to get the show made. Verbal agreements and email threads don't count.

04

Timelines

If an EP comes onboard, expect a timeline of 6 to 18 months to refine materials, take meetings, and wait for responses. Expect another 12 to 18 months to get things shot and edited.

05

When It Becomes Real

If you and the team land a Letter of Interest, it's time to get excited. This unlocks financed development and puts the CMF Broadcaster Envelope within reach, plus other doors (Rogers Doc, Bell Fund, provincial credits, federal CPTC).

Path B·Direct to Broadcasters

Pros
What you gain
Strengths of this path
  • You retain IP. Format rights, future seasons, international sales, ancillary revenue: all stay with you.
  • Creative control stays in-house. Host, director, episodic structure, look: all yours.
  • You build your standing as a creator. A successful series under your name positions you for the next show, and the show after.
  • Deal economics flow to you. Producer fees, back-end participation, and the leverage of having a series on a broadcaster's slate under your own name.
Cons
What you give up
Trade-offs to plan for
  • Harder to gain access. Cold pitching commissioners as a small production team with limited credits is your biggest obstacle.
  • Longer to see momentum. I'd estimate you add 6 to 12 months to your development cycle (from pitch to greenlight) than you would if you had an EP attached.
  • The path may simply not close and you run out of places to pitch. You then need to go back and look for an EP or prodco to get back into consideration.
Path B · Playbook
01 / 05
01

Strengthen the Package

Without an EP or prodco to lean on, the package needs to be undeniable, which in most cases includes an EP, plus a pilot or proof-of-concept episode rather than just a sizzle reel. I'd also push to have clinical expertise upfront, or at least an endorsement from a mental health organisation for credibility. If your producer and director have strong broadcast credits, make sure those are front and center.

02

Build Momentum

Stack development funding from multiple sources: Rogers Doc, CrossCurrents, Telefilm Talent Fund, Ontario Creates IDF, Bell Let's Talk, Movember. In parallel, get into pitch markets to de-risk the project for broadcasters and prove your show has serious traction. Hot Docs Forum (Rough Cut category; finished episode makes you eligible), Hot Docs Deal Maker, and Banff World Media Festival are a good start. I'll include more in the appendix.

03

Get to Development First

Each broadcaster has a development executive layer below the commissioner. That's the path to the commissioner's desk, and typically more open to a producer they don't yet know. Pitch the development executive before the commissioner. They're your way in.

04

Create a Hit List

I suggest creating a CRM and a sales pitch strategy where you have every potential broadcaster, programmer, commissioner, and platform listed out as a "lead." Some are more approachable than others, and some will just be a better fit based on their mandates and programming.

05

Clinical Validation

If going direct to broadcasters, you will want to get ahead of this so you and the team can control how they get involved and to what capacity. At the end of the day, broadcasters care more about liability and risk than the actual effectiveness of the partnership.

Choose Path A · Co-ProIf any of the following are true

  • Priority is seeing the show made within 24 to 36 months.
  • You're willing to share IP and creative control to access infrastructure.
  • Cash flow can't sustain 12+ months of independent development.

Choose Path B · DirectIf any of the following are true

  • This is the show you want to build the next few years of your work around.
  • You have the cash flow and patience for an 18 to 36 month cycle.
  • You have the means to self-fund a finished pilot.
Appendix · Resources

Funders, Markets & Partners

Development Funding +
Federal & Industry
  • CMF Development Program. Prodco-applied; requires some form of broadcaster interest at later stages. ↗
  • Rogers Documentary Fund (Development Tier). Small envelope for early-stage projects. ↗
  • Bell Fund Development. Relevant if there's a digital or cross-platform component. ↗
  • Telefilm Talent Fund. Emerging-filmmaker support; check current series eligibility. ↗
  • Hot Docs CrossCurrents Doc Fund. Strong for socially-engaged work and underrepresented voices. ↗
Provincial
  • Ontario Creates IDF. Industry Development Fund, worth applying. ↗
  • OFTTC / OPSTC. Provincial tax credits, applied at production stage. ↗
Philanthropic & Brand-Adjacent
  • Bell Let's Talk. Both the community fund and the commissioning side. ↗
  • Movember Foundation. Funds men's-health storytelling. ↗
Pitch Markets +
Canadian
  • Hot Docs Forum (Rough Cut Category). Designed for projects in production without market financing yet. A finished pilot makes you eligible. Most important single market for this stage. ↗
  • Hot Docs Deal Maker. Lower-stakes 1:1 meetings; often a better fit than the public Forum pitch early on. ↗
  • Banff World Media Festival (June). Most important Canadian unscripted convening. Mid-size prodco development teams all attend. ↗
  • DOC Institute. Canadian doc industry organisation. ↗
  • CMPA. Canadian Media Producers Association, industry trade body. ↗
  • DOC NYC. US doc festival and market, useful for EP discovery and US co-pros. ↗
International
  • MIPCOM (Cannes, October). International co-pro ambition; expensive but where international deals start. ↗
  • Sunny Side of the Doc (La Rochelle, June). Socially-engaged doc focus; fits the mental health framing. ↗
Broadcaster Targets +
Tier 1 · Strongest Fits
  • CBC + CBC Gem. Updated May 2026Canada's largest commissioner of documentaries. On May 7, 2026, CBC announced a $7M increase in documentary investment, dedicated pathways for emerging filmmakers, and a new CBC Docs FAST channel (free ad-supported streaming) launching this fall. The legacy documentary Channel ends broadcast August 31, 2026. Full details to be announced at the Banff World Media Festival in June 2026. Anchor strands: The Passionate Eye, The Nature of Things, Absolutely Canadian. CBC also runs a dedicated Mental Health Initiative for Documentary Filmmakers with DOC, proof the subject is institutionally prioritised. ↗
  • CBC Sports. Separate commissioning path from CBC's main doc unit. Existing partnership with Red Bull Media House covering the Red Bull Signature Series (Rampage, Joyride, Frozen Rush) on CBC and CBC Gem year-round. Documented appetite for action sports storytelling and a direct precedent for BOTS' subject matter. ↗
  • Crave (Bell). Premium SVOD. Recent originals include Black Ice (co-produced with UNINTERRUPTED Canada, mental and emotional toll of racism in hockey, direct mental health + sport overlap), Thunder Bay, Dark Side of the Ring, Billionaire Murders, All Heart: Canada Women's Rugby. Submit via the Bell Media Producer Guidelines portal with the signed Bell Media Submission Release Form. ↗
  • Hollywood Suite. Independent premium specialty channel. Commissioned Relentless: The Kevin Porter Story, a 4-part docuseries following an Ontario paramedic chasing pro hockey in his 40s, shot over five years. Same shape as BOTS: longitudinal, character-driven, sports-meets-life. Smaller broadcaster but a real check-writer and fast decision-maker. Direct outreach to David Kines (President, co-founder) and Ryan Mains (Head of Production). ↗
  • Super Channel (Allarco). Premium pay TV, actively commissioning Canadian docs through Super Channel Fuse. Recent: Code of Misconduct (World Junior hockey trial), The Great Ones (Oilers docuseries with Ryan Reynolds attached), Brace for Impact: The Dane Cook Story. Also runs the Super Channel Development Fund. Marguerite Pigott has historically led Creative Development. ↗
Tier 2 · Adventure, Genre & Sport Specialty
  • TSN / TSN+ (Bell). The Engraved on a Nation anthology and films like 29 FOREVER (Humboldt Broncos one-year doc), Black Ice (mental health + race in sport, co-produced with Crave), and The Bailey Experience (Donovan Bailey psychological portrait) show TSN backs character-driven, emotionally heavy sports docs. The TSN Doc Collection is a real curated space. Strategic play: frame as a TSN / Crave co-license. That's the Black Ice model and it doubles the licence fee pot. Bell Media factual development; Shawn Redmond (VP Programming, TSN). ↗
  • Blue Ant Media specialty channels. Cottage Life, T+E, BBC Earth Canada, Smithsonian Channel Canada, Makeful, Love Nature. Factual and lifestyle programming, single commissioning point under Sam Linton (VP Production and Development). Blue Ant also has a worldwide distribution deal with Red Bull Studios. ↗
  • National Geographic Canada. Operated under Corus brand license. Adventure and human-resilience docs. Limited commissioning since the brand is Disney/NatGeo-controlled, but worth tracking for licensing windows. ↗
Tier 3 · Co-Pro & Strategic Partners
  • Red Bull Studios / Red Bull Media House. Finances and produces sport and sport-adjacent docs (The Dawn Wall, Reggae Girlz, Solo at Sea, Girl Climber). Multi-year slate financing deal with IPR.VC. Existing CBC Sports partnership in Canada. Global FAST distribution across Pluto TV, Samsung TV+, Roku, LG Channels. Not a traditional broadcaster, but the most aligned co-pro partner on the continent for an action board sports doc. ↗
  • UNINTERRUPTED Canada. LeBron James / Maverick Carter's athlete-storytelling brand. Canadian arm led by Scott Moore and Vinay Virmani. Co-produced Black Ice with Crave (mental health + race in hockey, direct overlap with BOTS' lane). The US parent produced Invisible Game (Trae Young and Iman Shumpert on athletes and mental health, partnered with The Jed Foundation). Their ethos, "More Than An Athlete," is essentially the show's logline. Best path: co-pro with Crave or TSN. ↗
  • Patagonia Films. Brand-funded production house with thematic precedent. They have made films directly on BOTS' themes: a mental health crisis met by a return to the water; alpinism + new fatherhood (Josh Wharton); Solving for Z (big mountain skiing + family + the intoxicating highs and crushing blows). Authored, values-based curatorial POV with a major built-in distribution audience. Often co-produces or funds independent filmmakers whose work aligns with their grant and community pillars. ↗
  • VICE TV / Vice Studios. Skating & Talking is a literal Vice series about mental health in skateboarding. Post Radical (Rick McCrank, Canadian-hosted skateboarding subcultures), Let It Kill You (skate + art), Epicly Later'd. Strongest content-to-content precedent of any outlet. Caveat: Vice's corporate situation is volatile. Best framed as a distribution partner for shorter form, or a co-pro on a digital series stream, not a primary commissioner. Vice Studios for longer form, Vice digital for short series. ↗
Tier 4 · Second Window & General Networks
  • Knowledge Network (BC). BC public broadcaster. First-window commissioning is BC producers only. Out-of-BC producers (you, in Toronto) can submit for second-window pre-licensing once a Canadian lead is attached. Useful for stacking financing on top of a Tier 1 lead, not as an entry point on its own. An LOI from Knowledge does unlock CMF Broadcaster Envelope financing. Send to producers@knowledge.ca once the lead is in place. ↗
  • CTV (Bell). Bell's primary network. Mainly scripted prime time but takes some doc/unscripted; doc series tend to flow to Crave. ↗
  • Global (Corus). Corus' primary network. Mostly scripted with some unscripted and factual specials. ↗
  • Citytv (Rogers). Rogers' general entertainment network. Occasional doc and unscripted slots. ↗
Tier 5 · Streamers, FAST & Distribution

Streamers in Canada generally acquire or co-license post-commission rather than commissioning Canadian indie doc series cold. Frame these as a second window after a Canadian broadcaster anchors.

  • Netflix Canada. International ambition. Commissions and acquires Canadian docs primarily through their global content team. ↗
  • Apple TV+. Premium documentary acquisition. Selective with Canadian content, but a strong premium fit when they take it. ↗
  • Amazon Prime Video Canada. Generally acquires Canadian docs rather than commissioning cold. ↗
  • Paramount+ Canada. Newer to the Canadian commissioning landscape but actively building. ↗
  • Outside TV / Outside+. Adventure-sports streaming destination (skiing, snowboarding, surfing, climbing). Part of Outside Inc. (Surfer, SKI, Backpacker, Climbing, Yoga Journal) with a wellness vertical alongside the action-sports content. Strong audience overlap. Mostly acquisitions of completed adventure-sport films and series, with some originals. Best as acquisition window or distribution play once produced. ↗
  • WaterBear Network. Free impact-doc platform that explicitly covers mental health, social inclusion, and nature-based storytelling alongside their climate work. Licenses films and partners with brands for ad-funded production. Less of a commissioner, more of a distribution / impact partner once delivered. ↗
  • Tubi Canada. Fox-owned FAST, growing. Accepts doc content for distribution. ↗
  • Pluto TV Canada. Free ad-supported streaming (FAST), Corus advertising partnership. Distribution play rather than commissioner. ↗
  • Stack TV. Corus channel bundle distributed via Amazon Prime Video. Distribution rather than primary commissioner. ↗
Tier 6 · International Public Broadcasters & Co-Pro

For stacking financing once a Canadian lead is locked. Approach via international markets (Hot Docs Forum, IDFA, Sunny Side of the Doc) or through an international sales agent.

  • BBC (UK) · Storyville / BBC Three / BBC iPlayer. Storyville is feature-length, single-auteur international docs. Fit only if you reshape one episode as a feature, or carve a feature doc out of the series. BBC Three commissions youth-skewing factual content with strong mental health programming. Approach via a UK co-producer or distributor at IDFA, Sheffield, or Sunny Side of the Doc. ↗
  • PBS (USA) · Independent Lens / POV. US homes for character-driven, social-issue feature docs. Long history with mental health and personal-journey films. Format: features preferred over series. Approach via a US co-producer or distributor. ↗
  • ABC Australia / SBS Australia. Strong surf and board-sport culture overlap and active doc commissioning around mental health, particularly men's mental health (a major issue in Australia). SBS has a sport + identity programming pillar. Approach via an Australian co-pro or international sales agent. ↗
  • ARTE (France / Germany). One of the most prestigious doc strands globally. Co-produces strong character-driven and social-issue work. Less obvious sport fit but they have done character athlete docs. Approach at Sunny Side of the Doc or IDFA Forum. ↗
Mental Health & Brand Partners +
Endorsement & Advisory
  • CMHA. Canadian Mental Health Association. ↗
  • Jack.org. Youth-focused mental health, strong on board-sports demo overlap. ↗
  • Movember Foundation. Men's mental health angle. ↗
  • Clinical advisor. Psychologist or social worker specialising in trauma, Canadian credentials ideal.
Brand Integration Categories
  • Mental Health Advocacy. Bell Let's Talk ↗, CMHA ↗, Jack.org ↗, Movember ↗.
  • Action Sports. Burton ↗, Vans ↗, Red Bull ↗, Monster ↗, Quiksilver ↗ / Billabong ↗.
  • Active Lifestyle / Wellness. Lululemon ↗, MEC ↗, On Running ↗, Specialized ↗.
  • Healthcare-Adjacent. Telehealth platforms, therapy networks, employee assistance programmes.
Compliance Checklist +
Pre-Pitch Hygiene
  • Producer / Director broadcast credits. Documented and verifiable.
  • Chain of title. Clear ownership of the concept and sizzle material.
  • E&O insurance. Errors and Omissions, in place or quoted.
  • Mindset reporting guidelines. Referenced in package.
  • Clinical advisor named. Credentials listed.
  • Subject support plan. Production and post-production.
  • Informed consent framework. And capacity-to-consent process.
  • Episode-end resources. Crisis lines, audience care plan.