Omni Today

After twenty nine years Omni Film Productions Limited continues to diversify its projects, explore new technology and win awards.

Make Some Noise, our recent teen rockumentary series for CBC about young people changing the world won the Shaw Rocket Prize and the prestigious Japan Prize. A second season will be launched entirely online to capture an entirely new, wired audience. And Stuntdawgs, the factual series for The Movie Network and Movie Central about the elusive world of stunt performers, won a Gemini, Canada’s premiere television award.

Robson Arms, a 26 part primetime dramedy series moves into production for a third season on CTV and the Comedy Channel. This is the first series in Canada to be shot on an innovative widescreen 24-frame-per-second digital video system.

Omni’s latest environmental doc Greenpeace: Making a Stand is traveling the festival circuit.  While back home Omni is currently producing a blue chip documentary special Cascadia’s Fault, following  scientists’ efforts to predict the timing of the impending megathrust earthquake and tsunami that will one day devastate North America’s west coast.  Also in production are several lifestyle series including She’s Crafty, a hip, young craft series and Word Travels a unique docusoap that looks at the ‘lives behind the bylines’ of two of Canada’s top travel writers.

The critically acclaimed Dragon Boys, a 2 x two hour mini series for CBC about organized crime, is now in development for an MOW companion to the series. Two comedy series that just aired were Alice I Think, a 13 x half hour family comedy series for CTV and the Comedy Network and This Space For Rent, a television pilot for CBC about that period in your life when you feel on the cusp of greatness, but everything is so much more comfortable on the couch.

Meanwhile, all five seasons of Edgemont, a half-hour primetime teen drama series continues to air on  ABC Family Channel (formerly Fox Family) and on WAM TV.

Our History

In 1977 Michael Chechik chased Russian whalers in a leaky zodiac while crew balanced a 16mm camera inches from salty waves. The result was Greenpeace: Voyages to save the Whales a documentary film that won a Gemini and aired around the world. Soon after, Chechik joined Omni Film, a company formed by cameraman Rob McLaughlin in 1979. Together they shared a passion for environmental documentaries and when McLaughlin pursued a successful career in cinematography Michael Chechik was left at the Omni helm. Chechik produced several more environmental and wildlife documentaries including a second award winning film, Killer Whales in the Wild, the first BC Film supported documentary to make a profit.

Chechik’s passion for documentary filmmaking and solid business sense continued to propel the company forward and a decade later, in the 1990’s, Omni had expanded its productions into drama with The Odyssey, a primetime children’s drama series, for CBC. Omni went on to produce 39 episodes that were distributed to over 55 countries and won critical acclaim, as well as numerous prestigious awards, including an International Emmy Award nomination.
Omni Film continued to diversify its programming and people when in the early 1990’s Producers Brian Hamilton, Gabriela Schonbach and Chief Financial Officer Andrea Droege joined Omni and became Partners a few years later. Soon, the company’s impressive slate of documentary films and youth drama began to include factual series like Champions of the Wild, featuring people who defend wild animals in their habitats around the world. Champions is one of the longest running documentary series produced in Canada and is still shown in over 20 countries around the world.

Into the millennium Omni Film began producing several lifestyle series including 39 episodes of Healthy Home for Discovery Health US, and HGTV, about enhancing personal health and well being in your home and Quiet Places, on Vision TV and Travel Channel which traveled to some of the most inspiring retreats in North America and a 6-part series Quiet Mind, Meditation for Real Life, that was the first ever Canada-Singapore co-production.

In 2000, Michael Chechik also began production of Omni’s second award winning dramatic youth series, Edgemont, for CBC that would air 70 episodes over the next five years.

Omni co-produces with independent producers and broadcasters around the world: