PRODUCTION
Sinking Ship’s rising tide Lockdown content, multiple award wins and a focused mission drove the Canadian prodco’s year.
For companies focused on live action, 2020 was a scary year. Productions ground to a halt, and those that were able to start back up had to do so under strict measures. Yet for Sinking Ship’s JJ Johnson, it was the lack of face time with teammates that made it particularly challenging. In spite of the pandemic, it’s been a busy year for the Torontobased prodco. While 2020 began with the premiere of eco-series Endlings on Hulu and CBC, among others, Sinking Ship is closing out the year with a number of new shows in the works, including one created with Dr. Jane Goodall that is set to bow on a global streamer. In between, Sinking Ship picked up an Emmy for Apple TV+’s Ghostwriter; pivoted to a transactional release for Dino Dana The Movie; and landed its first series for YouTube, developed and shot entirely in lockdown, and aptly titled Lockdown.
“I think I’m most proud and grateful that we were able to find a creative outlet and a means to keep our post teams employed with Lockdown,” says Johnson. “At a time when we were feeling so hopeless, it gave us something to focus our collective energies on.” This year also gave Johnson a deeper appreciation for the role kids content plays in the world. It was a particularly brutal year for children, who had their educations, social lives and family lives disrupted. “There’s no question that this has been an epically rough year,” he says. “But it has also reminded us what a great privilege and responsibility it is to create content for this incredible audience—content that isn’t about moving product, but about moving ideas and inspiring minds. This has been, and will continue to be, [our] core mission: To leave our audience better off than before they watched us.”
PRODUCTION
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