australian television information archive

Jasmine of Oz

Ontario teen heads Down Under for TV series

An Ontario teen actress is trading up from local theatre to national TV — and swapping hemispheres to do it.

Jasmine Ellis, 13, of Mansfield, has been chosen to star in Horace And Tina, a forthcoming Australian kids show.

That means she, her mother and her little sister will be moving to the other side of the world exactly one month from today.

They'll be moving from their 100-acre farm to a rented home outside Melbourne and near the ocean.

"It's actually really exciting because I've never been to Australia before, or near Australia before," the Grade 8 student says.

Her father and older sister will follow once the school year is done.

Jasmine spent five days Down Under last month helping to cast the series' supporting roles, but was herself hired without ever leaving Canada. Her final audition was done via a satellite link between Toronto, Sydney and Melbourne.

"That was fun — a little complicated and hard, but it was fun," she says.

Her Horace And Tina character isn't much of a stretch. She'll play Lauren, a Canadian girl who has just moved to Australia. But unlike Jasmine, Lauren isn't pleased by the prospect.

"Basically, her parents got divorced and her mom went on a trip and met an Australian guy and they fell in love and got married. So Lauren had to move to Australia, but she didn't want to."

The Horace and Tina of the title are animatronic puppets. The show is being made by Australia's Jonathan Shiff Productions, which has a record of high-quality youth series including Ocean Girl, which aired here. So far, Horace And Tina has no Canadian broadcaster.

Although her previous acting experience is limited to three years with Theatre Orangeville's younger company and one short film, Ellis is already the star of another TV series — sort of.

She was the model for the look of the plucky title character on the Canadian cartoon comedy Angela Anaconda.

"I went into their studio and they asked me to do all these expressions. They had three cameras, one on each side, take a picture of that expression and put it into the computer. I had to do happy, mad, sad, all the letters of the alphabet so they could have my mouth in all the different positions so that it would go with the way she was talking," she says.

Angela's masses of freckles came from the computer, not from Jasmine, but she does sometimes see some of herself in the character.

"If you looked just straight at her face and looked at me, you might not be able to catch it. But some people say some of the smirks she does with her mouth are a lot like me," she says.

Jasmine's mother Catherine Carpenko, a former CBC-TV Variety dancer, says the family is relatively unfazed by the move. Her and husband Tom Ellis' daughters have been largely home-schooled and are experienced travellers who have been on long-term adventures before, including trips to Guatemala, the Philippines and a four-month camper trip across the U.S. They'll try to explore the red continent during Jasmine's breaks from work.

Having had only five days to look around so far, Jasmine is interested.

"I didn't know that they had penguins in Australia which made me really amazed because I know that it is a warm place and I didn't think penguins would be in a warm place," she says. "That was really weird to see."

By Claire Bickley
April 1, 2000
Toronto Sun

Puppet love

TERRY NORRIS has kept a straight face over the years: as a crusty sergeant with a heart of gold in Cop Shop, as a crusty mechanic with a heart of gold in Bellbird and, in his next televisual adventure, as a grandfather who falls in love with a very crusty 271-year-old elf named Tina.

The cast and crew on the Port Melbourne set of Horace and Tina, a Channel 10 series starring several children, a few adults and two meddlesome North Pole assistants (the Horace and Tina in question) still remember the scene in which Norris falls for the puppet through the fence, even though he can't see her. It rates as one of the funniest moments in a shoot that, after six months, wrapped last Friday. "I won't tell you what happens in the end," says Norris, of the neighborly encounter, "but it's all resolved very happily."

The on-screen life of Terry Norris has been full since he left his political career (he was the Labor MP for Dandenong between 1982 and 1992) and returned to another love: acting. There have been roles in Road to Nhill, Noah's Ark and alongside his wife, Julia Blake, in Innocence. But working on a kid's show — to screen next year — was something he'd rarely done.

"If you make good-quality children's productions nowadays, most countries are going to be interested in buying them," says Norris. Jonathan Shiff, the man behind Horace and Tina, also made Ocean Girl. "If you have the contacts, there's a worldwide market waiting for you. But there was a lovely atmosphere on set, no tension, everyone enjoying their work. And, most importantly, the caterers were marvellous."

Working with the children — 13-year-old Canadian Jasmine Ellis plays the lead role — provided a contrast to Norris' previous project, Innocence, the film that scored him an AFI award nomination as best supporting actor and has won a swag of international awards. "We've just learned today that it's won the award at the Las Vegas Film Festival," he says. "Bud Tingwell is there at the moment collecting it — he phoned through and said he was just about to be called up on to the stage."

In the movie, Norris plays the betrayed, if slightly ignorant, husband of Blake, a woman who, in search of a bit more emotional fulfilment, starts a love affair with Bud Tingwell and becomes the backbone of a film that, for once, explores some more elderly lives. In January, Blake heads for New York to reprise her role in the play The White Devil, which a US entrepreneur took a liking to during the Olympics arts festival.

"We've had a lot of marvellous Australian feelgood movies made recently, which is wonderful, but this (Innocence) is a different type of film, a much deeper film that has a message," says Norris. "It says something about the human condition and it really does take the audience on an emotional journey.

"My character's wife is standing there needing something more in their relationship, and he's not aware of it — with a male, if it's chugging along, what's the problem? Men will not sit down and discuss the deep and meaningfuls in a human relationship — if I'm bringing in a wage, the washing's been done and there's food on the table, then what could be wrong?"

By John Mangan and Emma Quayle
December 06, 2000
The Age

Horace & Tina Wins Jonathan M Shiff Production's Third Consecutive ATOM Award

HORACE & TINA, the outstanding new series by Jonathan M Shiff Productions, has received the prestigious 2001 ATOM Award for Best Children's Television Series. This is the third consecutive year a Jonathan M Shiff Production has won the Award, with THUNDERSTONE Series 1 and 2 winning in 1999 and 2000 respectively. THUNDERSTONE 3 was also nominated for the ATOM Award this year.

HORACE & TINA premiered on Network Ten at 4:00pm on Friday 4 May and features two extraordinary state-of-the-art animatronic characters: Horace — three foot tall, grumpy, over two hundred years old, and the world's greatest mischief maker; and his elder sister, the 271-year-old Tina — an incurable romantic who loves to meddle and give advice. The series also star Jasmine Ellis as 13 year old Lauren Parker, who discovers she is the only person who can see Horace & Tina and has to keep the existence of her two bizarre houseguests secret, without her family and friends thinking she's going crazy.

Says Jonathan Shiff: "Judging by the ratings and given that the ATOM jury is comprised of children, kids clearly love the show. It is an extraordinary achievement to have won the award three times in a row. This award is a credit to Series Producer Ann Darrouzet and her wonderful cast and crew.

The ATOM (Australian Teachers of Media) Awards are presented annually and are currently in their nineteenth year. These awards are designed to promote, encourage, and reward the work of the Australian screen and audio practitioners. ATOM is an independent, non-profit, professional organization of media educators and industry representatives.

May 28, 2001
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