Grandma has inside track

It isn’t a job requirement, but being a grandmother doesn’t hurt when you’re directing children’s television, says Hilary Pryor.

“It’s great because it really puts you in touch with that age group,” says the Victoria writer, director and producer of Tiga Talk!, the preschool series that begins its fourth and final season this weekend on the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network.

It premières Friday at 10 a.m. (9 a.m. on HD) in Cree, followed by the English debut Saturday at 9:30 a.m. (8:30 on HD).

Pryor’s 10 grandchildren are her unofficial creative consultants — and big Tiga fans.

Aimed at kids ages three to five, Tiga Talks! promotes First Nations cultural awareness and language through the adventures of a stuffed wolf cub and friends.

The series, which blends live-action, music, puppetry and imaginary play, focuses on Tiga, who lives with Jodie (Kate-La Faith Hanuse), Jason (Gabriel Paul); their dad (singer-songwriter Art Napoleon) and Kokum, their grandmother played by Irene Green, the early-childhood educator who developed and co-wrote the series with Pryor.

The show’s action is propelled by a secret the children share — that Tiga and other stuffed toys Gertie Gopher and Gavin the Goose spring to life and speak when grownups aren’t around.

Viewers can help drive the storyline by going online this season — to vote for the name of the pet two young characters will be getting, for example. Other issues addressed in 11 new episodes include laughter, and how it can cause hurt feelings; Tiga’s case of the hiccups; and the stress of moving into a new home.

Inspired by the success of their Tiga Talk! Speech Therapy Games iPhone app, the producers are launching a new “adventure story” app that can also be used on the iPad and iPod Touch to enhance exploration of new adventures.

The innovative phonetic learning program and website co-created by Tactica Interactive takes kids on a self-directed adventure. It includes role-playing and learning new words in English and Cree.

“The idea is to try to bring together the worlds of the website and TV show,” said Pryor, crediting May Street Productions’ “extremely dedicated” interactive media producer and online editor Mike Wavrecan with bringing it to fruition.

Despite the proliferation of new technological tools for kids, the fundamentals remain the same, Pryor says.

“We’re trying to stimulate a child’s imagination, and that doesn’t change. It’s such an innate ability.”

One objective is to encourage viewers to create imaginary worlds from everyday objects.

“You can make a place out of cardboard boxes or have fashions with old clothes. They don’t need to go to big stores.”

Tiga Talk! was shot in studio at Pacific Opera Victoria’s prop and scene shop, augmented by location shoots. This season, the children visit the Big House in Comox, the studios of artists John Marsden and Carey Newman, and meet medicine woman Della Rice Sylvester. Pryor also filmed dogsled races and igloos being built during a visit to Iqaluit last Easter.

A former social worker who worked with children and youth in the U.K. before becoming an award-winning documentary filmmaker and Canadian children’s television programming creator, Pryor is on familiar territory.

Her best-known projects include her live-action TV series Take-Off (not to be confused with the ill-fated Phyllis Diller pilot shot here in 1980); the 26-episode series Free to Fly, and Smudge, her CTV/Turner Network Christmas special.

Tiga Talks! is a different animal, she says, one that requires a lot of patience.

“Part of the challenge is you’re accommodating the needs of child actors, but also of puppeteers,” she said. “Puppeteers can get into some positions that are very physically challenging. It can be hot and cramped.”

While preschool programming is still in demand, broadcasters look “almost exclusively” to animation now, she laments.

“Part of it is because it’s so universally marketable,” she said. “On an economic level it works well, but it’s sad that this age range is missing out on seeing themselves reflected on screen, which is why we put the children up there.”

Pryor admits having mixed feelings about wrapping the series.

She says she’ll miss the morning ritual when cast and crew had “circle time,” with traditional drumming and singing.

“You get to the point it’s time to move on, and the kids are getting older,” she said. “You become like family, but we had a good run, and there are lots of episodes to re-run. So it will continue to have a life.”

She’s now working on Taking Back the Years, a series for Vision TV about the pursuit of longevity.

Her research will take her to San Diego, where she’ll be part of an intensive, week-long meditaton study with noted wellness physician Deepak Chopra.

“I was doing an interview with Dr. Elissa Eppel, who studies the effects of meditation on telomeres, those little caps on the end of chromosomes. They’ve developed a test to learn the difference between your biological and your chronological age.”

She’s curious to see what an intense week of meditation is like, and how it can potentially make you live longer.

“Talk about going from one extreme to another,” she says, laughing.