Former Nelvana development producer Brandon Lane has joined the “family business” at Toronto studio Balloon House Productions, working alongside his wife and company president Kimberly Persona, as VP of creative.

After almost nine years at Corus Entertainment—four of those at Nelvana—he starts today at the indie prodco in the newly created role.

His initial goal is developing the studio’s first slate of shows, he says. Traditionally, the decade-old studio behind live-action educational shows Princess Sparkly Butt and the Hot Dog Kid and Space Dragon & Kim has focused on producing one series at a time, he says. Now, he’s going to lean on his experience developing and producing live-action and animated projects to craft projects that range from shows for preschoolers to tweens, he adds.

He says he’s bringing a more “quality than quantity” mentality to the studio. His responsibilities also include building relationships with buyers, collaborating with other creators and overseeing the creative on series from development to delivery, he adds.

Lane produced more than 380 hours of content while at Corus. He started at the broadcaster as a production executive for Teletoon, YTV and Treehouse from 2014 to 2019, before moving to its animation studio Nelvana as a development producer. His credits include the new Hardy Boys series for Hulu and YTV, Cupcake and Dino and Wishfart. Before Corus, he worked as a producer and development exec at 9 Story and marblemedia.

“I’m most excited to be building my own development slate,” Lane tells Kidscreen. “I’ve built slates for large companies for years between 9 Story, Corus and Nelvana and have always dreamt of building my own. I was really starting to worry I’d regret not taking the chance to, so I took the plunge.”