Northern Pictures calls action on Hardball for ABC ME

Filming has started on Northern Pictures' first foray into live action drama, with the cameras rolling on the kids' comedy series Hardball.

Set in Western Sydney, the 13 x half hour series started shooting on Monday, 9 July.

The brainchild of writing duo Guy Edmonds and Matt Zeremes - developed together with Head of Kids for Northern Pictures and Executive Producer, Catherine Nebauer - Hardball has been fully funded in Australia with the support of the ABC, Screen Australia, Create NSW, the Australian Children's Television Foundation (ACTF) and Northern Pictures. The series will air on ABC ME. The ACTF is the international distributor and its Head of Development and Production, Bernadette O'Mahony also serves as Executive Producer on the series.

Catherine Nebauer said: “Hardball came together very quickly, with everyone immediately responding to the fun and engaging scripts, and the endearing and quirky characters.”

Hardball centres around fish-out-of-water Mikey and his misfit mates Salwa and Jerry. Their goal is to make Mikey the sweetest-bestest-acest handball champ that Western Sydney's ever seen. 

"Since setting up our Kids division three years ago, Northern Pictures has produced more than 215 hours of pre-school and factual content. Hardball is our first venture into the live action drama space, which is now a key focus for the company,” Nebauer said.

"As well as bringing new writers to the Australian production scene, Hardball has identified some great new talent from diverse and multicultural backgrounds. We can’t wait to see how Mikey and his mates are received by kids.”

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