Everybody Dreams...

Everybody dreams. And we all wonder what those disjointed night-time stories mean.  In Dreams is on a mission to help find that meaning.

Each episode features two guests sharing their most emotional, inspiring or terrifying dreams. They may be about flying, drowning, battling monsters, or making love, but you can bet they are all dreams that each one of us has had, in some form or another, at some point. As we hear their stories, and listen to the insights of some of Canada's leading experts on the subject, we learn a little bit more about what our own dreams mean.

In Dreams blends live action and unique animation to take us on a breath-taking visual trip into the heart of the dream. Combine that with the incomparable magic of personal storytelling, and the guidance of our analysts, and every episode becomes a new opportunity to delve into what happens after we turn out the lights, slip into sleep, and give our minds free rein.

Executive Producer: Phyllis Platt

Phyllis Platt, President of Platt Productions, has done it all, moving from magazine editor to radio producer to CBC Television executive to independent film producer. She’s built an impressive resume in Canadian radio, film and television, producing hit television movies and series and picking up Gemini nominations along the way.

Platt has earned wide respect for her television films, including the upcoming Race to Mars, a multi-million dollar mini-series for Galafilm and Discovery Channel. With In Dreams, she carries her vision in a new direction, following in the footsteps of her wildly successful series Ghostly Encounters with an unbiased documentary series that dares to explore a topic that is inexplicable, strange, and sometimes even frightening. Platt created and produced 39 episodes of Ghostly Encounters, and it continues to chill and captivate viewers across Canada and the United States.

A dance documentary special is currently in post-production, while Platt continues her string of TV movie successes with the upcoming Booky and the Secret Santa for CBC, a sequel to Booky Makes Her Mark, produced in partnership with Shaftesbury Films.

Platt produced the CBC hit movie Shania through Platt Productions and in partnership with Barna-Alper Productions. Her production Open Heart was nominated for three Gemini Awards, including Best TV Movie and Best Performance by an Actress for Megan Follows. The MOW, in partnership with Barna-Alper Productions, is an exploration of a courageous nurse’s attempts to confront a full-blown crisis in pediatric cardiac care.

After editing the respected film criticism magazine Take One, Platt spent five years as a producer at CBC Radio in Montreal and later was promoted to various positions at CBC Television Montreal, most notably as Executive Producer of News and Director of Television.

Her wealth of experience at the Montreal studio led her to CBC's national headquarters in Toronto, where she progressed through a succession of key positions, including Director of Regional Television and Co-Funding, Chief of Staff, Network Program Director and finally Executive Director of Arts and Entertainment. In this role, she supervised the development and production of some of Canada’s most popular and award-winning television series, movies and miniseries, including This Hour Has 22 Minutes, The Newsroom, DaVinci’s Inquest, Made in Canada, Twitch City, Wind At My Back, Million Dollar Babies, The Arrow, Net Worth, Butterbox Babies and Little Criminals.

Platt left CBC in 2000, founded her own independent production company, Platt Productions Inc., and acted as a consultant to CBC with regard to the Canadian Television Fund and other policy issues, as well as to several independent companies on re-structuring and strategic planning.

Her first project under her own banner was Betrayed, an MOW that partnered her with Barna-Alper Productions and Mind’s Eye Entertainment. It was inspired by the water contamination tragedies in Walkerton, Ontario, North Battleford, Saskatchewan and elsewhere. Betrayed drew the largest audience of any drama that aired on CBC during the 2002-3 season, and was nominated for three Gemini Awards.

Phyllis Platt has been presented with the WIFT Outstanding Achievement Award and the Anik Award for Journalism, and has served as Jury Chair of the Montreux Television festival, among other honours.

Producer: Brian Dennis

Since landing in the film and television business by accident in 1985, Brian Dennis, CEO of Logan Hill Productions, has produced some of Canada’s quirkiest feature films and most accessible television drama.

His movies have been recognized with numerous awards, from Genies to Geminis, and he’s kept the bar high. From his upcoming project, the White Pine Pictures/CBC one-hour drama series The Border, to Ghostly Encounters, a 39-part series for the specialty channel W-Network, Dennis keeps giving audiences what they want to see.  He continues that tradition with In Dreams.

In Dreams also marks yet another successful association with Executive Producer Phyllis Platt, following in the wake of Ghostly Encounters and two television movies Dennis produced: Open Heart for CBC, nominated for five Gemini Awards, including Best TV Movie; and Shania, also for CBC, a bio-pic about the early life of singer Shania Twain.

 Dennis’s first feature-length movie was the offbeat documentary on honeymoon heaven The Falls, directed by Kevin McMahon (1991: Genie Nomination for Best Feature Length Documentary).

Dennis next produced the Genie award winning Dance Me Outside, directed by Bruce McDonald and based on W.P. Kinsella's collection of short stories. Executive produced by pre-eminent Canadian filmmaker Norman Jewison, Dance Me Outside opened the Toronto International Film Festival, Perspective Canada Series (1994) and was invited to the Tokyo, Moscow International and Sundance Film Festivals.

From 1995 through 1997, Dennis was Series Creator and Producer of the series, The Rez, which he spun off from the film Dance Me Outside. The series received high critical acclaim and led to numerous awards for Dennis, including the Producer of the year, American Indian Film Festival (1998) and the prestigious Canada Award at the 13th annual Gemini Awards.

Dennis produced a second McDonald feature film, Hard Core Logo, which garnered six  1996 Genie Awards nominations including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. The film was invited to many festivals including the prestigious Venice International Film Festival. Hard Core Logo was released in the USA by Quentin Tarantino’s Miramax backed Rolling Thunder in November 1998.

1998 was a busy year for Dennis who produced both the Alliance Atlantis two-hour pilot Justice for the Global Television network (1999 Gemini nomination – Best TV Movie) and the six-part television series Foolish Heart for director Ken Finkleman and the CBC (1999 Gemini nomination – Best Dramatic Series). He then went on to produce the fifth season of the Alliance Atlantis/Global series Traders, two seasons ofthe prime-time legal drama, The Associates, (2001 Gemini Nominee – Best Dramatic Series)for CTV and Alliance Atlantis and the inaugural season of The Eleventh Hour (2003 Gemini Winner – Best Dramatic Series).       

Since 2003, Dennis has produced four television movies: besides Open Heart and Shania, he did the romantic comedy Playing House for CTV and Lifetime: and an adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s The Robber Bride for Working Title-TV, Oxygen in the USA and the CBC (2007 Gemini nomination – Best TV Movie).