Sienna Films: The difficulties of 'Combat'

'Combat Hospital'When ABC nabbed Kandahar-set medical procedural "Combat Hospital" at the begining of 2011 and asked for summer time delivery, Sienna Films' Jennifer Kawaja and Julia Sereny faced jason bourne. "We'd no writing room, no cast, no set, no production team," recalls Kawaja, who's created indie features (Sundance gamers "New Waterford Girl" and "How She Move"), Canadian telefilms (Gemini-winning "One Dead Indian") and provocative docus with Sereny for 25 years.Sienna boarded "Combat" following the show's designers Jinder Oujla-Chalmers and Douglas Steinberg pitched the idea to Global TV, which required it to Sienna. Show was created with Oujla-Chambers and Steinberg in 2008. The timing was perfect. "We'd never centered on TV but, because the marketplace transformed, we had how brave pay as well as network TV had become and began creating a slate," Kawaja states.Extensive story research started as Sienna -- well experienced in co-production financing -- go about constructing the 13-parter like a co-production with fellow executives from U.K's Artists Studio and Lookout Point.Three several weeks after ABC's greenlight (The new sony Pictures Worldwide Purchases has privileges outdoors The United States), showrunner Daniel Petrie Junior. was leading his troops, Elias Koteas and Deborah Kara Unger were in costume and cameras were moving on the huge indoor/outside set (in line with the real NATO Role 3 hospital Canadians went 2006-10). The show's June preem hit a couple million-plus Canadian aud, and grew to become a rankings champion for Canada's network Global, posting a typical 1.86 million audiences per episode.Repped by 3 Arts' Barbara Stein, Sienna is really a minority producer on Julian Guys-scripted small "Titanic" and it has a complete development slate: about the TV side, the 12-part worldwide co-production "The Heretics" about the feature front, Randall Cole and Elyse Friedman's "A Vibrant Tragic Factor," an adaptation of Karen Connelly's Burma-set novel "The Lizard Cage" along with a comedy from "New Waterford Girl" scribe Trisha Seafood. Contact the range newsroom at news@variety.com