Les Harris (producer)
Les Harris is a Canadian television producer and filmmaker. Harris co-founded Canamedia Productions with his wife & executive producer, Jane Harris in 1979. He was also the co-founder of the YTV children's cable television network in Canada. Apart from founding Canamedia he also designed and had built a sports car whilst at Sheffield University called a Harmoke. tele By the time of its acquisition by Distribution Access in 2010, the production company had built up a factually-based catalog of more than 1500 titles. Partial filmography. “International Dragging In Olde England”. A half hour 16 mm documentary written, directed and edited by Les Harris on early drag car racing that aired on London Weekend Television in the UK. “Chabot Solo”. Pts1,2&3. Three one hour 16mm documentaries on the history of flight told through the eyes of the world’s oldest aviator at the time of filming, Englishman Charles Chabot. Pt. 1 starts in 1914 with Chabot learning in a Maurice Farnham Longhorn & then a Bleriot and ends with him flying Bristol Fighters & ending up alive but in hospital. Pt2 starts in 1918 and ends in 1939 & includes Chabot failing to win the UK to  Australia air race & failing to convince P&O that mail could go by air. Pt 3 starts in 1939 with Chabot being sent to South Africa to train pilots and then to India where he discovered why all our Mosquitoes were crashing. It ends with Chabot illegally piloting Concorde at Mach 2.3 on a test flight from Gander, Newfoundland to Heathrow. The three 16mm one hour films were researched, written, directed, produced and edited by Les Harris whilst he was in London England before he moved to Toronto, Canada. They are the first examples of the technique he used throughout  his directing career that use no narration and have the subject always look right into the camera lens. The 3 films were all broadcast by BBC TV throughout the UK. They are currently stored at the Museum of Aviation in Ottawa, Canada. Other films for TV directed, written, produced and edited made by Harris include: PADRE PABLO: FIGHTER FOR JUSTICE. A tv one hour doc on Father Harvey Steele, a Canadian Scarboro Foreign Missionary Roman Catholic priest who started the co-op movement in Latin America. Filmed in Panama & the Dominican Republic. Aired on TVO and CBCTV. BY THE SEAT  OF THEIR PANTS. A one hour documentary about the bush pilots of Canada's arctic. Includes the only in depth interview with Marten Hartwell, the pilot who ate the killed British nurse, in order to survive. Harris also produced & was the supervising editor of THREADS OF HOPE, directed by his assistant, Andrew Johnson. Other dramas produced by Harris were: THE KING OF FRIDAY NIGHT, a TV musical adaption commissioned by CBC TV of John Gray's play "Rock'nRoll". It won 7 international awards including a Rockie for best film. ADDERLY, a one hour TV drama series for CBS TV daytime , for which he was the originating producer, and starred Winston Reckert . TAKE OFF, a 26 part half hour children's educational drama, which he produced with Hilary Jones-Farrow in Vancouver & Victoria. B.C.