The inspiration for a potential upcoming CBS comedy pilot, Life Lessons, was a young camper from Wahanowin, a Jewish overnight camp in Ontario. Dave Keystone was the program director at Wahanowin in 2014, when he struck up an unlikely friendship with young Kai Axelrad.
“He (was) really beyond his years for a 10 year old,” said Keystone. “If you say, ‘Hey, how is your day,’ he’d be like, ‘Well, you know, cabin dynamics have been going OK and I think our counsellors really have a handle on how to engage their campers.’ ”
So Keystone got to talking with Axelrad and realized there was value in looking at adult problems from a child’s perspective. That’s how he and co-creator and director Nolan Sarner got the idea to make Kids On, an online show that went viral in which Keystone asks kids for dating and relationship advice. If CBS picks up Life Lessons, which is based on Kids On, it will be a show about a downtrodden man who finds advice and friendship in a class of first graders.
CBC also took notice of Kids On and decided to make its own version. In Small Talk, also directed by Sarner, Keystone asks kids about their thoughts on a range of issues, from friendship to fears. It was designed for an audience of other children.
“I think Small Talk is an amazing show. I think the kids are amazing. I think it’s shot beautifully. I think it’s a really wonderful take on talking to kids. And so I love it,” said Keystone.
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Keystone won the 2018 Canadian Screen Award for Best Host of a Web Program for season 1 of Small Talk. He also took home two statues at the 2018 International Academy of Web Television Awards – for best host and best prerecorded hosted program – both for his YouTube talk show, Who We Are.
In that show, Keystone sits down with people who have compelling stories to share, such as a woman who contracted HIV and became pregnant following a weekend fling and decided to keep the baby (who is now a healthy boy approaching adolescence). Keystone produces the show and funds it out of his own pocket, calling it his passion project.
“These people are sharing really personal, important stories and the intention is to help people who might be in similar situations,” said Keystone. “People respect and appreciate other people sharing their stories, and stories are super powerful … it makes me really happy that conversations like that just resonate with people regardless of how fancy it is, or big budget.”
Marnie Sugarman Adler is the senior director of development and production for unscripted television at Entertainment One. She first hired Keystone back in 2014 to host a children’s food show called Cook’d and she said that he is intoxicating to be around because of his positive energy.
“The second you’re in the same room as him, you immediately connect with him. He finds a way to connect with anybody, in any situation, of any age, with any background. It doesn’t matter if you’re five, 35, 55, 75, he can find a way to have a conversation with you and be engaged, really genuinely engaged,” she said.
Keystone will continue with his current shows, but he also has something new in the works. He and his friend, Dylan Shoychet, have just launched a new company called Keepsake Video Inc., which creates high-quality profile-style videos of people, in order to introduce them to, and share their stories with, future generations of family and friends.
There’s a common thread that ties together everything Keystone creates.
“I once heard Oprah Winfrey in an interview say that … her purpose was to create intention-based purposeful programming and that she was trying to heighten social consciousness,” he said. “I make that the mantra behind every project that I do.”