Six men, two dories and the North Atlantic Why it’s an apt analogy for Atlantic Canada’s film industry and its place on the global stage. 52 | Atlantic Business Magazine | September/October 2012 By Stephen Kimber dawn in the nowhere It’s middle of the Atlantic ocean. How many days have they been drifting out here? Dickie – at 17, the youngest crew member – is supposed to be keeping watch. But he’s asleep, sprawled out in the bow of one of the two dories, his head lolling over the gunwhale. He wakes with a guilty start, stares, tries to make sense of the endless nothingness of dark-blue sea and flat grey sky. Wait! What’s that? On the horizon. A speck? Another vessel? A mirage? He looks back into his dory where his father, Merv, and Pete, the harpooner, are curled up asleep, and then across to the other dory where Gerald, Mannie and Gib are sleeping too. Finally, he decides. He reaches out, whispers, “Pete… Pete.” Pete wakes, growls: “What?” Dickie can only point. Pete sees what Dickie sees. He throws off his blanket, jumps to his feet. “There’s a boat,” he says, then louder, as if convincing himself. “There’s a boat. THERE’S A BOAT!” He’s screaming now, rousing the others. Gerald, the captain, immediately assumes command, scrambling to find the fog horn he’d rescued when their fishing boat sank. He blows a blast. Then another. The rest of the men grab for the oars. Mannie, the first mate, struggles to bring order to their chaos. “Heave,” he orders, “heave—” Wait a minute?… Isn’t Mannie … an actor … the one who plays the creepy politician running for mayor in that American TV series The Killing? Billy Campbell? On the set of The Disappeared: Director of photography Christopher Porter with two cameras rolling and using a pizza box for a light reflector. Online extras: atlanticbusinessmagazine.com | 53 Seventeen members of The Disappeared’s cast and crew crowded together on the floating barge that is their open-air control room/viewing platform. Photo: Mike Tompkins When we pull back – just like in a movie the harbour at Lunenburg, Nova Scotia) the production office, and sometime set, in because this is a movie – we see what we seas are definitely getting rougher. Water their apartment over a pornographic book didn’t notice before. There are two camera sloshes over the low-to-the-water decking. store in downtown Halifax. operators squeezed into the stern of each The danger is probably less than it seems. Salter Street Films – named after the bobbing dory, 16 mm cameras on their Three Zodiacs, two with safety divers and street where that first office was located – shoulders, filming the six actors playing another with a standby camera, buzz just quickly became a key cornerstone of the out this scene. out of camera range. Beyond them is the Nova Scotia independent film and television We are in the middle of filming The “back lot”: two 42-ft. Cape Island boats production industry, responsible for Disappeared, a low-budget indie feature filled with more gear as well as hair, make- programming as diverse as Life with Billy, about the aftermath of the sinking of a up and wardrobe staff. a reality-inspired movie about a wife who swordfishing boat. Off in the distance toward Lunenburg, a kills her abusive husband, and Codco, the “Six men, two dories and the North shuttle boat chugs out to the “set.” During satirical sketch comedy show that eventually Atlantic,” is the shorthand Shandi Mitchell, the day, this vessel plies the 40-minutes morphed into the long running This Hour the film’s writer and director, uses to between on-shore production headquarters Has 22 Minutes. Salter Street also produced describe her first feature film. and the filming location frequently, Lexx, a German-Canadian co-produced If we pull our own lens/eye back still ferrying meals, craft services and gear for sci-fi series that ran for four seasons, and further, we see a purpose-built wooden raft cast and crew. On this trip, it’s carrying Bowling for Columbine, American Michael tethered to the sea bottom. The raft – a 16- Ralph Holt, one of the producers, and a Moore’s acerbic anti-gun film that not only by-20 ft. open-air control room and filming second assistant director who is bringing won an Oscar but also earned more than platform – is piled high with camera gear the call sheet with tomorrow’s shooting $60 million, making it, at the time, the and crammed with people: Mitchell, an schedule. highest grossing documentary of all time. assistant director, two camera teams, crew It takes a lot of real life to create the In 2001, Toronto-based Alliance Atlantis from props and continuity, a grip, even a illusion of film. bought Salter Street for $82.3-million, only safety diver. Just in case. Welcome to the film business, Atlantic to close its Halifax office three years later. At this moment, everyone is less Canadian style. A year after that, Michael Donovan and concerned whether the six men in the another former Salter Street executive dories will finally catch that illusory vessel opened Halifax Film, now DHX Media, on the horizon and more worried whether Although the first feature film ever a publicly traded, vertically integrated they will make their shooting schedule. made in Canada was shot in Nova Scotia entertainment company responsible for 40 There’s less than half an hour remaining in 1913 (Evangeline, based on Longfellow’s television titles and eight children’s series. in their 12-hour day, and they’re losing epic poem), Atlantic Canada’s film industry Salter/DHX is far from Halifax’s – or light. And while we’re not really in the didn’t really become established until Atlantic Canada’s – only industry success middle of the ocean (turn and you’ll see in the early 1980s when two brothers, Paul story. Today, the TV and film industry in the distance Cross Island and the mouth of and Michael Donovan, set up their first Atlantic Canada has become a major source 54 | Atlantic Business Magazine | September/October 2012 of economic activity and employment, generating the equivalent of 3,600 full- time jobs. Trailer Park Boys, for example, the cult Canadian television mockumentary series about friends, drugs and life in a trailer park, ran for seven seasons on Canada’s Showcase channel, sold internationally and has spawned two top-grossing Canadian feature films with a third likely on the way. That second film, 2009’s Countdown to Liquor Day, took in $1.32 million at the box office during its first weekend and went on to gross more than $3 million during its theatrical release, winning Telefilm Canada’s 2009 Golden Box Office Award for commercial success. Chester, N.S.’s Big Motion Pictures, which produced two “wildly successful” mini-series about the life of Pierre Trudeau as well as Black Harbour, a drama series that ran for three seasons on CBC, is currently co-producing Haven, a $27-million American sci-fi series now in its third season. Close to a third of its budget gets spent in Nova Scotia. Thanks to its look-alike New England towns and scenic and historic backdrops – not to mention its experienced crews – Nova Scotia has also become a mecca for such “guest”productions: everything from big-budget Holywood epics like The Scarlet Letter and parts of Titanic to American TV dramas like Tom Selleck’s long-running detective vehicle, Jessie Stone, to movies of the week (MOWs). Most choose to film here primarily because it’s been cheaper, thanks to the formerly low Canadian dollar and attractive tax credits that help offset production costs. Jessie Stone, for example, has qualified for $3.9 million in tax credits since 2004 because it employs Nova Scotia actors and crew. According to Film Nova Scotia, the province’s industry-boosting and investing agency, Halifax is now the fourth largest production centre in Canada behind Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal. In 2011-12, Nova Scotia productions – four indigenous feature films, 14 documentaries, 12 drama series, five lifestyle series, five animation series and one new media production, The film and television industry in Atlantic Canada is touted as a major source of economic activity and employment, generating 3,600 full-time jobs annually. Among the most successful projects are (starting at top, going clockwise): 1. not to forget eight “guest” productions – This Hour Has 22 Minutes, now entering its 19th season on CBC. Cast members, left to right: Gavin Crawford, Geri Hall, generated $115 million for the economy. Mark Critch, Cathy Jones and Shaun Majumder. 2. CODCO, a popular sketch comedy series that aired on CBC from 1987 Across the Northumberland Strait, the to 1992. Left to right: Cathy Jones, Andy Jones, Greg Malone, Mary Walsh and Tommy Sexton; photo by Chris Reardon. Photo courtesy of Memorial University’s Centre for Newfoundland Studies Archives (Coll-121, 11.50), reproduced by story is equally upbeat. The Newfoundland permission of CODCO. 3. The Trailer Park Boys, a mockumentary t.v. series about fictional trailer park residents Ricky, and Labrador Film Development Corporation Julian and Bubbles, aired from 2001 to 2007. It has since found new life on the big screen. 4. Republic of Doyle is the largest original television series ever produced in Newfoundland. Shown here is the show’s star/writer/executive boasts that for every dollar it’s invested in producer Allan Hawco, who plays the character of erstwhile private investigator Jake Doyle.