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Sunday, March 3, 2013

Moonshine Island

Moonshine Island was an adventure story I’d wanted to make for children’s television for some time. I had come up with a brief outline after having been influenced by a low-budget American series called ‘Peanuts and Popcorn’ – and some modest but well-crafted British fare. I couldn’t figure out why Canadian television couldn’t make live-action stuff for kids that was any good…except maybe the occasional episode of ‘Danger Bay.’ (No, I take that back – it was very predictable and a bit cloying, and the filmmaking too ‘safe’).

Finally, one summer, I bit the bullet and shot Moonshine Island with friends and family and no budget whatsoever – essentially, the cost of the tape - which may have been a whopping 60 dollars. I was fortunate enough to shoot the whole picture on our property in North Bay, which includes two waterfront properties and 75 acres of bush. I wrote the story with the landscape in mind, as well as the boats and canoes I happened to own, and a friend’s seaplane. I’m writing this now as a little journal, because the original shoot back in 1990 was a lot of fun, albeit exhausting, and I don’t want to forget about the great time we had making it.

The film begins with a group of kids around a campfire being told the mysterious story of Tanya and Dexter. Dexter is an exchange student from England who decides to sign up for a canoe excursion in Northern Ontario. On the trip, he meets a native girl called Tanya. They hit it off, and wander into the bush together in search of raspberries, whereupon they get lost and the adventure begins. The kids around the campfire are actually on the same island - but five years later. The idea of a flashback was conceived and shot literally five years after the principal shoot – owing to the fact that I hadn’t made the initial story clear enough, and needed a kind of narration to connect the missing dots. These sequences were shot in Gatineau alongside the Ottawa River. Aside from a contrasting visual feel, it provided more interesting layers and added some welcome twists to the story. The campfire scenes were shot with a Digital Hi8 camera – slightly better quality than the rest of the film which had been shot with an SVHS camera. The campfire is real, but we still lit the beach with a couple of Ianiro 1000 watt quartz lights with blue and amber gels. The light on the kids was made more interesting with the use of handmade ‘flicker sticks.’ Interestingly, there were two sets of three brothers around the fire – the Cochranes, and the Edwards – the latter three being the sons of my film editor - Pat Edwards.

The lead roles of Tanya and Dexter - (a name that now proves to be an unfortunate choice, for obvious reasons) were obviously important to fill, and I already knew and had worked with Jeremy Nasmith who was a treble in St. Simon’s choir, Toronto. Aside from being a talented musician, he was on his way to becoming a lead dancer for Opera Atelier – the growing Toronto company which specializes in authentic performance practices and is now recognized all over the world. At 14 years of age, Jeremy had boundless (no dance pun intended) energy which was crucial as to the physical aspects of the role. There were a few stunts which weren’t easy but had to look effortless and real.

The part of Tanya was originally written for a white-bred city girl but was quickly changed to accommodate Keri-Anne Chartrand – a 16 year old native girl living in North Bay who was recommended to me by my niece Robin (who also did some of the audio work, and appears in one of the canoes). I was so happy when Keri agreed to do this film. She brought to it a naturalness and expressivity that would have been impossible to teach. She could also move like a panther and was tireless when it came to the numerous takes of all the physical stuff she had to perform. The change of character also nicely echoed the native elements already rooted in the story.

Both Keri and Jeremy stayed at the cottage for two weeks – the entire time of the principal shoot – which helped logistics immeasurably. We started early in the morning and worked well into the night; the hours were certainly as long as any Hollywood picture in the making.

I learned just days before the shoot my friend from Ottawa who was playing the main antagonist – a 75 year old bush hermit – had to back out. Since I was already directing and operating the camera, among other things, I decided to play the role…it was either step in or stop production.





   


The hardest part of playing a crazy old hermit was having to leave my make-up on for three or four days. It was too time-consuming to put on and take off each day, especially since I had to rebuild my nose and put liquid latex all over my face. My eyes and the hollow of my cheeks were darkened to appear more gaunt, and I shaved off my real beard in order to glue on a crepe one – scraggly reddish-gray in colour. There is a theatrical enamel for teeth called ‘nicotine’ which I applied like nail polish, and is disgustingly convincing. The ripped clothing, dirt and grime, corncob pipe (acquired from the Norman Jewison film ‘Agnes of God’) and a shotgun, completed my dubious character. I was 30 years old, but had become 45 years older within two hours…sort of like how I felt at the end of the shoot. Since I was now a character in the picture, my friend and fellow tenor from Toronto – Charles Fowler – flew to North Bay just to shoot the scenes that I couldn’t.

Moonshine Island’s storybook feel was enhanced by the use of primary colours; I knew the background was going to be mostly a green canvas, due to the bush, so Tanya and Dexter needed to stand out. Their red and blue T-shirts did the trick and also really suit their characters. Likewise, there are strong, rich colours with the tents near the beginning, and later, a solid yellow boat – one that I got as a kid – which has since gone to powerboat heaven.

In this next scene, Tanya and Dexter wake up in a beautiful, lush green bed of ferns. Just a stone's throw from the cottage, there's a fantastic crop of ferns that covers a wide area next to a large ravine. The establishing shot was taken from the top of a tall ladder, and to follow the kids as they crawled through the ferns (which provides great cover from the hermit) I built a makeshift 'jib arm' out of a 16' plank of wood and attached it to the tripod.  It's also a scene which provides some necessary comic relief: Dexter successfully annoys Tanya enough that she pushes him to the ground, where he finds a raspberry patch - the very reason they went into the bush in the first place. The last shot - a stationary one - took several takes because of timing, head placement (Jeremy coming into frame, without blocking Keri) and her reaction to his line.  Such a simple shot, but ridiculously hard to get right.

I wanted to shoot a portion on Turtle Lake – one lake away – because there was a tall chimney on a tiny island that I wanted to incorporate into the story. It was also an excuse to go on an extended boat trip. So Jeremy, Keri and I packed up the little boat and went for an hour’s ride. I was shocked to find that after several decades, the massive chimney had collapsed. I never knew if it was vandalized or had finally just eroded. I decided on the spot to make up a little segment where Tanya realizes the pile of rubble is a desecrated burial ground, and she could sense something on the island other than ‘that crazy old man’ – alluding to the Indian spirit that is yet to come. I was worried the scene was going to be hokey and patronizing, but as I watched it recently, I found it to be haunting – even moving. The soundtrack (by Lorne Thompson) made it otherworldly, and Tanya’s narrative voiceover – which was recorded later by a girl named Cheryl, sounding much like Keri – had the right mixture of solemnity and allure to pull it off.

Ah yes, the wolf head on a stick. It was my grandmother’s…




(To read the next part - click on 'Moonshine Island - Part II' at the bottom of this page).
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1 comment:

Unknown said...

Filming Moonshine Island was a real adventure. What kid could ask for a better way to spend 2 weeks of a summer? Kevin (Reeves, director) and I sang in the same choir (St. Simon's) as my Dad (Jim Nasmith) and I so when he asked us if we would consider coming up to his cottage to work on Moonshine Island my Dad and I decided that yes, it would be the perfect way to spend 2 weeks of an otherwise lazy summer. One anecdote I particularly remember is this: we were shooting a scene where Dexter(my character) and Tanya(played by Keri-Anne Chartrand) were running away from the crazy hermit I jumped off of a log which it turned out to be a wasps' nest and as Kevin called the end of the shot "Cut!" I felt this intense sting in my right side... a wasp had followed me and stung me! Ouch! I swatted the wasp away, and then we retraced our steps back to the log and came in the long horizontal crack in the log we came face to face with an army of wasps... Yikes!!! We all went frigid and slooooowly backed away one... step... at... a... time... and then run away laughing, "Whew, that was close!"
Good times, good times!

March 4, 2013 at 3:38 PM

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