It’s been 17 years since Prince George has been the location of a major movie production.
Local filmmaker Norm Coyne is doing what he can to try to end that dry spell.
The city was the backdrop for three movies - Double Jeopardy (1998), Reindeer Games (1999) and, most recently, the Stephen King science fiction Dreamcatcher (2003) and Prince George businesses reaped the rewards of millions of dollars of investment that came with each of those productions.
In an effort to make Prince George more attractive to filmmakers and entice them to set up for weeks of shooting and the money that brings local hotels, restaurants and stores, Coyne and his Barker Street Cinema film production company is creating a web-based series which asks professional directors, producers and actors for their advice. The responses the guest celebrities offered will be released as a five-episode series - Northern Lights, Camera, Action.
Coyne is the founding director of Northern FanCon, an annual convention/entertainment expo which brings movie, TV and cosplay stars to Prince George for a weekend gathering. Normally held in May at CN Centre, the seventh annual event was postponed to 2021 due to COVID. During last year’s Northern FanCon Coyne and his Barker Street Cinema production company interviewed the celebrity guests who provide the content for Northern Lights, Camera, Action.
At the end of the interview each guest was asked two questions – firstly, what advice would you give for an actor or filmmaker in a distance location like Prince George trying to break into the industry? And, what advice would you have for a distance location like Prince George trying to attract productions to the city?
“There were enough differences and at least one nugget in their answers that we could theme them into five episodes,” Coyne said. “We will be looking at the advice given to us, building that into an action plan and have some kind of deliverable at the end of every episode as a result of executing the action plan.”
The first episode focuses on Emmy-award-winning, Oscar-nominated actor Edward James Olmos (Miami Vice, Battlestar Gallactica) and the commitment needed to attract major players willing to fund projects. Episode 2 features director Rachel Talalay (Tank Girl, Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare, Doctor Who) and her advice on lining up skilled local talent to work on film crews. Coyne is in the process of building a web-based registry which identifies those people and the equipment they have. The registry also catalogs local locations and what they have to offer.
Michale Uslan, executive producer of Batman movies, is the interview subject for Episode 3. In it he talks about cost-cutting incentives such as tax credits and discounts from local businesses to entice film producers to come to Prince George. The fourth episode features Writer’s Guild award-winning screenwriter Marc Bernardin (Castle Rock, Carnival Row), who highlights the need to connect with powerful industry players in Vancouver, Toronto and Los Angeles to make things happen in northern B.C.
Documentarian Skye Borgman, who produced the Netflix true crime hit Abducted in Plain Sight, about a girl kidnapped twice by the same culprit, wraps up the Northern Lights, Camera, Action with her advice on how to promote projects independently to a wide audience.
In May, Coyne was one of 100 Canadian filmmakers selected for the Netflix-Banff Diversity of Voices fellowship. The professional development program is set up to help aspiring directors and producers connect with high-level executives working for such media platforms such as Vice Canada, Bell Media and History Channel and find out what they are looking for in new content .
“The prize for the fellowship is the connections you make,” said Coyne. “You get private meetings but none of that is happening this year because of COVID, so they’ve gone virtual.
“I’ve been doing all these meetings on Zoom and I’ve learned more in the last two months than I’ve learned in the last three years. You learn about the inner workings of the industry and how to prepare for a pitch and how to be a better filmmaker all around. Just being in those conversations, you pick up things you never thought of and it has my creative juices working overload.”
