Financial seeds donated by the public have produced a bumper crop of movie moments for an upstart Canadian production company.
Based in Alberta, writer/director Iain Laird set out to tell a story about agriculture, but also modern society, and use science fiction as a mirror for our current state of social affairs.
He needed two primary storytellers to convey the message in his film The Great Fear. Good scripts attract good actors, even for emerging directors' projects, and Laird's first attracted Gerrick Winston to the lead male role (Winston is a Calgary-based American-Canadian actor known for playing roles like Michael Jackson's brother Tito in the biopic Man In The Mirror, plus roles in shows like Breakout Kings, After The Storm, Hell On Wheels and his own directorial project Desperate).
After that came the casting of Alana Hawley, a veteran of the famed Stratford Festival who has recently been breaking into film. Hawley was born and raised in Prince George where she began her uninterrupted path from local productions as a child to international stage and screen as a young adult. She was excited to play such a meaty role offered by Laird, and get the chance to also be involved in the business side of the project, because completion of the project depends on crowd-sourcing money.
A fundraising campaign on the indiegogo.com website got The Great Fear through its pre-production stages, and now a post-production campaign is underway on kickstarter.com. The amounts needed by the production company was one of the reasons Hawley was so willing to get involved. In a show-biz world where even a modest movie budget can run into the seven figures, this one was asking for $7,500.
"It's a different scale than a large blockbuster kind of film, but there is a lot of heart here," she said. "He made the whole movie on a $10,000 budget. Watch the trailer, it's easy to find on YouTube and on the crowd-sourcing websites. That trailer is a great representation of the film and just shows what people are capable of in this industry."
The reason the budget could be so low, she said, was Laird's passion. Sets, equipment, professional services, etc. were donated or delivered at reduced rates because he was such a strong advocate for a strong story.
For those familiar with the term The Great Fear, it relates to the start of the French Revolution where the hard-working agrarian society of the day started to notice large-scale imbalances of power between themselves and the elite class and their government friends. Rumours abounded. Truth and popular perception were sometimes linked and sometimes detached, but in the end it triggered a massive food-based revolution that spilled into the cities, spilled spectacular amounts of ruling-class blood, and helped establish the modern model for democracy.
The movie is rooted in the same notion, but modernized and archetyped into the life of a struggling farmer, a swirl of odd occurrences and rumours, and the gathering dominance of a powerful agriculture company engaged in genetically modified organism (GMO) food products.
"I'm so proud to be part of this project. Iain is only in his 20s, just a punk kid, but he came out of film school with guns blazing and once he cast me and Gerrick, the whole project took off because those two characters were the key to the whole project. He had the whole vision for how to create the film once he knew who would be in those two roles, and I feel so lucky that I am along for this ride."
While one film project is nearing completion, another just hit the big screen all across Canada. Hawley was also one of the stars of another film shot in Alberta and it flickered into national view one week ago.
"The Valley Below went to TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) and some other festivals. It did great in Toronto; it did great in Vancouver," she said. "The response was very strong, it got a distribution deal out of the festival reception, and it was a big one. It (opened) all across the country at Landmark Cinema theatres (about 50 theatres). The Great Fear is going to try the same journey as well, making its impressions at festivals and hopefully earning a distribution deal that gets it out to the wider world."
The Valley Below was the first feature film from writer/director Kyle Thomas. It is, as described by its production company, "a multi-narrative drama that chronicles the life of a small town in the badlands of Alberta over the course of one year. The film is divided into four sections, each focusing on a different set of characters. The film's intertwining stories combine to render a rich portrait of rural life in central Alberta."
The Valley Below was up for two Canadian Screen Awards from the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television: one for Kris Demeanor, nominated for Best Supporting Actor (that trophy went to John Cusack) and the other for former Smithers musician Dan Mangan and his tune Wants, nominated for Best Original Song (won by Dr. Cabbie for the song Dal Makhani).
It represents two strong independent film experiences for Hawley in her first two feature-length films, after years of working live stages all across Canada.
"For a little girl from Prince George to have her first film go so well, that's a great feeling, and we will see how The Great Fear goes, but it's exciting," she said. "And it's different for me who has focused so much on theatre."
It was never her intent, going into the acting profession, to avoid film but the live theatre work came steadily for her upon her graduation from the University of Alberta's acting program with a Bachelor of Fine Arts. She migrated to Ontario for its larger pool of acting work, found success there, but has now moved back to Alberta.
She has maintained her stage presence there, most recently in the coveted lead role for Venus In Fur at Edmonton's Citadel Theatre where, "as the multidimensional Vanda, the elegant Hawley is a knockout, and a riot," said the Edmonton Journal in its show review.
But in Alberta, where film is an active part of the creative landscape, she also broke through the celluloid curtain.
"The actual basis of acting is the same for film and TV but the craft is different: same heart but different art," she said. "Theatre has been so great, but it's wonderful to find another facet to the craft I'm just getting to explore, and I feel like I'm right back in acting school."
She said she also got a lot of calls and emails after a brief appearance in another project with national scope. She portrayed a young mom on a shopping trip in a commercial for Walmart. It was only 30 seconds, she didn't speak, but family and friends recognized her trademark sunny smile.
"A commercial is a whole other kind of acting. It helps me pay for my theatre habit," she said with a laugh.
Hawley got her initial acting schooling under the childhood tutelage of Prince George speech arts guru Debbie McGladdery (now in Penticton). Hawley was a standout in school drama and the Prince George and District Speech Arts and Drama Festival each year.
When that event is held this spring, she returns that favour, coming back as an adjudicator.
"Doing that, and being with Theatre North West (she was in the TNW production of Joyful Noise in late 2012), it's all like the circle of life," she said.
The festival happens April 15-21.
