Kimberley couple making it in the movie business
Do-it-yourself feature film will preview at Roxy
By Scott Woodhouse Express Staff

Ord is a self-confessed dreamer, but she works hard to make her dreams come true. The Kimberley resident has worked in the Canadian film industry for 20 years, and for the last 10 has been trying to get a feature project off the ground.

The film-making business in Canada is a small - if not closed - shop. It's the same old Catch-22, You can't raise the funds for a feature film unless you've already done one. But how can you do one if you can't raise the money.

Ord and her husband writer/actor Matt John Evans came up with their own solution: The Do It Yourself Feature Film.

"We originally planned to make the film on a low-low budget," said Ord. "The plan was to shoot locally with our own camera equipment, using our local actor friends."

But fate intervened in the form of a friend from down east, who told Wendy and Matt about New Brunswick Film, a provincial government agency mandated to establish an economically viable film industry in the province, through loans, equity investment and tax breaks.

Almost overnight, they went from phoning friends from the Owen Sound Little Theatre to auditioning some of Canada's top actors.

The low-low budget home movie was moving into the realm of a full-blown feature film. They decided they may as well "go big or go home." They mortgaged their house and provided the necessary front money to get New Brunswick Film involved. An excellent script allowed them to approach some big names in the Canadian entertainment industry and Do It Yourself Films was born.

The script is based on a play Evans wrote 10 years ago and a short film Ord wrote six years ago. They cleverly crafted the two themes together into a story that combines the magical world of childhood innocence within an adult world of jealously, betrayal and murder. The story centres around Helen, played by Melanie Doane, as a beautiful small-town girl looking for true love, a better life for her daughter, and a trip to Florida.

Doane is better-known for her career as a Juno Award-winning international recording artist. Her songs Adam's Rib and Shakespearean Fish topped the charts last year. "We were looking for a star we could afford,," said Ord.

"We were looking for a musician who could carry the role of Helen. This may have been her first film, but she was fantastic. Not only did she do the part, she did it extraordinarily well."

Along with pop star Doane, they got her husband veteran writer/director/performer Ted Dykstra to play the love interest, Clive. Dykstra is best known for his international hit 2 pianos 4 hands. He has also performed leading roles in every major theatre in Canada, as well as New York and London's West End.

"Getting Michael Riley (aka Brent Parker of the hit TV show Power Play) was a real coup," added Ord. "He's the top Canadian actor in that age range. We were lucky, he really liked the script and came on board for a very small amount of money."

Riley is a two-time Gemini award-winner who's credits include Amistad, Mustard Bath, and God Spoke. He plays Helen's bad-ass boyfriend and the town's "most-wanted."

Evans rounds out the cast as Jimmy, a Forrest Gump meets Gomer Pyle type of character.

"I was supposed to play a smaller part, but auditions weren't going well so I begged Wendy to let me audition," he said. "It helps when you're married to the director.."

But nepotism didn't play a role in his getting the part. Evans has made a name for himself on stage and was awarded his third Best Actor Award at the Western Ontario Drama Festival for his portrayal of Lewis in the Owen Sound Little Theatre's production of "Cosi" written by Australian Louis Nowra. In 2000, he won Best Actor award for the role of Doug in "Last Real Summer" by Warren Graves, in 1998, Best Actor Award as Le Gentil in "Transit of Venus" by Maureen Hunter and in 1997, a Best Supporting Actor award for "The Perils of Persephone".

Based in Kimberly, Matt has performed in numerous live theatre productions at the Roxy Theatre. He has appeared in the movie "Legend of Gatorface" and in the TV Series "Highlander the Raven" and "Daring and Grace".

The role of the town's idiot-savant fry-cook and auto mechanic was a dream part for a character actor like Evans. "It's a good opportunity for me," he said. "I just started acting five years ago."

With the cast in place, Ord headed off to New Brunswick to start filming. Since the original script was set in small-town Ontario, they had to make significant changes once the location switched to the east coast.

"We were madly rewriting the script at night, and shooting during the day," said Ord. "But it worked out quite well. The great scenery along the Bay of Fundy provided some fantastic opportunities for filming and we were able to work in the magical element of the ocean and the tides."

Shooting began in June and took only 18 days.

"When you're on a budget as small as ours, you break a lot of records," said Ord, who earns her bread and butter directing series television for CBC, CTV, Global and specialty channels YTV Vision TV. She has also made a number of short films, including " Torrents" which was shot on Georgian Bay and featured Eric McCormick, who now stars in the television series Will and Grace. Torrents was selected for the Los Angeles International Film Festival and another short film, Life of the Party, which was written by Evans, was nominated for the Best Educational Drama in Canada.

"We were shooting about 10 minutes of screen time a day. It doesn't sound like it, but that is a lot."

"Most big budget movies might film one minute of screen time in one day of shooting," she added. "Lets put it this way: About one minute of Gladiator screen time would cost more to shoot than the entire budget for our film."

"But when you're doing all the work yourself, and paying for it with your VISA and Mastercard, you don't have a choice. You have to work quickly."

Ord spent July and August labouring over the post production, giving the film a "more expensive look" than its meagre budget belies. "Most Canadian films cost around two to three million dollars and ours looks comparable."

Their work received a boost when it was invited to the Atlantic Film Festival in September.

"We showed the rough cut and it did very well. It received a standing ovation and was the second film at the festival to sell out," she said. "It was a bit of a rush though.... the night before its first showing at the festival we were madly putting the credits in."

But there's a lot more to the movie business than "lights, camera, action," and picking up awards. In fact, that's the fun part. The real work comes later, when you have to sell the film so the bank doesn't foreclose on your mortgage.

"That's what we're trying to do right now, sell the film to pay the bills," she said. "I don't know if we'll ever recoup the money we invested, but then that was never the goal. It was a forward career move so I can make another film - hopefully one that already has funding."

This week, Ord is back in Halifax, putting the finishing touches on the film for a special preview screening on April 8th at 4 p.m. at Owen Sound's Roxy Theatre.

And she's spending every spare minute trying to interest television networks and video distributors in the movie.

"I'm on the phone a lot," she said. "We've had some success - I've sold it to the Superchannel and The Movie Network."

It's a tough sell and the hardest part, according to Ord, is getting the powers that be just to watch the film. But she's working on them.

"I tell them, never underestimate the power of a pop star to sell a film," she said referring to Doane's film debut. The film also features music by Doane, Ashley MacIsaac, Creighton Doane and Mary Jane Lamond.

And while Ord continues to promote their picture. Evans has landed a role in Theatre Collingwood's upcoming summer season production of "Nurse Jane Goes to Hawaii" which will be performed on Theatre Collingwood's stage August 14-25, 2001.

"It's been an adventure," said Ord, describing the Do It Yourself Feature Film. "Making it was a lot easier than selling it."