Heartache

Director/writer/producer: Greg Wild – Diary by: Joanne Morgan

March 1990: University of British Columbia film student Greg Wild is trying to make a short film.

Described as a ‘country and western musical, melodrama, iconoclastic, satirical and scathing comment on the conservative Christian right wing,’ it’s a film about bigots, victims, racism, misogyny, oppression, abortion, molestation, women in employment and sexual guilt. Surprisingly, none of the other film students are too keen on helping him. Says one of his peers, ‘What, another one of those?’

Undeterred, Wild begins writing the script. The film is intended to be 20 minutes. During his second year in film school while working on his first film, Meat Market, Wild had met rock and roll songwriter/composer Barbara Chamberlin who had played in the original Covergirls rock band. He talks with Chamberlin about scoring the film and in the process decides to turn it into a musical.

September to October 1990: Wild begins preproduction with a filmmaker’s most essential tool – a visa card with a high limit and a good credit rating.

They start spending without a budget. Wild’s naive enthusiasm and lack of industry experience entices many people to contribute their time and expertise. To cut corners, Wild takes on the production design as well and hires a drag queen, Muffy La Beaver, to do costumes. Wild wants 17 ‘intense’ costumes made specifically for the film, with a distinct look – ‘a camp Dolly Parton from Hell.’

Wild continues to run his custom carpentry business by day, saving his money while begging and borrowing chunks of cash for the film from friends and family.

November 1990: The shooting script is ready to go.

Casting director Janet Morris-Reade puts out an open casting call to find the lead, Wynona Sue Turnpike. No luck. Wild casts real drag queens with comedic sense and ‘good looks’ in supporting roles.

December 1990: The money starts flooding out. Brian Pearson, his cinematographer, gives Wild his equipment wish list. Wild starts to realize the production is going to cost a lot more than he had expected and that maybe he’s in over his head. He tries to hide that fact, fearing people will lose confidence in him. He meets another drag queen who can do wig design; he wants big, big, big hair.

Four weeks prior to shooting, Wild hears through the grapevine that Muffy has been seen all over town in these wild new outfits. Wild goes to check on how his costumes are coming along. The big frothy dresses he had commissioned have been pared down to shifts, with massive chunks of the fabric hanging as dresses in Muffy’s size in the closet. He axes Muffy and gathers up the remaining bolts of fabric.

Wild makes a Mayday call to costume designer Druh Ireland (The Grocer’s Wife). She’s away on holidays till Jan. 2, and they start shooting on the 16th.

Jan. 2, 1991: Ireland agrees to take the job. Miraculously, in two weeks she has created an extravaganza of excess, just what Wild had in mind.

dop Pearson is pulling the crew together and preparing equipment lists full of idealistic requests for his first feature film – a peewee dolly, star crane, etc. Wild panics. He knows now he’s in way over his head.

He finds a studio warehouse an hour’s drive south of Vancouver. Whoops, he forgets filming in this cavernous space means looping all the dialogue, and cast and crew, after having put in 18-hour days, will have to make the long drive back to town.

Still no Wynona Sue.

Chamberlin brings in some music for approval. Even though country and western is not her usual shtick, Wild is blown away. They start recording the songs in someone’s basement with loaned equipment. Wild borrows yet another $500.

Coming down to the wire he desperately continues his search for Wynona Sue. He wants her to be fortyish, haggard and beaten by life. He goes to hear Chamberlin’s rock band playing in a downtown bar. He’s mesmerized. Here’s his Wynona Sue right under his nose – a bit younger and more upbeat than he had intended – but absolutely ‘the smartest thing that ever happened to this film.’

Jan. 16, 1991: Production begins. They’re getting incredible deals on equipment from suppliers because it’s the middle of winter. But he still hasn’t figured out how to feed 25 people every day for the next month. His sister Donna, who has already helped finance the film, generously offers to cook, and starts baking casseroles from a rented rv. Drag queens milling about the rv cause a stir in the normally staid rural neighborhood of Cloverdale.

They shoot all day, tear down in the evening, and Wild builds the sets by night. Never knowing what the sets will look like until the next day, Wild has no time to prepare shot lists.

First ad and continuity Pat Barry keeps the show running. In an effort to keep the overworked and underpaid cast and crew happy, Wild plies them with beer. The crew is bombed for most of the shoot. One week into the production, Wild hasn’t showered, slept or shaved for days, but they’ve got ‘amazing footage.’ Even after 22-hour days, cast and crew are staying to watch the rushes.

Jan. 31, 1991: Wild’s father dies.

Devastated by the news, Wild and his sister shut down production to attend to funeral arrangements.

Feb. 15, 1991: They resume production for another two weeks, but it means Wild has to rent the studio for a month. The bills are piling up.

March 1, 1991: The last, long complicated day of filming, the crew gathers to watch the footage. It’s better than they’d ever imagined. But they’ve spent $30,000 and the chances of retrieving the money are slim unless they can extend it into a feature film.

April 1991 to January 1992: Wild goes back into development, adding more ‘episodes’ to the screenplay.

They pull together more financing and assemble a larger crew in a bigger studio in Burnaby, b.c. What was supposed to be six months turns into almost a year.

Jan. 15, 1992: Back in production. The crew remains supportive and loyal and goes on percentage deferrals to get the picture made. Donna’s defrosting more casseroles. Everyone’s happy except the drag queens. The gals cop an attitude and try to convince everyone to walk off the set in a demand for more pay.

Wild is still borrowing from family and friends. With no extra cash to pay for completion or liability insurance, Wild is sleeping on the sets and kneeling in prayer during the scenes where a 70-year-old woman is up in a Flying Nun harness with no net for two days.

Two days left to finish and B.C. Hydro busts the production for having an illegal electrical tie-in into the studio. Big fines. Up rolls the budget.

February 1992: Production wraps.

March 1992: Reginald Dean Harkema, who had co-edited The Grocer’s Wife with John Pozer, signs on. They buy a used 16mm Steenbeck. Wild wants lots of cel animation in the film but can’t afford an animator, so he does the animation himself. ubc generously allows him to use its animation equipment for the next year and a half even though no one at the university has seen his screenplay.

February 1993: Wild and Harkema take the film to l.a. Harkema wants to get a critique from a friend and mentor who cuts for director Joel Schumacher and under whom he had apprenticed on Cousins. Highway of Heartache is living up to its name. It’s running two hours and 10 minutes and it isn’t working; it’s 35 minutes too long. After a screening, Wild is desolate, convinced he’s wasted the last three years of his life and about $150,000.

Harkema and Wild stay up for 24 hours straight re-editing the film down to 86 minutes.

October 1993: Wild completes the animation and Harkema makes his final cut. They’re excited about the results.

December 1993: Hal Beckett at Audio Design Studio agrees to give the film a rare deal – half the money up-front and half after distribution.

January 1994: Chamberlin arrives with the score completed.

Feb. 1, 1994: At last the film is finished.

Wild, who has financed the film entirely on his own, decides to relent and make one pitch for government funding, from the National Film Board. George Johnson at the nfb in Vancouver says he likes the film and says he’ll help push for a blowup to 35mm through the nfb’s technical assistance program in Montreal.

Mid-July 1994: Wild, still doing carpentry to pay the bills, gets a call from the Toronto Film Festival – Highway of Heartache is in.

Montreal calls – he’s in there too.

New York calls – he’s one of only six Canadian films accepted to the New York Independent Film Market.

Johnson from the nfb calls back to say the deal for a 35mm blowup is dead and he’s leaving on vacation. He suggests Wild get assistance himself through a distributor.

August 1994: No distribution deal, no blowup and deep in debt, Wild is back pounding nails and selling off his big, big, big wig collection scrounging for cash.

September 1994: Highway of Heartache premiers at the Toronto International Film Festival.