– Director/writer: John L’Ecuyer

– Producer: Sandra Cunningham

– Executive producers: Atom Egoyan, Patricia Rozema

– Diary by: Steven Westren

Spring 1994: Writer/director John L’Ecuyer has finished his second year as a student at Ryerson Polytechnic University. A recovered heroin addict, L’Ecuyer makes the short film Use Once and Destroy based on his harrowing experience, and is now ready to explore the theme as a feature. Inspired by the brutal honesty of Jim Carroll’s writing, he gets to work on the screenplay, Curtis’s Charm, as well as two other scripts – working on each as the mood strikes him.

As well, he directs some segments of Nickelodeon’s Video Pen Pals, making just enough money to survive on for the next few months.

Fall 1994: All three scripts are completed in less than two months. L’Ecuyer submits Curtis’s Charm to the granting juries. The Canada, Ontario and Toronto Arts Councils all eagerly ante up funds, calling the script one of the best they’ve ever seen. ‘They wanted to know why I hadn’t asked for more money,’ L’Ecuyer sheepishly admits.

He suddenly finds himself fielding calls from independent filmmakers Atom Egoyan and Patricia Rozema, who are so impressed they vow to help him get this movie made, and jump aboard as executive producers.

‘Atom was very supportive of the first draft, and expected that it might take me about three years to polish it,’ says L’Ecuyer.

But after another few drafts, everyone who reads the script agrees that it’s ready, and the decision is made to go ahead.

January 1995: Sandra Cunningham is recommended to L’Ecuyer. Associate producer on Rozema’s When Night is Falling and production manager on Egoyan’s Exotica, Cunningham is looking for a special project with which to make her producing debut. She reads the script, screens Use Once and Destroy, and immediately agrees to come aboard. ‘It was such a great opportunity, I couldn’t turn it down.’

They decide to shoot in April. Cunningham says, ‘The script was finessed, ready to go – and I wanted to act fast.’

More money is raised privately, and Silva Basmajian and Gerry Flahive of the National Film Board offer space, support service and encouragement. No other major funding is applied for. ‘We didn’t want the six- to nine-month delay.’

A small crew of 20 is assembled, coming on as investors through the cipip arrangement. Despite the deferrals and minimal wages, no crew or creative positions are working upgrades, and dozens are calling to volunteer for the project. ‘I actually had to turn people down. Everyone who worked on this film passionately wanted to be a part of it.’

The promise seen in the script flowers during casting. Actor Maurice Dean Wint’s audition for the role of Curtis is so powerful and brilliant, and so unexpectedly perfect, L’Ecuyer immediately asks him to leave the room. ‘I was overwhelmed.’

Callum Keith Rennie is hired for the other lead role of Jim without even a reading. ‘We couldn’t afford to fly him in from Vancouver for the auditions, but we just knew he was right for the part.’ Other major roles go to Rachael Crawford and Barbara Barnes-Hopkins.

March 1995: dop Harald Bachmann is signed on, and because of the huge amount of exterior, hand-held camera work required by the script, immediately starts a training program at the gym.

Meanwhile, L’Ecuyer and the cast start two and a half weeks of rehearsals, ‘But don’t tell anyone’s agent that.’ The script is intensively worked overhardly a word is changed.

April 1995: Curtis’s Charm shoots on black-and-white 16mm for approximately five, six-day weeks, with no overtime. ‘People were going home at seven o’clock.’ Bachmann’s work is so solid, he’s dubbed The Human Stedicam.

Oddly, there are none of the typical disasters that befall most lower budget shoots. ‘We were going so fast, there was no time for bad news.’

Incredibly, for the first time in filmmaking history, there aren’t even any complaints about the craft service. Everyone loves the street-smart, raw authenticity of the show, enthusiasm builds, and the crew are calling in favors like crazy. The band, The Headstones, who have a small part in the film, even offer the production the use of their rock ‘n’ roll tour bus.

And through some serendipitous alignment of planets, the film is chosen to be part of the new Avid system pilot and training project.

Summer 1995: L’Ecuyer and Craig Webster cut on Avid at the nfb in Toronto. Because of the entirely digital nature of the process, dialogue and effects editing is worked on prior to picture lock, saving weeks.

‘Proper deals’ are worked out with labs and facilities.

Composer Mark Korven (I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing) is brought on to do the music, a weird amalgam of hip hop, ’60s, ’70s, ’80s and ’90s sounds. He plays most of the 20 instruments on the pieces himself, and finds working on Curtis’s Charm ‘a hugely freeing process.’

Film festival programmers are invited in to watch an Avid projection of a near-finished version of the film without all the scratches, squiggles, and jumpiness inherent in a work print, and go away enthralled.

For a down-and-dirty street film, the post-production is very high tech, and very fast.

Fall 1995: Curtis’s Charm is invited to the Toronto International Film Festival. Cunningham is hoping for screenings at all the major Canadian festivals, as well as Berlin and Sundance, and the distributor courtship has begun.

Already word of mouth is strong, and Cunningham has fielded calls from major Canadian and u.s. companies.

Use Once and Destroy is also invited to the Toronto festival. Named after the phrase that appears on the side of a syringe, the 10-minute film was shot with an aging Ryerson 16mm Bell and Howell Scopic workhorse in the spring of 1994, edited in four o’clock in the morning guerrilla-style spurts at a location L’Ecuyer would rather not name (‘the friend who snuck me in still works there’), and cost approximately $250 to make. The short film is cited by everyone involved with Curtis’s Charm as the reason they wanted to work on his feature.

As for L’Ecuyer’s third and last year at Ryerson? ‘Well, my osap had run out at the end of my second year, and then I got involved in the feature. But they’ve suggested that maybe I can get credit for making it, and even grant me an honorary degree, but that’s not something I’d ever ask for.’

His next project will probably be one of the two other scripts he wrote last summer, with Cunningham again producing.

Final cost: We don’t know. They won’t tell us, not wanting to affect terms of a distribution deal. ‘Who cares how much it cost if it looks great and people are moved by it?’

Beyond the nuts-and-bolts money figures, Curtis’s Charm seems to have been brought to life by a glorious blend of serendipitous encounters and passionate determination. And – if you believe in this kind of thing – some people are convinced that after his eight lost years on the streets of Montreal, a reborn L’Ecuyer is now being shepherded by angels. Who’s to argue?

September 1995: Curtis’s Charm and Use Once And Destroy screen at tiff as part of the Perspective Canada program.