Given that feature film director Clement Virgo (Rude) has very specific ideas about the level of realism captured in his first television movie, it’s no surprise that the producers of The Planet Of Junior Brown selected their cast of extras among those living off the streets of downtown Toronto, those cleaning windshields at red lights.

Based on Virginia Hamilton’s 1971 book of the same name, The Planet of Junior Brown is the story of a 16- to 17-year-old musical prodigy living in Harlem which has been rewritten by writer/critic Cameron Bailey and Virgo to take place in present-day Toronto and show more of a gritty side to living on the streets.

The Film Works-produced mow, being shot for cbc on a budget of just over $2.5 million, is about Junior Brown (Martin Villafana) who lives in a very sheltered world with his mother protecting him from everything, and his friend from the streets, Buddy Clark (Rainbow Sun Francks).

While trying not to romanticize or glamorize street life, but at the same time come up with something different and unique, Virgo is attempting to bring out a millennial theme.

‘Since it’s the end of the century we came up with the concept that there are 19th century elements in the film in terms of costumes, architecture and the overall look. At the end of the last century there were a lot of children living in the streets and a lot of child labor laws being violated. We used the idea of the past to sort of hold up a mirror to the present.’

‘The story had a kind of naive, innocent quality to it,’ says producer Eric Jordan. ‘What Clement and Cameron did in rewriting the script was bring the story into the ’90s, making street life and the life of the street kids much more edgy and realistic.’

The Film Works producers Jordan and Paul Stephens first fell in love with the story about 10 years ago and thought it would make a great film, but it wasn’t until five years ago that they were able to secure the rights.

It was at the same time they heard about Virgo’s film Rude, and after seeing it in the rough-cut stage decided that he was the one to bring Junior Brown to life.

With a director and screenwriters on board the only thing the producers were missing was a leading boy.

‘We did a lot of open calls and casting, we looked everywhere for a Junior,’ explains Jordan. ‘It turned out that Clement had him in his back pocket, he was holding him in reserve all along.’

A graduate of the National Theatre School who has done very little, if any, film up until now, Villafana ‘fits the character perfectly.’

According to Jordan he is exactly what they were looking for. ‘The relationship he has with Rainbow is so natural. He’s really a very wonderful and sensitive actor.’

Although Villafana may be a natural Junior Brown, he is not a piano prodigy, therefore hand doubles are being used to tickle the ivories for him and his eccentric instructor Miss Peebs, played by Margot Kidder.

While no sets were built for the film, the inside of the piano teacher’s apartment was shot in a Gloucester street house which the director felt had a 1920s appeal that suited the spinster piano teacher.

The cozy room is all-a-clutter with what looks to be pieces of Miss Peebs’ past – an antique clock in the middle of the dark wood mantel surrounded by china dolls, a candelabra with its candles half melted away, a Persian rug covering the old floor, and in the center of it all, a scuffed-up, haggard-looking piano.

Although the movie is being produced for the cbc and due to its Christmas setting should air around that time, the producers have bigger plans for The Planet of Junior Brown.

‘What’s really special here is that we’ve brought in a real feature filmmaker,’ says Jordan. ‘The film itself has the depth, feel and quality of a real feature film so we are planning to showcase it at the Toronto International Film Festival in September.’

Film Works (The Arrow, Life with Billy) is in the very early stages of development on another project for cbc, a movie of Jane Urquart’s book about three generations of women in Ireland during the famine called Away.

Back on the set, Virgo is finding it nerve-racking to take someone else’s work and make it his own. ‘You want to be respectful of what the original writer’s intentions were, so I hope Virginia Hamilton will be pleased after she sees the film.’