Inside:

Distribution on the edge:

Canadian cinema carves an ‘erotic weirdness’ niche – p. B3

Canadian screenwriting:

‘A low-percentage proposition’ – p. B4

Shorts getting longer shrift:

Garnering more slots and more money – p. B20

Film diaries:

Production chronicles from conception to completion – begin p. B7

Features:

The Hanging Garden – p. B7

Shopping for Fangs – p. B11

Gerrie & Louise – p. B14

Pitch – p. B17

Hayseed – p. B19

Shorts:

Guy Maddin: Waiting for Twilight – p. B22

Permission – p. B24

Linear Dreams – p. B26

Directors: Josh Levy, Andrew Hayes * Writers: Josh Levy, Paul Bellini, Steve McKay * Producers: Laura MacDonald, Martha Kehoe * Cameraman: Jason Tan * Diary by: Pamela Swedko

Autumn, circa 1995: Josh Levy and Andrew Hayes sit in New York’s Central Park on a holiday from film school at York University in Toronto and brainstorm a comic feature about a naive country boy who ventures out into the big city of Toronto in search of his runaway dog .

Two years later, the boy is Gordie Sinclair, the dog Speedoh, and the feature film Hayseed is premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival.

January to February 1996: With no clue where the money is going to come from to make their debut film, Levy and his buddies Paul Bellini (writer on This Hour Has 22 Minutes, Kids In The Hall) and Steve McKay (film student) begin tossing around the details of the script.

The young, inexperienced team figure they will put all of their comedian friends in the film, use equipment from York, and produce the feature for less than $15,000. This, they promptly discover, is an unrealistic budget.

March to May 1996: As spring approaches the writers are busy attending classes and story meetings. The script goes nowhere fast.

Levy, who will direct the film, targets August for shooting to begin. About the end of May the team starts writing intensely. By the second week of June they have a first draft.

‘I wanted to be a producer, but being 22 I didn’t really know what I was doing, and as the thing started snowballing we realized we were going to need a little more money and someone who really knew how to put together a contract,’ says Levy.

June to August 1996: In search of an experienced producer Bellini calls on Laura MacDonald, who shows no interest in being part of the production. The boys convince her to sit in on a read-through where, after ‘laughing her ass off,’ she agrees and brings fellow producer Martha Kehoe on board with her.

The script is finalized the first week of July. Casting begins in August.

Says MacDonald: ‘We held an open casting call in NOW Magazine and the last person we saw we cast; he arrived with purple hair.’

The cast consists of 24 Canadian comics including Mark McKinney and Scott Thompson of Kids in the Hall.

Once the cast is in place the production team begins calling in favors and raising private funds from family members and friends week-by-week as they shoot. In the end, the film’s budget pushes the $200,000 mark.

‘I actually made some money as a pa and saved enough to get things going. I remember calling around during lunch on the shoot to ask for money.’

September 1996 to July 1997: The shoot begins, as does the rainiest September in 15 years. Shooting is rescheduled. Some scenes slated for outdoor locations move inside.

‘We encountered every kind of challenge you could have imagined. The first day our lead actor didn’t show up. The kid slept in and he lived in a giant warehouse in which we actually ended up shooting half the movie. But that morning, we were all banging on the door and he was asleep and buried deep within its bowels and couldn’t hear us,’ says Levy.

dop Jason Tan shoots for 21 days. In October the students return to school, tired yet excited about their film.

‘I approached it as a learning experience but it is so much better than what I hoped,’ explains the 23-year-old director. ‘Part of the magic of it was that we prepared enough not to fall on our asses but still allowed for a lot of improv, which is what I think made it great.’

In May they send the rough cut to be considered for the Toronto International Film Festival. At the end of July, right as they are about to start shooting the last few scenes, they get the response they are hoping for.

August 1997: Musician Rob Scott, an old Hamilton, Ont. school chum of Levy’s, adds some tunes out of his basement studio and Andrea Folprecht, another friend, edits in a frenzy at Jazzy Post in Toronto in order to have the whole thing done in time for the festival.

September 1997: Hayseed has its premiere as part of the Perspective Canada lineup at tiff.