Writer/director Christopher Grismer and coproducers Allison Lewis and Chan D. Park exit a post shop and there it is across the street, the director’s wood-paneled vision come to life, an early 1970s oversized Mercury station wagon. It’s the vehicle of choice to transport a dead body, peel away from threatening skin heads, and help weave together the elements of Clutch, the sixth film to come out of the Canadian Film Centre’s Feature Film Project.

A comedic drama about ‘death, love, cell phones and dynamite,’ Clutch marks the feature film debuts for the director and producers, all of whom recently graduated from the cfc’s Resident Program.

The film follows Martyn (David Hewlett), a reluctant thief who accidentally kills a man while attempting to steal a rare and valuable book. In his quest to deliver the book to a black market antiques dealer, he asks his buddies Spit (Gordon Michael Woolvett) and Larry (Peter Spence) to lend a hand and dispose of the victim (who they later discover isn’t dead after all).

When Martyn’s car, which contains the book, breaks down he takes it to Theresa (Tanya Allen), a local mechanic who discovers the leather-bound treasure and disappears, sending the crazed young man in search of her.

Being project number six to come out of the ffp, Grismer says there was not as much money available for Clutch, being shot for $430,000, as there may have been for those which preceded his film – Blood & Donuts, House, Rude, Shoemaker and Cube – forcing the writer/director to make some decisions about exactly what kind of film he wanted to make.

‘We did not have enough to make a $1-million film, but too much for a $100,000 film,’ says Grismer. ‘I don’t think there is a middle ground. We took a risk and aimed beyond our means, but I think it is paying off in many ways.’

Kim Derko, dop on the March 22 to April 16 shoot, opted for Super 16 as opposed to the more traditional 35mm stock, making it easier to pull the project together on budget. In addition, she is incorporating many hand-held shots to give the picture a non-conventional ‘guerrilla’ effect.

In keeping with the non-traditional look, Derko shot with a color scheme in mind and experimented with theatrical gels to give the film light white, green and yellow backgrounds.

The film lensed in various locations around Toronto including a gas station, pizzeria, Cherry Beach (where they attempt to blow up the victim before realizing he’s alive), and inside a Danforth-area church, which housed numerous bald-headed men for a day.

A visit to the set finds a disheveled Larry (who is mulling around the church locale with fake blood dried up under his nose) and Spit in a last-ditch attempt to rid themselves of what they think is a corpse by crashing a funeral full of skin-heads where they try to dispose of the body in an already occupied coffin.

Before they get a chance to slip the corpse into the coffin, they are chased out of the church by three burly bald heads in big black boots. They (Larry and a stunt driver) jump into their styling vehicle and peel away (as much as one can ‘peel’ in a car of that stature).

Grismer says he completed the script two years ago, the night before he applied to the cfc, and so far is feeling good about what he is seeing unfold whether or not it looks the way he envisioned it.

‘The scene either has to be exactly the same as I imagined or completely different; it has got to be that extreme,’ Grismer says. ‘When the scene reinvents itself and is totally different I know I am onto something, but if is just a little different it’s frustrating.’

As for Grismer’s demeanor on the set of his first feature, he remains cool and says he is more calm than he has ever been before, which he attributes to the caliber of his crew, who he admits are better than he deserves for what he is paying

‘There isn’t much for me to worry about, so I can just concentrate on the acting and working with the dop.’