Director/producer/writer: Mort Ransen

* Executive producer: Raymond Massey

* Writer: Joan Hopper * Cinematographer: Georges Dufaux * Diary by: Louise Leger

Joan Hopper spent the summers of her youth picking fruit and camping in the sunny orchards of Keremeos, in British Columbia’s southern Okanagan.

Her experiences in this dry ‘cowboy country’ and the many people she met there had a lasting impact on her and later became the inspiration and setting for Touched.

At the story’s centre is Carrie (Lynn Redgrave), an aging cowgirl and self-described screwup. A hard-drinking white woman living on the Indian reserve of her dead husband, Carrie is facing eviction from her home and estrangement from her family. Eventually, through love and through tragedy, she is awakened from her hazy downward spiral.

September 1990: Joan Hopper gets funding from the Fund to Underwrite New Drama (fund) to work on her script. She calls it Shegalla Summer.

June 1993: After Hopper attends the Praxis Screenwriters Workshop in Vancouver, Mort Ransen (Margaret’s Museum) options Shegalla Summer and begins a five-year process of collaborating on rewrites with Hopper.

‘The story is entirely Joan’s and my involvement came about basically because she was less experienced,’ says Ransen.

Says Hopper: ‘I wrote very much from my heart, from instinct, and Mort is a very experienced screenwriter and his craft of writing is wonderful. The process became a dynamic collaboration.’

January 1997: Raymond Massey comes on board as executive producer. His first task is to change the name of the project to simply Shegalla, the fictitious town where the action is set.

April 1997: Casting agents in the u.s. are called to begin the process. Agents snicker and/or break out in peals of laughter when they hear the title of the project: to them, ‘Shegalla’ refers to a gastrointestinal bacteria from the southeastern u.s. that causes weeks of violent diarrhea. ‘We left the name as it was for the time being, but we knew it would not survive,’ remarks Massey.

January 1998: Efforts to fund the $4-million project begin in earnest. Massey begins a process designed to maximize Telefilm Canada funding, tax credits and b.c.’s Market Incentive Program. Meetings begin with distributor Red Sky Entertainment and broadcaster Citytv.

Lynn Redgrave is in Vancouver filming and lets it be known that she wants to meet Ransen. They have dinner, she reads the Touched script and instantly agrees to take the lead role.

March 1998: City comes on board and later TMN-The Movie Network agrees to invest.

April 1998: Red Sky signs a deal as film distributor.

May 1998: At Cannes, Massey meets with the u.k.’s Screen Partners to lock into place the insurance for gap financing. He also meets with top Telefilm people who are there for the festival.

June 1998: A gap financing deal is arranged with the Banque Nationale de Paris in Montreal. ‘The amount of paperwork and the complexity of it all threw us for a loop,’ says Massey. ‘There were lawyers all over the place and I was on the phone to people in England, New York and Montreal at all hours of the day and night. There were almost 100 separate agreements on the agenda for the bank’s closing document. It was tense, too, because you have to get your budget all organized before shooting, but you don’t want to miss the short window of good weather for filming.’

Sept. 21, 1998: Principal photography commences in and around Keremeos, just above the u.s. border and below Penticton, where Hopper set the story. Everything is done on location.

‘The region’s sparse red pine, beautiful scented sage, the cactus and the Similkameen River running through are all strong motifs,’ says Massey. ‘The heat and the dryness of the area are all part of the film.’

November 1998: Principal photography is complete after six weeks. Highlights, says Massey, include a ‘brilliant’ cameo appearance by Graham Greene, the largely local crew fly fishing in the Similkameen River during their breaks, and renting chickens from the town’s mayor.

Ransen and co-editor Bonnie Devlin begin the editing process immediately. Ransen brings an Avid editing system to a private editing room on Saltspring Island, where he and Devlin work in isolation. Due to bank deadlines, the hours are long and they are finished in a total of 16 weeks.

Spring 1999: The original scoring is done by Michael Conway-Baker.

pr efforts begin and the film’s title is changed to Touched.

September 1999: Touched debuts at tiff.