Director: Michael Mabbott
Writers: Jonathan Sobol, Robert DeLeskie
Producers: Susan Cavan, Carolynne Bell, Claire Freeland, Jonathan Sobol
Cast: Douglas Smith, Vivica A. Fox, Alberta Watson, Donal Logue
Distributor: ThinkFilm

Some Canadian films toil in development, wrestle with financing and face roadblocks throughout production, only to be overlooked by festival programmers and forgotten soon thereafter. Accent Entertainment’s Citizen Duane has had few of these problems.

The sophomore feature from Michael Mabbott – co-winner of the best Canadian first feature award at TIFF2005 for mockumentary The Life and Hard Times of Guy Terrifico – is a $5-million comedy about a teen (Douglas Smith) who turns to local politics in an effort to evoke change in his complacent community. Mabbott was approached to direct before Terrifico was finished, something he knows is unusual for a Canadian director.

‘I haven’t been doing this long, but I still appreciate what a rare opportunity it is to get something on the heels of [your first project],’ says Mabbott, also one of few helmers to have feature films at TIFF in consecutive years. ‘There are a lot of really good filmmakers who [face] enormous struggles to get their next film off the ground. This kind of blew my mind,’ he says.

Spring 2003: Newcomers Jonathan Sobol and Robert DeLeskie write the script for Citizen Duane, based on Sobol’s idea. It is Sobol’s first screenplay.

April 2003: Cinematographer Adam Swica (Weirdsville) reads the script while working with Sobol on another project and takes it to Accent Entertainment’s Susan Cavan.

‘I tend to develop from scratch and don’t take many scripts on spec, but this is a rare scenario where the work showed the promise of a new writer with a really interesting comic sensibility,’ says Cavan.

Cavan options the script and puts Duane into development. Sobol revises the script for the remainder of 2003. In the meantime, Cavan and Sobol – now a coproducer on the project – seek out a director.

Winter 2003/04: Development funding comes from The Harold Greenberg Fund and Telefilm Canada.

Spring 2004: Cavan meets with a number of directors, including a still-unproven Michael Mabbott, who is finishing production on The Life and Hard Times of Guy Terrifico.

Summer 2004: Michael Baker, director of acquisitions and development for ThinkFilm, expresses interest in the project.

Fall 2004: Cavan sees a rough cut of Terrifico and decides Mabbott would be a good choice to direct Duane. She sends the script to his editing suite.

‘After the first pass, I was already feeling a connection to it,’ says Mabbott. ‘I loved the noble and misdirected [title] character.’

Winter 2004/05: Mabbott officially attaches himself to Citizen Duane and begins working with Sobol, dissecting the script. Cavan says the participating funders were not concerned with Mabbott’s inexperience.

‘There was already buzz about [Terrifico],’ says Cavan. ‘And people in all the funding agencies responded positively to the script. It had one of the best responses to a raw screenplay I have ever seen.’

Duane receives money from the Canada Feature Film Fund. Prebuys from The Movie Network and CHUM Television come in, and ThinkFilm confirms its participation as Canadian distributor.

Spring 2005: Cavan announces a September shoot. Setting the date so far in advance is a strategy Cavan often applies to her projects, and Duane moves into an intense six-month development process she refers to as ‘pre-preproduction.’ Casting begins, and Hamilton, ON is selected as the film’s location.

A nationwide casting search for the character of Duane ‘yielded all sorts of interesting people, including some from the standup world,’ says Cavan. ‘But the real concern was that it needed to be a person who could carry the movie; they had to have some acting chops.’

Summer 2005: Toronto native Douglas Smith (Big Love) is confirmed to star as Duane after what Mabbott calls ‘an exhausting search.’ Hollywood names Donal Logue (The Knights of Prosperity) and Vivica A. Fox (Missing) are added to the strong supporting cast, which also includes Alberta Watson (24), Devon Bostick (Degrassi: The Next Generation) and Rosemary Dunsmore (ReGenesis).

Carolynne Bell and Claire Freeland join the production team as producer and coproducer, respectively.

Aug. 7, 2005: Preproduction begins in Hamilton.

Sept. 12, 2005: A location snafu leaves production designers scrambling to create a new City Hall set the night before filming begins. Mabbott is impressed with how his crew has dressed a new building to portray the location overnight, and the five-week shoot begins as scheduled.

Sept. 17, 2005: Mabbott’s Terrifico wins best first feature at TIFF, generating further interest in Duane, and quelling any lingering concerns about his credentials.

‘I think it may have assuaged some fears,’ says Mabbott.

October 2005: Duane wraps mid-month at a Hamilton high school. The final shot is followed by an impromptu wrap party in the camera truck.

October 2005 to spring 2006: Editor Mike Munn begins cutting in Toronto. Nearby, Jeff Campbell, a VFX supervisor at Spin Productions, handles the film’s climactic CG sequence involving ants and the destruction of Duane’s town, along with other FX shots.

May to June 2006: Duane’s audio mix is handled at Tattersall Sound and composer Mike Shields finishes the score.

Sept. 8, 2006: After delivery to ThinkFilm in August, Citizen Duane will make its world premiere at TIFF.