Inertia marks the directing debut of filmmaker/musician Sean Garrity and the first foray into producing for Brendon Sawatzky, both based in Winnipeg. According to Garrity, the film he set out to make was to be played out like a number of musicians jamming on stage. His vision was to put together a film born through improvisation.

The film was given a significant kick-start with its inclusion in the National Screen Institute’s Features First program last year. On a budget of just over $500,000, the Flying Monkey Production film exceeded the expectations of its creators, who credit a top-notch Winnipeg crew for making it look twice what it cost. Here is how they accomplished it.

April 1999: With a rough story idea, director/writer Garrity puts together a cast of five improvisational actors and begins developing characters and back stories. Producer Sawatzky comes on board and informs Garrity of the deadline for the Features First program.

October 1999: Development with the actors ends, and Garrity flies to Japan to write the first draft of the script, taking with him 30 hours of videotaped scenes he and the actors had put together. He finishes the 145-page first draft the day of the Features First deadline.

‘It was 10:30 p.m. on the day of the deadline in Japan and I e-mailed the script to Brendon in Winnipeg,’ says Garrity. ‘It took him all day to download it, correct the typos and put it in a decent format, but he got it into the NSI at the last minute.’

Inertia is selected for Features First later in the winter.

January 2000: Features First begins in January, and it turns out to be more useful than Sawatzky had anticipated.

‘We were more under the illusion that it was just straight financing, but overall I think the fact that it is a development program was much more useful to us than just money,’ he says. ‘It is a very good program.’

Fall 2000: At the conclusion of Features First, Sawatzky receives a verbal commitment from Showcase, which is later confirmed. The Movie Network also prebuys the film.

Producer Alexandra Raffe and story editor Peggy Thompson, who had worked with Garrity through Features First, help him hone the script.

Sawatzky begins sending out funding applications to the Canada Council for the Arts, Telefilm Canada, the Manitoba Film and Sound Development Corporation and the federal and provincial tax credit programs.

He and Garrity assemble a crew, which includes cinematographer Michael Marshall. Garrity says the crew they wrangled was exceptional and dedicated, with many choosing Inertia over a more lucrative project starring Patrick Swayze that was shooting in Winnipeg at the same time.

December 2000: Funding from the Canada Council, Telefilm, the MFSDC and tax credits all come through. Sawatzky and Garrity now have a budget of $565,000. Preproduction begins in January.

March 2001: A major location is lost after the principal of a Winnipeg private school pulls her school and its drama club out of the project due to concerns about pro-choice abortion issues raised in the film. Another school is found days before filming begins.

March 10, 2001: Production on Inertia gets underway in Winnipeg. Garrity says shooting his first feature goes remarkably smoothly, thanks to the help and generosity of the Winnipeg film community. Shooting wraps on April 10.

May to September 2001: Unable to find a local editor to work within Inertia’s budgetary constraints, Garrity purchases a Final Cut Pro Version 2 with a film logic plug-in and endeavors to edit the film himself in his bedroom. He finishes the first cut in 10 days. In June, after the third cut is made, he brings in professional editors to finish the job.

September 2001: Inertia makes its world premiere at TIFF. Sawatzky says if he hasn’t secured a distributor by the time the festival begins, he will actively pursue a distribution deal in Toronto.