Shooting Passenger Side on a ‘tiny’ budget in Los Angeles with a 15-member crew is challenging, but Toronto producer Corey Marr wouldn’t have it any other way.

‘We’re doing this movie for the amount of money many films spend on catering,’ he laughs, adding that despite the budget, the experience has been ‘amazing.’

It’s the second collaboration between Marr and Montreal writer/director Matt Bissonnette, who worked together on the well-received 2006 dramedy Who Loves the Sun, starring Lukas Haas and Molly Parker.

‘We have a very open relationship, and share a vision in the kinds of films we want to make,’ says Marr, on the phone from California’s Yucca Valley, on Passenger‘s fifth day of shooting. The producer met Bissonnette in 2002 at the Edmonton International Film Festival, where the director was screening his debut feature Looking for Leonard.

The feature Passenger stars Adam Scott (The Aviator, Tell Me You Love Me) and the director’s brother Joel Bissonnette (Zodiac) in a story about two estranged brothers who go on a road trip in L.A., which leads them to unexpected destinations. Jonathon Cliff, who shot Brian De Palma’s Redacted and Reginald Harkema’s Monkey Warfare, is DOP.

Marr raised money privately, and was able to pre-license Passenger to The Movie Network and Movie Central.

‘They’ve been amazing, because this is a much smaller project than what they’re used to doing, but at the same time they wanted to be a part of it,’ he says.

Marr notes the strong loonie has made it possible to shoot Passenger in L.A., which he says would not have been an option up until recently. The story centers on two Canadians living in the City of Angels.

Passenger, which wraps May 28, is being shot in HD, a first-time experience for Marr and Bissonnette. ‘It’s an opportunity to try a format we’ve never tried before,’ Marr says.

The producer is hoping to secure a theatrical distribution deal for the comedy, which he plans to take to the festival circuit.