3D Seminar: Karl Herrmann csc

A 3D Exploratory Seminar Held at the Emily Carr University of Art + Design

By Karl Herrmann csc

As the chair of new technology training for IATSE 669, I was recently offered the opportunity to create and present a 3D training event that was specifically tailored for DOP members. The training was co-hosted by Emily Carr University of Art + Design, who graciously offered its digital studio facility and new Kerner 3D camera rig. Paramount Production Services in Vancouver supported the training by donating all the lighting and grip equipment.

A working set was designed to accommodate the issues to be covered. It was about function and not beauty. Several flats were brought in, along with a bookcase as background. I then created varying degrees of depth and contrast by using 8-inch styro balls, painted black on one side, mounted on C-stands. These were moved around during the day to accommodate the different 3D effects under discussion.

The Kerner 3D rig, as outfitted at Emily Carr, is an over/under front-surface mirror design utilizing two Sony HDC-P1 cameras, each mounted with matching Fujinon 18x7.6 C-series zooms. All the functions of the cameras, such as focus, zoom, iris, etc., are electronically tied together and operated by superb 1st AC Dave Roman. When the variables changing in the shot simultaneously exceeded Dave’s number of hands, Sean Arden from Emily Carr handled 3D considerations such as interocular and convergence. Maria Lantin, director of all things digital at Emily Carr, orchestrated our viewing requests such that we could view live in 3D on a 40-inch monitor and then shortly thereafter review the images, if desired, projected in 3D on the big screen in the same studio where we were shooting. This provided a wonderful opportunity, as it demonstrated the concept that, with 3D, less effect is often more effective. It also demonstrated the absolute importance of having a large screening environment available to any 3D production for dailies.

Viewing on the big screen, after composing and adjusting our 3D effect on the monitor, also emphasized how important lighting choices were in 3D. As an example, if we lit the styro balls with their white side deep in the set and facing camera, making them the brightest points in the scene and at the same time decided to converge our shot much closer to camera – say on the white balls in the foreground – it put a strain on the eyes and was very difficult to look at. We were essentially telling our brain to focus in two places at the same time. By simply rotating the brightly lit high-key styro balls in the background around so the black side was facing the camera, the image became much more pleasing and easier to view.

Lighting became a hot topic of discussion when Maria showed the group a newly released Sony product called the Stereo Image

Karl Herrmann csc: “I created varying degrees of depth and contrast by using 8-inch styro balls, painted black on one side, mounted on C-stands.”

Images courtesy of Karl Herrmann.

Processor (SIP). With this piece of equipment, you can shoot parallel 3D images, meaning zero convergence and quite effectively dial in the amount of 3D effect into the shot in postproduction. This is of course not what the cinematographer wants to hear, but bear with me for a moment. If you’re doing a critical moving shot, say on a Steadicam, and the convergence would best suit the story by changing during the shot, perhaps this is something to consider. Your assistant is already busy with focus. If you light specifically for the important convergence points in the compositions as the camera moves from one to another, using the SIP to deal with it later, could save valuable production time. It might be helpful for post to march the Steadicam over to the different compositions and quickly converge the cameras appropriately and record a few frames as reference.

Converging in post is just one valuable tool the SIP is capable of doing. I believe everyone in the room felt the SIP was a tool to consider when shooting 3D. Along with other available post software, the SIP is capable of adjusting convergence, shot to shot, thus easing eyestrain once the picture reaches the rough cut stage. Too much convergence differentiation from shot to shot has long been a complaint with 3D movies. An important note regarding the SIP, it can converge in post, but interocular distance decisions must be made on set during production.

A note to consider: any 3D movie will need some post-sweetening. This includes matching issues such as alignment, lens distortion, colorization, roll, etc. All this can be done with current post software, but the cost is a slight enlargement of the image to allow for the adjustment. Therefore, if you are shooting with a camera with little or no native over scan, you begin to throw away pixels, thus resolution, in the process. Since the cameras on the rig were CCD, we didn’t have the opportunity to do any tests with rolling shutters. It would certainly be something to consider (and test) if you are doing 3D with any camera with a rolling shutter.

DOP members got very involved with moving the camera and exploring camera moves that involved dollying, tracking and zooming. We then began to adjust convergence along with pulling focus and zooming – all at the same time – on these moving shots, just to make it interesting. This led to discussions of various types of shots and blocking in 3D as opposed to 2D. If one watches a well-crafted 3D film in the theatre, you will realize that the 3D effect varies in proportion to the amount of dimension built into the visual blocking. Try flipping your glasses up and down next time you watch a 3D film to discover the depth cues that are used.

Justin Carless and James Chase from False Creek Films (falsecreekfilms.com) brought a wealth of knowledge and some very useful software to the event. Their focus is on producing 3D drama-driven visual content for films, television and commercials. If you are getting involved in a 3D project, a phone call to them might be enlightening. The company has just published a book, Fundamentals of 3D Filmmaking, which should be available on Amazon by the time you read this.

The 3D Exploratory Seminar could not have happened without the diligence of Louise Baker-Griffiths, training coordinator for IATSE 669, and Sandra Dametto coordinator for Emily Carr University of Art + Design. Michael Verity and Sean Arden from ECU provided excellent input, both on their Kerner rig camera system and especially on the SIP. First AC Dave Roman made sure all things ran smoothly and Phil Hersee graciously came by to photograph the day for this article. Simon Hunt served as gaffer and Michael “Spike” Taschereau as key grip. Again, my thanks to Paramount Production Services for donating the equipment necessary to produce the event and to Emily Carr and Maria Lantin or co-hosting.

Serge Desrosiers csc

Talks about His Work on Marécages

By Lance Carlson

Pascale Bussières

Serge Desrosiers csc, who was born in Montreal in 1968, has been a cinematographer for almost 20 years. In 2005, he was given the CSC Award for best cinematography in a dramatic short for Guy Édoin’s Le Pont, and that same year was nominated for a Prix Jutra for best cinematography for Claude Desrosiers’s Dans une galaxie près de chez nous, le film. He has received two Prix Gémeaux nominations, for best cinematography: video for the series Diva (1997) and best cinema tography: dramatic or documentary for Jean-Claude Lord’s Quadra (2000). His filmography also includes Lord’s Station Nord (2002) and eight episodes of the hit TVA series Taxi 0-22.

In the fall of 2010, I spoke to him at the conclusion of shooting Marécages (Wetlands), a family drama set in Quebec’s Eastern Townships written and directed by Guy Édoin and starring Luc Picard and Pascale Bussières for Roger Frappier’s Max Films. In an age when most “films” are now being shot digitally, for Marécages Desrosiers opted to stick to a basic natural anamorphic film, but with an Ektachrome look and avoided going to a DI. LC Tell me a bit about the story of Marécages.

SD It’s the story of a family who live on a dairy farm in the Eastern Townships. They have financial problems during a drought as well as a 14-year-old boy who is growing up to be a man. An event turns the life of the family upside down. Forced to confront one another, they have to learn how to forgive. We did do a nice shot near the wetlands with the main actress, Pascale Bussières, walking toward the swamp with the Techno-crane out to 55 feet, but it’s not a major character in the film.

LC The film sounds dark. Is it?

SD There’s a major accident about half way through it that could be considered a bit dark. There’s also nudity and a 14 year old masturbating in a tree, so perhaps there are some things that you don’t see in every film, but basically it’s a family drama.

SD Yes, it’s his first feature, but I had shot three short films for him previously. One of them, La Pont, won a CSC award. When he called me to shoot his first short film, I suggested that it would be a really good idea to shoot anamorphic. That was eight years ago, and I had never shot anamorphic before. I called Panavision in Los Angeles and said, ‘Give me a hand,’ and they sent everything up to us for the four days. It was great. We also wanted to shoot Marécages on film, so we rented the equipment from Clairmont Camera. Not only did we shoot it on film, but sort of the old-fashioned way, no DI, just interneg and interpositive. It will involve neg cutting the anamorphic, which not a lot of people do these days.

LC I understand you used the Hawk anamorphic lenses. Was it difficult to get the lenses you wanted? And how did they perform?

SD I used the C-Series lenses previously on the short film and I was quite impressed with their sharpness. For Marécages, Denny Clairmont told me that he had purchased the new V-series, and that I should have a look at them because he was impressed by their quality. So Clairmont was able to provide us with the Hawk V-Series lenses for our tests. We found that those lenses have outstanding sharpness and precision when used wide open, which was a big consideration and it made the decision to keep them easy. And the ACs like them. They are smooth and easily changeable without breaking down the lens accessories or supports, except for the 25 mm, which is more complex. But to be honest, we did not use the 25 mm for Marécages because it was too wide. The preferred lens on the film was the 50 mm, but my own favourite was the 250 mm. I love that lens.

LC How long was the shooting schedule?

SD It was 30 days, but most of the scenes were shot at or around the farm, so it wasn’t too bad.

LC What was the look and feel of the film and how did you achieved it?

SD The look is really naturalistic, nothing complicated. Every time someone wanted to put something complicated in a shot or scene, it didn’t work. The lighting needed to be very natural; if you can feel the light, then I would say take it away. Because we were shooting film, and I was using 5219 and 5213, we were going for a slightly softer look. There were about seven days of night shooting. At one point, we were shooting in a barn with about 55 cows and it was a nightmare for the ADs, the ACs and the grips. We made up what we called ‘shit deflectors’ around the camera, but I think everybody got hit at some point, even the actors. An actor and actress helped a cow in labour. They actually did it themselves on-camera, which was something very interesting to watch. It was my first time, and for the crew also, and it was like, “Wow, the actors are there pulling the calf from the cow.’ They were being coached off-camera by veterinarians.

Top: Luc Picard. Above: Director Guy Édoin. “Not only did we shoot Marécages on film, but no DI, just interneg and interpositive,” Serge Desrosiers csc.

LC Did your naturalistic approach work well for the production design?

SD The production design is perhaps a bit subdued. It’s a rural setting with tractors and other farm equipment that is a bit dated, but it could be today. Probably typical of a poor farm even now. We also shot at a small-town fair, and I think it will be the funniest part of the film – cows, livestock farmers of all kinds.

LC Was there much moving camera and how was that accomplished? Steadicam? Handheld? Dolly?

SD We had everything, including a small 24-foot Techno-jib, thanks to Denis Paquette from Cinepool, for the entire 30-day shoot. We also had a Steadicam and dolly. We did several long sequences – continuous three-to-four-minute takes – that were kind of tough on Jacques. We did a 180-degree shot with actors coming in at 75 feet and out at 4 feet, so it was a nice choreography, but at T2.8-and-a-half on the anamorphic, it was a challenge for him.

LC What film stocks did you use? SD I selected 5219 and 5213 for exteriors because I like the slightly milky look. Because we were not going to a DI, I was trying to keep softer look for the daylight shots as well. There’s not much contrast, which was my intent for the film, almost like the old Ektachrome, with a subtle bluish tint and not much contrast. We shot over 2,000 feet of tests with various filters and ended up with a Coral #2. That was it, nothing else and not much manipulation in the lab. We even tried bleach bypass in the test, but it wasn’t what we wanted.

LC It must have been nice to go back to the basics.

SD Yes. We did this in a traditional way, so the lab had to be consistent from the beginning to the end of the shoot because we needed to keep corrections to a minimum and some people freaked out. In the end they all pulled it off. Taking this traditional approach was actually a bit complicated for a lot of the crew. On the third day of shooting I called everybody together and said, ‘Look guys, this is not a conventional DI-production process. We will not be able to scan the negative and erase a wire or a boom or a stand or stuff like that. Every department should look through the camera or from the camera view point, because that is what we are going to get.’ This helped get everybody onside from the get-go.

“Taking this traditional approach [to shooting the film] was actually a bit complicated for a lot of the crew,” Serge Desrosiers csc, seen here on the left with Guy Édoin.

THE NEWMAN AIRHEAD

By George Willis csc, sasc

N“ ecessity is the mother of invention…” or so the saying goes, and what better place to realize the truth of this than the film and television industry. We are often faced with the challenge of finding solutions to problems that arise at a moments notice, whether on set or on location. These might come in the form of simple logistical issues or the more technical requirement of constructing a piece of equipment to accomplish the task. I recently met with Peter Newman, inventor of the Newman Airhead, and the conversation went something like the following.

GW Hello Peter, thank you for taking the time to talk about your invention, the Airhead. What triggered the thought of the Newman Airhead and how did you proceed from that initial idea?

PN The initial idea was to isolate the camera on the back of an ATV. For some reason, I had this vision of a four-wheeler with an inverted passenger seat. A Mitchell Mount would stem up between the passenger’s legs. The airbag was to remove the high-frequency rumble caused by the ATV. As I began to construct the mount, it dawned on me that I should forget the ATV and concentrate on the head. I’ve been part of several different configurations of the handheld cheat, with a ball or sandbag. I thought if I could somehow lock the camera to the ball and the ball to the dolly. GW Can you give us an idea of the time frame?

PN It was around November 2006 when the air bladder entered my mind. An effects crew was simulating a rather turbulent aircraft cockpit – they were using these air bags and altering the PSI. There it was, an inflatable, industrial-strength rubber ball with mounting plate top and bottom cured into the rubber. Eureka! I went searching on my next day off to find one of these air bags. I brought this thing home, where it sat in my shop while I collected the rest of the parts for a prototype. I purchased a bearing at a farm implement store and a valve at a plumbing store. I crudely machined my plates with hand tools.

Before discovering our beloved industry, I worked for a company specializing in the concept and creation of amusement park games. There are still games around the world that I was a big part of manufacturing. My lovely wife, Jennifer, suggests that my tinkering mind was not as much a product of making games, but a direct result of my youthful days spent working on a dairy farm in Caledon. If something was broken, farmers would fix it. It seemed as though they were forced to basically invent stuff all the time, just to keep daily operations moving.

GW It sounds like you were applying the same basic philosophy. So where did you go from there?

PN Once I had a prototype built, which I affectionately named Frankenstein, the next obstacle was convincing people to put their camera on it and attempt to compose a shot. I was a little confused as to how to achieve this. I had been showing various people this monster and explaining the concept but hadn’t ever tested it. Finally, one day on set DOP James Gardner csc – who knew I had been toying with this thing – asked me to set it up. The shot was in the aisle of a tour bus, and James wanted to generate a little organic rocking motion.

The head worked and was considered to be a mild success; however, some things were in need of further attention. There was no handle, no pan lock and, most importantly, the bag was a double-convoluted style and proved to be too long. I really wanted to achieve a hands-free camera, and with the original bag the weight was too much to hold upright. It would flop down and scare the hell out of everyone. The motion was nice and the concept seemed sound, but it wasn’t finished. Suddenly, word spread that I had this rig to help with tricky handheld shots and some commercial PMs and DOPs started to call me to rent it. Although I knew it wasn’t quite right, this was enough encouragement for me to pursue a real version.

It was at this time that I paid a visit to Neil Williams at Cinegrip. I was familiar with his quality standards and figured any engineering input I could extract from him would be a good thing. This ended up being a great move. When he presented me with the first real head, I was very pleased with my decision to go to him for help. I found a bag more suited for the application, and he had machined and anodized all of the custom parts in a very professional manner.

GW What was your approach when designing the head?

PN The head was intentionally created with the less-is-more philosophy in mind. We discussed left-to-right balance and stabilization, but ultimately it’s only supposed to be holding the weight. It’s as non-precision as it gets. It was far more important, in my mind, to use components that people were already familiar with, namely the O’Connor-style handle, the Ronford Baker quick release and the Mitchel Mount. I figured it was hard enough convincing people to try a new motion; there’s no way they’d go for it if they didn’t recognize any of that stuff.

By now it was fall 2008, and again I was carrying around my Airhead, showing anyone I thought would be interested. All of the sudden, people were starting to ask me, ‘Do you know what that would be good for?’ or tell me, ‘That would have been so handy on my last show.’ All of the things that I wanted to address were basically covered – the handle, mount and, most importantly, the bag. I had achieved the ability to completely walk away from the camera. That was a big moment for me.

GW Having achieved this, what was the next part of your plan?

PN I was to meet my friend and colleague Adam Quinn at Panavision Toronto to do a little spontaneous demonstration. Adam had used the head a few times and knew it actually worked. No one else at Panavision had ever heard of it. He started to build a 535, long rods, Optimo lens, 1,000- foot mag, etc. It was a pretty heavy incarnation of a camera. He gave the camera a little push, and it started bobbing around. I think it gave everyone watching a bit of a panic but it performed perfectly. Vice-president Stewart Aziz was willing to take a chance of offering the heads for rent, and we hammered out some loose give-it-a-try-type terms. By early 2009, I had dropped off three heads to Panavision. I will be forever grateful to Stewart for taking the chance on the product, and of course, Adam for putting himself on the hook like that. It was a very proud moment.

As it turns out, season one of Warehouse 13 had just been prepping its Genesis package at Panavision. I think the producers had already decided on a handheld look, and the timing seemed to be perfect to offer them up my new addition. Key grip Mark Manchester brought the head out, and I think the B-camera ended up living on the Newman Airhead, on a linear bed, for much of season one.

I would say the best thing about this whole experience so far has been the overwhelming support I’ve received from so many grips, PMs and operators who have offered the Newman Airhead to out-of-town DOPs or those who aren’t familiar with it yet. It shows me that the product works as a useful film tool. There’s nothing more rewarding than hearing about a job or specific application where the head has come in handy. My favourite specific advantage of the Newman Airhead is the ability to stay on a big fat zoom and still get that organic float to the shot.

GW Thank you, Peter. If you, the reader, have a similar story about some equipment you have invented or an item of interest regarding problem solving and want to tell us about it, please contact Susan Saranchuk at the CSC. We’d love to hear your story.

GUERILLA WARFARE In the Educational Trenches with Reel Canada By Jack Blum

Actor and director Paul Gross (Due South, Passchendaele) speaking at York Mills Collegiate, Toronto.

In the fall of 2004, I called Doug Dales and asked if he would help us out. My partner, Sharon Corder, and I were gathering a few people together to talk about an ambitious idea – a large, impossible, quixotic idea. Without a moment’s hesitation he said, “Sure.”

The idea was deceptively simple. Find a way to introduce Canadian film to high school students across the country. The people around the table with us were a combination of filmmakers and educators. We assumed that at some point there would be a few technical challenges and that Doug Dales, who was owner/president of the equipment house PS Production Services, might be helpful to have around. Beyond simple technical support, he had a reputation as the unofficial patron saint of local filmmakers and had been a champion of our domestic film industry his entire professional life.

Of course, equipment and hardware turned out to be the least of Doug’s contribution. He would soon become founding president of Reel Canada, but I’m getting ahead of myself. The basic idea was Sharon’s and there were a few principles that she felt could not be compromised. First, the idea had to be dynamic, fun and exciting. The kids we would be dealing with were drowning in Hollywood hype; to reach them, we had to put on some kind of show. Second, aside from insisting that they be good, we could not be dogmatic about the nature of the Canadian films we would screen. We had to embrace auteur work as well as more commercial fare, drama along with documentary, urban, rural, regional and miscellaneous.

This proved more challenging than one might have imagined. After all, it’s practically a national pastime in the Canadian film community to take a principled stand about what kinds of films we should not be making. This was one of the areas where we often turned to Doug for support. His implacable manner made him a natural arbiter and he never lost sight of the larger goal, which was about demonstrating the incredible quality of Canadian work, as opposed to any particular style or school of filmmaking. Finally, the programming had to come down to the kids themselves. The only criterion that really mattered was whether today’s teenagers would have a chance of actually liking what we wanted to show them. Anything else would do nothing to help our cause.

A plan emerged that seemed to fit all the necessary requirements. We would produce a travelling film festival that would go from school to school. At each school, participating students would themselves select the films they wanted to see from a catalogue that we would provide. We would outfit three different venues and show six movies over the course of the day, three in the morning and three in the afternoon, and students would order tickets just like at a real festival. Of course, there would be special guests to speak with the kids after each screening.

Now, we knew very little about the education system when we dreamed up this plan. We had no idea, for example, how incredibly busy teachers are and how difficult to get a hold of them. We didn’t know how rigid school schedules are; how much effort it would take from us and from our teacher partners to get the rest of their colleagues to give up one full day out of a very demanding curriculum to watch Canadian movies. We didn’t know how challenging it would be to transform school libraries, drama rooms, even weight rooms, into proper screening facilities with sound and picture good enough to feel like “real” movies. Or how complicated it would be to set up a ticketing system that actually allowed the students their choice of films.

Director Atom Egoyan (The Sweet Hereafter, Chloe) speaking to a student at Marshall McLuhan Catholic Secondary School in Toronto.

All images courtesy of Reel Canada.

Doug never let on that he did actually understand these things, but looking back I find it difficult to believe that he didn’t have more of an inkling than we did. But what good would it have done to enlighten us? His style of quiet encouragement succeeded in getting us precisely halfway down the Amazon, by which time it was far too late to turn back. By the fall of 2005 we were ready to launch a pilot effort. Support came from Telefilm, the Harold Greenberg Fund, the Directors Guild, ACTRA and several others. Six schools in the GTA had agreed to participate. We had test-screened dozens of films with students and agreed on an initial program selection, published them in a catalogue and sent them out to every participating student and teacher.

About three weeks before our first in-school festival, with the clock ticking loudly, there was a heated dispute among the committee members over just how ready we were or weren’t. So “readiness” was always going to involve a certain amount of guesswork. We once again turned to Doug for his steady hand and his rich production experience and asked him to guide us out of the storm. An event management company, the superb Baam Productions, was brought on board and whipped things into shape in record speed. When we rolled into those six high schools with projectors, screens, big cinema sound and special guests such as Paul Gross, Don McKellar and Deepa Metha, the kids didn’t know what had hit them. But they sure liked it and so did the teachers and principals.

For most of that pilot season Doug was in Vietnam. Doug’s relationship with Vietnam began years earlier when he and his family sponsored several refugees to safety in Canada. Doug’s Vietnamese charges were welcomed into his home, given employment at his company and with his continued help eventually brought over their families to join them. In Doug’s version of a quid pro quo, he fell deeply in love with the country, its culture, and spent months of every year there. That particular fall, he returned on the last day of the pilot season. We were at Marc Garneau Collegiate, in Thorncliffe Park, which boasts one of the most ethnically diverse populations in a very diverse city. Our special guests were Atom Egoyan, Sarah Polley, Peter Lynch and Jennifer Jonas, who had proved enough of a draw that our lunchtime break was swarming with television journalists.

Doug arrived from the airport, getting there for only the last 30 minutes of the day and missing all the media excitement, so we were nervous that he wouldn’t understand the impact that the festival had clearly had on the school. We needn’t have worried. In his inimitable way, he took it all in in an instant. This was one of Doug’s most mysterious qualities – his ability to absorb critical information and grasp its essence while appearing not even to be paying attention. We were constantly surprised by his insights into aspects of the program or issues with staffing or funding. After the brief bit of festival he had managed to witness, he declared absolute victory, then gave us a detailed analysis of what remained yet to be achieved. “Well, you will need three prototypes,” he told us. He meant that it would take at least two more seasons of Reel Canada festivals before we really had a grasp of what worked and what didn’t. We were aghast. Two more years of this just to get to the point where we could get serious?

Sharon and I were daunted by the challenge. It was exciting, to be sure, to demonstrate what we’d always believed, that Canadian filmmakers had created a fantastic body of work that audiences – even teenage audiences – would love if they were given access to them. At the same time, the overwhelming response from teachers and students alike meant that we had to carry on and try to build a program that would serve schools not just across the city but across the country.

From the left, Sharon Corder, director Deepa Mehta (Water, Bollywood/ Hollywood), Jack Blum and Doug Dales.

Doug’s perspective – always taking the long view and never for a moment losing sight of the goal – made us nervous about taking on such a huge commitment. But his matterof-fact certainty about the importance of the program was like the current of a river; there was no point trying to fight it. Doug was right on target. Somewhere after our third season, we started to breathe again and realized that the program had firmed up and taken shape. Our goal of a national program, while still ludicrously ambitious, no longer seemed entirely out of reach.

As I write this, we’re in the middle of our sixth season. We’ve brought Canadian films to Windsor, Kingston, Belleville, Ottawa, Woodstock, Sudbury and dozens of other communities across Ontario. We’ve established the program in Vancouver and visited small towns in B.C. that don’t even have a movie theatre. We’ve given students the chance to ask questions of filmmakers like Alan King, Gary Burns and Michael McGowan, and introduced them – in person – to the likes of Gordon Pinsent, Colm Feore and Lisa Ray. CSC members Brent Robinson and George Willis csc, sasc have delighted audiences with tales of the kind of underwater photography used in the documentary Sharkwater. And Passchendaele DOP Greg Middleton csc was impressed with the degree of sophistication in the questions he fielded from the students.

We now have requests from teachers across the country, far more demand than we are yet able to meet. Our support continues to grow as well and with hundreds of screenings and tens of thousands of Canadian students served we feel like we have a handle finally on how this thing could work. Our prototypes have evolved into working models, and we continue to set our sights on bringing Canadian films into high schools from coast to coast.

Actor Colm Feore (The Chronicles of Riddick) with students at Parkdale Collegiate, Toronto.

Of course, Doug won’t be there to see that happen. His shockingly rapid decline and passing has left the entire community in shock, and it has certainly left us with a hole in our hearts. There is really no one else who can replace our founding president, no one who has helped launch so many filmmakers’ careers or kept so many production companies afloat through the lean years. There is no one whose stamp of approval means so much to us.

Still, Reel Canada is an important part of Doug’s substantial legacy, and we are determined to carry it on in honour of the values he championed his whole working life: integrity, community, generosity towards the young. At some point after that event at Marc Garneau, Atom Egoyan commented that the Reel Canada program was like a guerilla campaign, taking our culture back one village at a time. It’s been a great privilege to have been in the trenches with Douglas James Dales.