Director Steve Schmidt announces award winning Chapleau movie The Road to Tophet available February 26 on iTunes and VOD

Brian Edwards, Steve Schmidt

As the award winning  Chapleau centred movie The Road to Tophet moves to availability on iTunes and VOD on February 26, another step in its wider distribution, director Steven Schmidt provided an insight into the movie's history. What a fascinating story!!!  MJM

By Steve Schmidt, Director, The Road to Tophet

The Origins

Axel (Alex) Green and I had always talked about how great it would be to shoot a film set in our home town of Chapleau.  For me it was a realization that my home town had a distinct cultural impact on me.  The intersection of French, English and First Nations, the isolation of the town that inspired a certain joie de vivre and an outlaw spirit. It was something I wanted to see represented on film.

I also thought if we were going to make a movie in Chapleau, it would be cool to make a winter movie with snow and snowmobiles -  to really capture the essence of the north.

Steve, Axel Green

At a certain point Axel and I were both in Vancouver working in the film industry.  We had done a few short films together and were ready to try our hand at a feature.

Writing the Script
I had met Samuel Thivierge - who would go on to play Charlie - on some of those short films I had made with Axel.  He was a young, up and coming actor.  Very ambitious.  A very hard working guy.  Sam and I worked out the basic story for The Road to Tophet.  In the process of doing that we also wrote ‘Dead Simple’ - a short version of the type of feature film we wanted to make.  We shot Dead Simple on weekends.  After a few months it was done and, pleased with our effort, felt ready to take on a full length feature.

We set our sights on Chapeau and I began working with with Jeremy Beal (another ex-Chapleauite) on the script for the feature.  We wrote in English but decided we would shoot the film in English and in French where possible.

The Budget
We began raising money through friends and family.  We ran a ‘crowd funding’ campaign.  On a trip to Chapleau, we decided to screen Dead Simple and let the community know what we were up to.

Brian Edwards attended that screening.  He was the band administrator for Chapeau Cree First Nation and he put us in touch with the Band Council who made a very generous contribution to our budget and became our producing partner.

Casting
We began planning for production:  we put the word out and traveled to Sudbury to audition actors.  We moved on to Toronto.  We were looking for actors who were bilingual. I felt strongly that the show's success would hinge on casting.  Despite auditioning many many actors - nobody felt ‘right’.  We had cast some of the smaller characters but our lead actors - apart from Axel and Sam - remained uncast.  

We decided to do something unorthodox:  we turned to the internet.  We began auditioning people on Skype.  In this way we found Alika Autran in Vancouver, Soroush Saeidi in Toronto, Christine Teixiera in Montreal and Matt Connors in Sault Ste Marie - all of whom did ‘virtual’ auditions.  We hired them without ever being in the same room.

The Shoot
After a series of scheduling delays we finally assembled our team in Chapleau in March - ready to make our glorious winter movie.  The weather turned warm.  The snow began to melt.  At first slowly - then more quickly.  I despaired.  My winter movie was melting before my eyes.  But we had no choice.  We simply had to continue and play the hand that fate had dealt us.  I re-wrote the script as we filmed to accommodate the thaw.  We replaced snowmobiles with ATVs and then with motor bikes as the snow receded.  We re-shot scenes as needed.  It was never clear that we would be able to shoot the script in the few days that were available to us.

The community rallied to our cause providing locations for us to shoot, feeding our cast and crew and generally pitching in to help wherever and however they could.  Locals also appear in cameo roles throughout the movie - most notably Orville Robinson who regularly gets the biggest laugh as a foul-mouth bartender.


Post Production
After filming, I returned to Vancouver exhausted both physically and emotionally.  It had been a hard shoot.  In between my regular job of editing other people's projects, I edited The Road to Tophet.  

We held another ‘crowd funding’ campaign to finance post production and once again went to friends and family for the funds to complete the film.  We did the colour grading of the film and our sound mix at Technicolor in Toronto.

Festivals
With the finished show in hand we submitted to all the major film festivals - and were quickly ignored.  Even Sudbury Cinefest, whose mandate was to foster filmmaking in northern Ontario, passed.  It was a huge blow to our confidence.  But at the very same time, the Toronto Independent Film Festival said ‘yes’.  And we were thrilled.  We would have our world premiere in Toronto in September of 2014.  The day was almost unbearably hot and humid.  

We went into the screening - a full house at one of my favourite Toronto cinemas, The Carlton at Yonge and College.  When the movie ended, we emerged from the cinema to find the skies had opened and torrential rains poured down.  It felt in that moment that the years of work, the hopes and the dreams, the pent up emotions - all were released.  The audience had loved the show. At the reception that followed, we were treated like celebrities.  The flash bulbs popped!  We were in a daze.  The festival requested and added a second screening.  A few days later we learned we had won the award for Best Micro-Budget Feature. We were redeemed.

It took some time, being unknown filmmakers with no track record but we persisted and in the intervening years, the film played across Canada and the US - winning Best Director at the Greenbay Film Festival and Runner Up for People’s Choice at the Soo Film Festival in Michigan.

It played across Europe winning Best Screenplay at the International Filmmakers Festival in Berlin and receiving a Special Commendation for Direction from the Scottish Independent Film Festival.

In Montreal in February 2018 we won Best Canadian Feature at the Canada Film Festival.  It was at this time that we began to entertain the idea of a distribution deal with TVA Films.  The negotiations were lengthy and the deal required some formatting changes to the film in order to comply with broadcast specifications.

The BIG MOMENT

And now the moment we have worked towards for so long will soon arrive:  the film will be available on iTunes and VOD (Video-On-Demand) through your cable and dish providers on Tuesday, February 26th. 

TVA will also begin shopping the film to other platforms:  to broadcasters, cable  and other internet content providers.  Hopefully we will soon see our big screen movie on the little screen!

Pride in fledgling cast

We are proud especially of the work our fledgling cast have gone on to achieve.  Samuel Thivierge has had great success with his films la fille du Martin and Identite - both of which he wrote, directed and starred in.  Alike Autran recently starred in the massive futuristic Netflix series Altered Carbon.  Matt Connors has racked up a profusion of credits, most recently appearing in a multiple episodes of CityTV’s Mafia crime drama Bad Blood starring Kim Coates.  Chapleau’s own, Steve Gagne has gone on to appear in Star Trek: Discovery, Dark Matter and The Handmaid’s Tale to mention only a few of his credits. 

We hope that the people of Chapleau may take some pride in seeing our little town represented in a movie and we hope they will support us and download the film .  With the success of the this first film, the next Chapleau movie may be closer than you think! 

LORNE RILEY

I forgot one important thing:   One more Chapleau connection:  Lorne Riley saw the movie and wanted to make a music video.  We decided to use footage from The Road to Tophet with his song TWENTY YEARS which is a song he wrote about Chapleau.  The video will be released this week in connection with the release of the movie.  People can find the video on YouTube or on The Road to Tophet Facebook page

And...

Thanks Steve!!! Here is a comment about the movie from Lynne Brown in her review of it on saultonline.com: "The movie is awesome. The soundtrack is mesmerizing. The acting is superb. The writing is wickedly clever. ‘The Road to Tophet’ is an exhilarating journey to The Top of the World." My email is mj.morris@live.ca

I

Reeve George Fife presents Chapleau key to Carnival King Dan Jessup at 1939 Winter Carnival

George Fife, Marie Perpete, Dan Jessup

The weather and the crowd at "the shrine of snow sports combined for a perfect opening" to the 1939 Chapleau Winter Carnival, according to an article in the Chapleau Post.

"Bright, brazing weather made more vivid the colourful costumes of spectators and competitors," the article said, but as an aside I could only find some black and white photos.

At the official opening where Reeve George Fife, the grandfather of Robert Fife, now Ottawa Bureau Chief of The Globe and Mail, presented the key to Chapleau to 1939 Carnival King Dan Jessup, the mayor of Sudbury, everything had been closed "lock, stock and barrel" and it seemed everyone was on hand. The article noted there were 225 visitors on hand with more coming on the trains. 

Arthur Grout the general manager of the "snow show" predicted 500 visitors would be there and the carnival would show a profit of $500. This was incredible remembering that the Great Depression was just ending. 

In 1939 Chapleau was 10 years away from having highway access.

A major feature as the carnival got underway was a figure skating show. The Chapleau skaters who only had nine weeks training as there was only natural ice in the old old arena on Lorne Street were instructed by C. Baker from Fort William who had been presuaded  to take the job.

Back: Rita Payette, Shirley Matheson, Freda Depew. Front: Evelyn Sheahan, Rhonda McQuaig, Shirley Nixon

Back: Rita Payette, Shirley Matheson, Freda Depew. Front: Evelyn Sheahan, Rhonda McQuaig, Shirley Nixon

Among those skaters appearing in their first show were Frank Block, Lorne Block, Helen Morin, Juliette Morin, Charles Corks, Shirley Nixon, Freda Depew, Rhonda McCuaig, Evelyn Sheahan, Rita Payette, Selma 'Sally' Uugo, Alice Depew, Marion Morris (my aunt), Shirley Matheson,  Cecelia St. Amand and Vivian Vizena.   Another article states that 25 members of the new Chapleau Figure Skating Club were involved along with skaters from Copper Cliff and Toronto.

The article noted that the skaters were nicely attired in costumes made in Chapleau but it does not tell us who made them.

Mr. Jessup was crowned after the parade in a ceremony at the ski hill. He received his diadem and sceptre from Fred Depew, secretary of the YMCA who had been the King of the first carnival in 1937. C.J McGregor, CPR superintendent was King in 1938.

From photos it looks like everyone in Chapleau attended the carnival parade. The population was over 2,500 in 1939.

Looks like everyone in Chapleau at parade

After the coronation of the King, the selection of the Snow Queen took place. The contestants were Rita Crichton, Mae Blackburn, Angelina Riley and Violet Therrien. Rita Crichton was named the 1939 Queen,

In his remarks Mr. Jessup complimented Chapleau on its carnival commenting that a lot of hard work had made the vision of a carnival come true. 

The old old rink had been recently "rebuilt" inside and a crowd of close to 1000 people were there for carnival activities which filled it almost to capacity. 

Skiing was another major attraction and the Koski brothers, Walter and Taunor of Nemegos ran almost a dead heat in the five mile senior skiing test. Walter just beat his brother to the finish line. 

The ski hill in 1939 was located at what I call "Dr. Young's Hill" but that was not its name in 1939. There was also a toboggan slide.

In the young skiers race honours were taken by Yvon Morin in first place with his brother Romeo in second over a half mile course.

There were many other activities during the three day carnival. 

Thanks again to Margaret Rose (Payette) and Bobby Fortin for kindly loaning me the Richard Brownlee papers. Happy Valentine's Day!!!!! I hope you are also enjoying the 2019 Chapleau Winter Carnival!!

Smith and Chapple hold 'very interesting event' as guests march into Town Hall basement led by Reeve Frank Edwards

The guests at a very interesting event "marched" into the basement of the Town Hall led by Reeve Frank Edwards in February, 1945, according to a story in the Chapleau Post.

The Post reported that "upwards of a hundred guests" attended as Smith and Chapple Ltd. entertained their staff and other guests at a dinner and party.

The event marked an anniversary of the takeover of Smith and Chapple by D.O. Payette and Arthur Grout in 1930 and the program stated "that they have finally been able to clear off their indebtedness to the previous owner."

The guests enjoyed a "splendid" turkey dinner"  with Mr. Payette proposing the Toast to the King (George V) and the singing of the National Anthem which at the time was 'God Save the King'.

In his comments Mr. Payette said that as president of the firm he was greatly honoured to have the guests present to mark "another milestone in the life of the firm", paying off the indebtedness.

Mr Payette

He added that since Mr. Grout and he had taken over the firm "they had carried on largely through the assistance of the Royal Bank, also noting that they always endeavoured to give the customer that they could. 

Mr Grout

He also announced that Mrs. A.J. Grout and Earle Sootheran had been appointed to the directorate of the firm.

Mr. Sootheran proposed a toast to "our good friends" the Canadian Pacific Railway with A.A. Dumphy, the Superintendent replying that this occasion was a real milestone in the history of Smith and Chapple.

Mr. Dumphy recognized that the Great Depression had been tough but he had never seen a store the calibre of Smith and Chapple.

He added that the CPR would build a power house for $300,000 and that its monthly payroll was over $100,000 a month.

Arthur Simpson, publisher and editor of the Chapleau Post, in proposing a toast to "Our Community" congratulated the firm on its remarkable growth commenting that Mr. Grout "dreamed Smith and Chapple from the rising of the sun until the going down of the same. "

Mr. Simpson also paid tribute Reeve Frank Edwards and those who served t he town during the Great Depression. They could not be overlooked, he said.

"The town is full of honest to goodness good people who never fall down on anything worthwhile,."

In reply Reeve Frank Edwards paid tribute to the work of Mr. Payette as Fire Chief, a position he held along with being president of Smith and Chapple. As a result of Mr. Payette's efforts, insurance rates had dropped considerably.

He also paid tribute to Mr. Grout's business ability and he was pleased to add his best wishes for the continued success of the business.

Tbe toast to "Our Future" was proposed by Len Beeston, a department manager.

Moving pictures shot by Mr. Grout of a Winter Carnival were shown as part of the entertainment. Mrs. Lauretta Veit and Miss Thelma Midkiff sang duets.

"Afterwards bingo was played and just after midnight the guests formed a ring and sang Auld Lang Syne, closing an event which will be long remembered by those present."

My thanks once again to Margaret Rose (Payette) and Bobby Fortin for kindly loaning me the Richard Brownlee papers.  My email is mj.morris@live.ca