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| Brian Edwards, Steve Schmidt |
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.
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| 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.
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 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.
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
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