My Hockey Film...

I feel like I can take a breath now that the busy fall has come to a peaceful end. With January's pristine white snow (another blizzard-y heapful arrived on our doorstep yesterday - when the winds got too strong around 4 pm and I feared a power outage I quit editing and succumbed to the tradition of baking snowstorm-day chocolate chip cookies) alight with sunshine sparkles these days, my mind's been drifting to my next project. 

I have to complete the edit on my feature doc The Healing Place, but that's coming along well now that I finally have the gear to move along at a faster pace, and I have an edit to do for a tourism client, which is fun because the images are all green grass and blue sky and people in summer clothes! But once these projects are done I don't have anything else in the way of getting my feature drama off the ground. 

I have three more books on the agenda but I have to work the initial development of the drama in amongst them. It's my dream. 

If you scroll back to the film section on my website you'll learn a little about the film but here's another little tidbit - I want to shoot it in the Evangeline region of PEI.  I have a script but it was written years ago and it needs a lot of updating. I've learned a lot over the years and I know that I want our island's French Acadien culture front and centre in the film. At its heart the film is about a single mother who has been searching for an abducted son. It's also about a twenty-something hockey player whose association with a domestic violence incident in his own home has kept him from his roots. The two meet and, together, discover reasons to go on despite an overwhelming desire to just give up.

There's more to it than that but that's the gist of the story. A clash of cultures, friendships, competition in sport, the end of the glory days…those themes are all prevalent. 

I want to make this film on PEI and, at this point, I don't want to become embroiled in years of development. I have some ideas that I think will help make the film pan out on a low budget. The community of Evangeline has expressed some interest in becoming involved, so we'll see where that takes us. I just need to get these current edits done so I can spend some time figuring out the ins and outs and the hows and whys. Like anything on the planet, anything worth doing is generally a challenge, and I am not one to back down from a challenge! So wish me luck - I'll keep you posted! And send me any hockey playing actors you know!

In other news the rehearsals for Laundry and Bourbon are awesome! Marlane O'Brien is a privilege to work with. I almost cannot believe that so many of my dreams are coming true lately - books, films, and now acting…acting, by the way, is much harder than one would imagine. But I am playing opposite Shelley Dorland Tamtom and she is fantastic! Between her and Marlane, and Virginia O'Brien as well, I am having a lot of fun and I know the play will be a great success! Gulp. Just have to learn my lines. And blocking. And try not to have anxiety attacks at 3 a.m.!

On that happy note I am off to work at my part time job today so I must run. Have to stop at the post office on the way and mail a birthday package to my son in Vancouver. Plus feed my coffee addiction.

Wish I could offer you a cookie - trust me, they're yummy! Not even counting the calories…some things are simply worth savouring!