Time flies when you’re having fun, right? One of the coldest Canadian winters in recorded history (which, ironically, the coldest is back in the 1850s and comes up a lot in our research), has rendered our ability to get out and interview historians and collect footage particularly difficult... but hey! Spring’s on its way, and with that comes the ability to take a camera outside and film things! So there’s always the upside.
In the meantime, we’ve been buried under an absolute sea of grant proposals and research angles, as we try to forge ahead from our studio. And I’m happy to share this long-overdue update with you, and share a few highlights of our winter filmmaking experience...
First and foremost, word seems to be spreading locally about our film. In the past few months we’ve been contacted by interested fans who have read about the interviews we did back in the fall, and naturally we’re delighted to share as much information as we can without giving away the entire plot. In fact, back in late February, we were invited to do a presentation about the documentary to a historical society at Western University (or, as most of us prefer to know it, The University of Western Ontario), where we shared some of our findings about the first individual of our documentary, Daniel Sullivan. We’re quite confident that Mr. Sullivan will be the leadoff story, given his association with the Escaped Slave Chapel, who we’ve also done a bit of research about (as it was part of the inspiration for the documentary as you see it now). And at this presentation, we were also happy to learn more about the Escaped Slave Chapel itself, as its chief advocate of the Fugitive Slave Chapel Preservation Project (http://www.fscpp.ca for those interested) was also on hand to give a presentation to the crowd. Shortly after that presentation, our producer Steve was invited to Fanshawe College to share stories of the documentary with a media studies group.
Of course, at these presentations we’ve been handing out free, small posters for free as well – so keep your eyes peeled to our twitter (which you should follow if you don’t, as at the last presentation we did a bit of live tweeting and routinely update) or facebook pages, where we frequently post little updates to what’s going on in our film’s world. Links are at the top!
Secondly: after attending a presentation in mid-February, entitled “Black Canadians and the US Civil War” (which I’m happy to say had over 500 people in the audience), we managed to make contact with author/speaker Bryan Prince, and let him know about our project. He showed a lot of interest in what we were doing, and just last week I’m delighted to say we had our first meeting with him, an exploratory one where we talked about the film, and shared stories of Escaped Slaves. In this meeting Bryan shared with us the story of not only an Escaped Slave, but one who became a missionary and preacher in the area. The best part? He kept a journal of his exploits, and we have gained access to it! Even from just preliminary readings, the insight this preacher gives is so deeply personal and paints such a fantastic picture of what it is REALLY like to come out of slavery that we know this individual (with the help of Bryan’s insight, which has been incredible so far) is going to have a special place in our documentary. Heck, he may even become the focal story in it.
Lastly, we’re starting to work on a new trailer, a teaser that adds just a little bit more information about the stories we plan on telling in the film. It probably won’t be out until the spring, but keep your eyes open for it!
Talk soon, my friends.
- Mark
PS: If you want to check out Bryan’s awesome books about the Underground Railroad or Black settlement in Canada, we highly recommend visiting his website: http://www.bryanprince.ca
In the meantime, we’ve been buried under an absolute sea of grant proposals and research angles, as we try to forge ahead from our studio. And I’m happy to share this long-overdue update with you, and share a few highlights of our winter filmmaking experience...
First and foremost, word seems to be spreading locally about our film. In the past few months we’ve been contacted by interested fans who have read about the interviews we did back in the fall, and naturally we’re delighted to share as much information as we can without giving away the entire plot. In fact, back in late February, we were invited to do a presentation about the documentary to a historical society at Western University (or, as most of us prefer to know it, The University of Western Ontario), where we shared some of our findings about the first individual of our documentary, Daniel Sullivan. We’re quite confident that Mr. Sullivan will be the leadoff story, given his association with the Escaped Slave Chapel, who we’ve also done a bit of research about (as it was part of the inspiration for the documentary as you see it now). And at this presentation, we were also happy to learn more about the Escaped Slave Chapel itself, as its chief advocate of the Fugitive Slave Chapel Preservation Project (http://www.fscpp.ca for those interested) was also on hand to give a presentation to the crowd. Shortly after that presentation, our producer Steve was invited to Fanshawe College to share stories of the documentary with a media studies group.
Of course, at these presentations we’ve been handing out free, small posters for free as well – so keep your eyes peeled to our twitter (which you should follow if you don’t, as at the last presentation we did a bit of live tweeting and routinely update) or facebook pages, where we frequently post little updates to what’s going on in our film’s world. Links are at the top!
Secondly: after attending a presentation in mid-February, entitled “Black Canadians and the US Civil War” (which I’m happy to say had over 500 people in the audience), we managed to make contact with author/speaker Bryan Prince, and let him know about our project. He showed a lot of interest in what we were doing, and just last week I’m delighted to say we had our first meeting with him, an exploratory one where we talked about the film, and shared stories of Escaped Slaves. In this meeting Bryan shared with us the story of not only an Escaped Slave, but one who became a missionary and preacher in the area. The best part? He kept a journal of his exploits, and we have gained access to it! Even from just preliminary readings, the insight this preacher gives is so deeply personal and paints such a fantastic picture of what it is REALLY like to come out of slavery that we know this individual (with the help of Bryan’s insight, which has been incredible so far) is going to have a special place in our documentary. Heck, he may even become the focal story in it.
Lastly, we’re starting to work on a new trailer, a teaser that adds just a little bit more information about the stories we plan on telling in the film. It probably won’t be out until the spring, but keep your eyes open for it!
Talk soon, my friends.
- Mark
PS: If you want to check out Bryan’s awesome books about the Underground Railroad or Black settlement in Canada, we highly recommend visiting his website: http://www.bryanprince.ca
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