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Local film back from the dead

 A new film company hopes profitable horror flicks will resurrect the local industry

 BY MARKE ANDREWS VANCOUVER SUN

For a new company making a first film, genre pictures are the route to go. They’re cheap, they have a ready-made audience, and they often become surprise box office hits. It also helps when cast and crew are willing to defer their wages until after the film gets shot. 

That’s the case with the low-budget horror flick, The Ghostwoods, a first film from new Vancouver company Ghostlight Cinemas Inc., which is slated to be shot this spring on Vancouver Island. Many of the actors and crew members, all drawn from Vancouver’s Lower Mainland and from Portland, Ore., are deferring their wages or their services in order to keep the film’s budget under $1 million. 

“Not everyone’s getting paid up front,” says Trevor Roberts, one of the company’s founders and one of the many multitaskers on The Ghostwoods. Roberts, whose acting credits include Scary Movie and Da Vinci’s Inquest, co-wrote the screenplay with director Kody Zimmermann, and will co-produce the film, a chiller involving demonic possession, with Zimmermann and Scott Henderson, who does publicity for the company. 

“When the film sells, there are actors to be paid out, and visual effects and postproduction costs. We can actually get the project made and sold to generate income quicker than if we had to raise the entire budget.”

Given the downturn for the film and television industry in 2004, many have come to the realization that a strong indigenous industry will withstand the peaks and valleys that the service industry must endure. Ghostlight Cinemas Inc. fits the indigenous bill. Roberts and Zimmermann, both of whom have worked in the industry for several years, started the company with the express purpose of making local films with local talent. 

They first co-wrote an action picture together, but realized that with stunts and special effects the budget would be too pricey. So they went the horror route.

“We decided to keep the project small and keep it very confined in terms of space, location and the number of cast,” says Roberts, 29, who says 16 days of the film’s 18-day shooting schedule can be done at one location near Sooke.

The film, which has 33 per cent of its budget in place, stars local actors Eric Johnson, a regular on Smallville, Sarah Sawatsky and Curtis Bechdolt. 

“B.C. needs more indigenous film, not only to supplement the American productions, but to really use the wealth of talent that’s both in front and behind the camera in Vancouver and the [U.S.] Pacific Northwest,” says Roberts.

“The company philosophy is to promote developing and emerging talent in the Pacific Northwest, and to produce profitable films,” says Roberts.

That last phrase is the reason they will start out with horror.

“Genre films are the most profitable, and within genre, horror is the most profitable,” says Roberts. Because many of the wages and services are deferred, Roberts and Zimmermann needed very little capital to start their company. If The Ghostwoods is successful, it will enable them to carry through with their future plans, which include other genre pictures, the action movie they’ve written and a TV series.

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