Created by Historical Producer Bonnie Sitter and Director/Producer Colin Field, the documentary tells the extraordinary story of 40,000 teenage girls who volunteered on Canadian farms during and after World War II and helped sustain the nation’s food supply when young men left to fight overseas.

Bonnie Sitter, an author, was searching through old family photographs when she found a captivating image of a group of young women taken on her late husband’s family farm near Thedford with a caption on the reverse that read: “Farmerettes 1946.”

This led Bonnie to research the Farmerette story, and publish an article in The Rural Voice asking for women who served as Farmerettes to get in touch with her. Shirleyan English, a retired London Free Press journalist, read the article and wrote a letter to the editor, explaining her own experience as a Farmerette, and how it remained the best summer of her life. Bonnie and Shirleyan would go on to co-author the book ”Onion Skins and Peach Fuzz: Memories of Ontario Farmerettes” in 2019.

“We wanted to capture the story of how the Farmerettes helped win the Second World War by volunteering to aid farmers with food production,” says Bonnie. “Most of these girls had never seen a farm. They came from all over Ontario as volunteers. They weren’t conscripted. They chose to roll up their sleeves and do their part for Canada, and their efforts have largely been forgotten”.

Director Colin Field first met Bonnie in 2019 and was inspired by her research and desire to bring this forgotten Canadian story to life. He proposed a documentary film, and Bonnie agreed to fundraise to bring the project alive. Colin interviewed 20 Farmerettes – now in their 90s – for the documentary, and after two years of work, and with the help of sponsors and generous donors, We Lend a Hand: The Forgotten Story of Ontario Farmerettes is finally complete.

“It has been a privilege to travel throughout the province and hear the stories of these surviving Farmerettes,” Field said. “If it wasn’t for these girls, the soldiers wouldn’t have had food to eat and the economy would have ground to a halt”.

The film will be screened at 2:00pm with doors open 30 minutes before the show.

Tickets for the October 19th screenings of We Lend A Hand: The Forgotten Story of Ontario Farmerettes are $30.00 and can be purchased by e-transfer to timberbeastproductions@gmail.com or cash at the door. If you wish to pay at the door, please RSVP by emailing timberbeastproductions@gmail.com

Group rates are available: $150 for 6 and $250 for 10.

Half of the proceeds support the cost of the documentary film production.

Watch the trailer here.

The post “We Lend A Hand: The Forgotten Story Of Ontario Farmerettes” Documentary To Screen appeared first on Muskoka411.

The Fly Back is a powerful documentary that delves deep into the heart of the Peruvian Amazon, specifically around the paradisiac Caimito Lake. The film amplifies the voices of three Amazonian Indigenous nations in the Ucayali Basin as they courageously fight for their survival, defending their territories, governance systems, and way of life in the face of numerous threats. The film offers a vivid exploration of the region’s ongoing conflict, considered one of the largest and longest in the Amazon, as these communities work to protect the last remaining rainforests.

Following the screening, Morales will engage in an intimate discussion with the audience, sharing insights into the making of The Fly Back, the challenges Indigenous peoples face in the Amazon, and the critical importance of preserving both their culture and the environment.

“We’re honored to have Reynaldo Antonio Morales at this year’s festival,” said Melissa, founder of 3FIFF. “His film offers a deeply moving and urgent message about Indigenous resistance and environmental preservation, aligning perfectly with our mission to highlight stories that foster global dialogue and intersectional representation.”

In addition to the panel, 3FIFF will feature Canadian and International film directors in exclusive discussion panels with live audiences. These panels will provide an engaging platform for filmmakers to share insights into their creative processes, address industry challenges, and explore the evolving landscape of Canadian cinema. Both emerging and established directors will participate, offering audiences an exciting opportunity for dialogue and deeper connections with the storytellers.

Don’t miss out! The free community screening of A Brothers Bond by emerging Canadian film director Brayden Langford will follow 3FIFF Opening Ceremony on October 10th at 6:30 pm. Attendees are encouraged to register on the Three Fires International Film Festival Website.

For the full program including the art market featured by MAC and to purchase tickets please visit www.3fiff.ca

The post Three Fires Film Festival Welcomes Director Reynaldo Morales To Bracebridge With FlyBack Documentary On The Fight To Protect The Amazon Rainforest appeared first on Muskoka411.

Beth Nicole Torbert is a singer and multi-talented artist best known by her stage name Bif Naked. Her music is a blend of rock, punk and EDM. Despite growing up in Manitoba, she struggled to get a recording contract in Canada early on, so she established herself in the US and the UK first. Her 1998 album I, Bificus went platinum in Canada and changed the course of her career. To celebrate the album’s 25th anniversary, she’s releasing an expanded edition alongside her new release, Champion.

“The first single from this album actually came out in 2020, and the record was supposed to be coming out around the same time, but the pandemic changed everything and set it back,” Bif said. “I’m glad that it did because it enabled us to keep writing and tinkering and changing things, and now it’s a very different record.”

The album release party will also feature Everclear and Sister Hazel. Bif said she’s a fan of both artists, so she and her band are excited to head to Orillia for the show.

Champion features a mix of hard rock and punk sound, dramatic emotional songs, and a few dance remixes. She’s proud of the record they put together. She hopes her fans will like the development in her writing and her sound, especially since so many of them have grown older alongside her.

“I’ve always been very, very fortunate to make really eclectic records and for that to be accepted as the norm for me as an artist and as a performer,” she said. “This album is no different. It’s very stylistically all over the map.”

Bif’s life has also been all over the map. She was born in India to a Canadian girl and a British boy, both boarding school students. Missionaries adopted her and moved her to North America. She lived in Kentucky and several other places before ending up in Manitoba.

Bif has a few Canadian shows coming up, including one in Muskoka. She will bring her genre-bending sound to the Algonquin Theatre in Huntsville at 7:30 p.m. on Feb. 28. She and her band are excited to be playing shows at all, but she particularly loves coming to Northern Ontario.

“I fully believe there’s no place that’s more beautiful, and I’ve been all over Canada,” Bif said. “There’s a lot of tours that don’t come to every area, they stay in the GTA, so it becomes really magical when we get up there, and it’s really fun to meet all the fans.”

Her fans will also get the chance to know her better through an upcoming documentary “Bif Naked: One of a Kind”. The film is currently in editing and slated for release next spring.

Along with adoption, Bif has faced breast cancer, kidney failure, drug problems and divorce, so the documentary will be an intimate look at Bif’s life from her origins in India to her current creative endeavours. The content comes from multiple years of filming on three or four continents.

“My birth mom’s never been interviewed before, so this will be the first time she’s been able to tell her entire story and her story from India onwards, and that’s something that’s just very special,” Bif said. “I’m so happy that they were able to capture her truth for the first time.” 

Bif can’t wait for the documentary to come out. Her history with adoption has led her to a chosen family, and her fans often feel like part of that family. She’s made lifelong connections nearing friendships with them after being in the business for so long, so she can’t wait for those people to see the film and hear her new album.

Despite her past hardships, she feels lucky in life. She’s been a performance artist from the age of 18, and since then, she’s also become an actress, an author, a poet, an activist and more. Between her film, the expanded anniversary album and her new release, everything feels “very magical and very full circle” for Bif right now. 

I, Bificus catapulted her into music success, and while it’s a pivotal record for her, she’s even more excited for her future.

“It’s always going to be really special, but, creatively, I feel like my future is still unfolding in many ways,” Bif said. “I feel like the best is yet to come.”

To get tickets to Bif’s upcoming shows, visit Casino Rama and the Algonquin Theatre online. Follow Bif Naked’s website, Facebook and Instagram for updates.

The post Bif Naked To Play Casino Rama On September 7 Ahead Of Muskoka Concert appeared first on Muskoka411.

Secret World of Sound premieres on CBC TV and CBC Gem at 9 p.m. on Feb. 15, but viewers will have to wait until the third episode comes out on Feb. 29 to see the wolf pups in action. The three-part series delves into how wildlife uses sound to mate, mingle and manage survival, some even before they fully emerge into the world. Host Anthony Morgan guides viewers through stories set in places like Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, the Kalahari Desert in southern Africa as well as several parts of Canada. The series features familiar sounds, such as wolf howls and elk bugles, and sounds humans need technology to detect.

“There are an awful lot of animals out there that are making sounds that we can’t hear like the treehopper, for example, that we feature in episode [two],” said Dugald Maudsley, executive producer and writer for the series. “They communicate using vibrations. Honeybees are the same. One scientist explained to us there are about 200,000 species that communicate in ways that are silent to us.”

Focusing on the auditory experience translated to long periods spent recording sounds for the film. Showcasing sounds that are undetectable to the human ear also meant the crew had to get creative. One tool that helped them was a vibrometer, which is typically used to measure vibrations in machinery and structures, like the vibrations on the wing of a plane. 

For the documentary, the vibrometer allowed the team to capture and amplify the sound of the treehoppers’ mating calls and other communications. The technology opened up a hidden world, Maudsley said, and the emphasis on sound also crafted his approach to writing the script.

It’s always important to focus the writing on what the viewer can’t see when it comes to writing for natural history, he said. In this case, the usual emphasis on wildlife imagery shifted to include sounds as well.

“It was realizing we’ve got to make space as well for these extraordinary sounds and let them be heard, so the writing really had to be sparse, the music had to be sparse,” he said. “Like music, the writing had to be there at the correct time.”

Maudsley said putting together a story-driven documentary came down to finding the best sound stories, some of which were found in Canadian locales. 

In Alberta’s grasslands, male sharp-tailed grouse do a fanciful coordinated dance and coo to attract a female. Not far away in Waterton Lake National Park, elk fight and bugle during rutting season. In other parts of the country, great grey owls use sound to locate prey and wolf pups howl to alert their siblings of danger.

“All these stories are really unique, very Canadian and quite revealing,” he said.

For Muskoka residents, the story of the wolf pups comes closest to home. The eastern wolves of Algonquin Park are an everpresent but elusive feature of the area. They use a wavering howl to make their packs seem bigger than they are, and when they leave to hunt, they call out in a chorus.

Most of the segment about the wolves focuses on the way wolf pups howl to survive. Before they’re old enough to hunt but too big to stay in the den, wolf pups stay in designated areas called rendezvous sites. They have to learn to howl to protect themselves, and it’s a delicate balancing act that can draw out more danger. 

“For the average person, even someone living up there, I don’t think it’s that easy to get out and see the wolves like we show you in the film,” Maudsley said. “Then of course, there’s the added layer which is understanding what’s going on, especially with these pups [since] many of them don’t make it past their first year of life.”

Gaining enough access to the wolves to film was no easy feat, so the crew brought in naturalists Michael and Britta Runtz to help them track the animals. They travelled 13,000 kilometres over five weeks to locate the wolves so that cameraman and director of photography Hugo Kitching could get the shots he needed.

The crew was able to capture a special view of the wolves and their habits, including a tense encounter between pups and a black bear, which provided a wonderful way to showcase great Canadian wildlife.

“That story is a real insight into a creature that’s kind of iconic for this part of Ontario and pretty unique worldwide,” he said. “To be able to actually see those wolves in action, to see what’s happening with them, to see how they deal with this situation, how they use their wolf howl to manage that, to me, that’s super unique.”

As a journalist and documentary filmmaker, Maudsley has covered human rights issues like trafficking, genocide and civil war, so making a series about the wonders of the world is a pleasure, he said. It’s positive and almost “life-affirming” to understand the world of communication animals are using to survive.

One of Maudsley’s colleagues, a longtime film editor, said it was a delight to simply sit and listen to the sounds from the film. In fact, it was nearly therapeutic. In all the hundreds of films he had cut together, the sounds from this one struck a chord.

Maudsley hopes the series will have a similar effect on its viewers. The documentary crew had a lot of fun telling the story and letting the animals say their part.

“By getting inside that world and being able to tap into that communication, we’re really able to see these dramatic stories unfold,” he said. “A flamingo chick getting lost and being found again, the wolves howling to protect themselves, all those things are really fascinating and only are available to us because of the way we were able to record the sound, and as a result of that, the story that we’re able to tell.”

Tune into CBC TV or CBC Gem at 9 p.m. ET on Feb. 15, 22 and 29 to watch Secret World of Sound. Watch a trailer for the series below.

The post Secret World Of Sound Series Showcases Algonquin Park Wolf Pups appeared first on Muskoka411.

“The truth that we have learned from our work with local young people and which is echoed in this film is that a lot of young people are not okay”, says Jody North, executive director, MiND-AID.“The film lets us hear directly from youth about what is going on but also about what is needed to change the tide. Anyone in the community will benefit from watching this great flick and learning more about what is being done in our own community to support young people.”

MiND-AID has partnered with the BMLSS Hospitality & Tourism students to offer a selection of finger foods during the intermission of this screening and music students will provide some entertainment as well.

There will be  a raffle with donated local prizes to help raise funds for MiND-AID’s ongoing efforts to help navigate our local youth through the mental health services available to them.  Prizes include resort stays, golf rounds, dining, entertainment and more!

WHEN: November 29th, doors opening at 6:30pm, film starts at 7:00pm

WHERE: Rene Caisse Theatre, Bracebridge

COST: Free screening, donate if you wish at the door.

Get your FREE TICKETS here: MiNDAID-ConnectingTheDots.eventbrite.com

The post MiND-AID Muskoka Presents: Connecting The Dots, A Deep Dive Into Youth Mental Health appeared first on Muskoka411.

Facts About Loons:

• Only males yodel
• Some birds, like geese, migrate in pairs. Loons separate at the end of each breeding season so there’s no guarantee that even a long-time mate will return
• Loons are visual hunters; the clearer the water the easier it is for them to find their prey
• Their perfect lake is one that has lots of points, peninsulas and/or islands for nesting in
• Main nest predators include raccoons, minks and other mammals that travel along the lakeshore

Steps You Can Take to Save the Loon:

• Use non-lead tackle
• Give a 200 foot berth or more to loons when driving a boat around the lake
• Stay off the shoreline where most loons are, canoes and kayaks included
• Keep natural vegetation on your lake shoreline to give loons nesting areas and provide fish habitat

• Don’t use fertilizer on your lawns as it can leach into the lake, fuel growth of algae, and reduce water clarity, making it hard for loons to find fish

Visitors to the 18th Annual Fall Cottage Life Show can get an exclusive sneak peek at scenes from Loons: A Cry From The Mist in the Cottage Life Booth, to learn all about the beloved Common Loon and why its population is declining in cottage country. Exploring the issue further, Birds Canada’s expert Dr. Doug Tozer joins Cottage Life magazine’s Editor and Cottage Life podcast host, Michelle Kelly, on stage to discuss why loons produce fewer chicks, the impacts to their environment and what cottagers can do to help.

Engage with Loons: A Cry From The Mist at: @cottagelife.

Loons: A Cry From The Mist was produced by Yap Films for Cottage Life and Love Nature. The documentary is Directed by Julia Nunes, Produced by Elizabeth Trojian and Julia Nunes, Executive Produced by Elliott Halpern and Elizabeth Trojian, and features stunning wildlife cinematography by Hugo Kitching. Overseen by Sam Linton, VP, Production and Development, Global Media, Blue Ant Media, the documentary special is distributed by Blue Ant International.

The post Cottage Life’s New Documentary Special, Loons: A Cry From The Mist appeared first on Muskoka411.

Filmmaker Barri Cohen’s documentary Unloved – Huronia’s Forgotten Children, which premeires at Hot Docs Film Festival on May 3, details the severe neglect and abuse faced by HRC’s residents. Cohen discovered she had two half-brothers she never knew about, and in 2013 when a class-action suit over the conditions at HRC was settled, she found out that they lived and died there. Following that revelation, she learned about the horrors that her brothers faced alongside the centre’s other residents. Her brothers were nonverbal, but even those who could speak often had their words disregarded.

“Even when survivors spoke up to authority, they were dismissed or they were beaten for it, or their own parents would say, ‘You’re lying, you’re making it up,’” Cohen said. “They weren’t believed and that infuriated me.”

There was a lot of pressure on families, especially poor working class families, to leave their disabled or “unwanted” children in institutions like HRC. In addition to having few avenues of support, there was also a pervasive ableist belief that disabled children didn’t have the capacity to miss or even recognize their family in the first place. Along with HRC in Orillia, Muskoka had its own regional centre in Gravenhurst.

Cohen was always very close with her father, which made it all the more shocking when she found out the truth about her half-brothers, Alfred and Louis. She was amazed that her father had kept so many secrets, including some that he took to his grave. The authenticity and urgency of exploring an issue connected to her own family history helped her push through the difficult subject matter.

Though she wishes she could have had these conversations with her parents, Cohen was able to bond with her remaining family by sharing stories and facts they had learned about Alfie and Louis. She couldn’t believe so many mysteries still remained in a family as close as hers.

“I was just struck by how we think we know people and we know our nearest and dearest, and do we ever really know them?” Cohen said. “Do we ever really know the pain and the shame and the secrets that they carry with them?”

It was haunting for Cohen to dig into the history of her half-brothers and learn about them from old files and medical records. Through her research, she started to feel like she knew Alfred, but it was harder with Louis since he had died at just four years old, less than 18 months after being admitted to HRC.

His medical record seemed to suggest he got a fever and died suddenly, but Louis’ autopsy report painted a picture of severe neglect, Cohen said. Unfortunately, medical information was most of what she was able to discover about Louis since most resident files included little to no detail. Since Alfred lived until 23, his file contained a few personal facts like his appreciation of music and how he liked to stand at the windows and stare out at the world. 

Cohen’s father likely knew little about the boys as well. He said Alfie didn’t recognize him and the staff took away any toys he bought for the boys, so he stopped visiting at their instruction. Cohen may never have a full understanding of what her half-brothers were like, but hearing the stories of other survivors helped fill in the gaps in the story of HRC.

“Through their story, I could learn about what this place was,” Cohen said. “The survivors’ living testimony is critical to understanding not just the past but also a cautionary tale for the present.”

Once she started hearing the stories of survivors, she couldn’t get enough. She wanted to know what life was like at HRC from sunup to sundown, and what she found was dismal. Not only did the institution segregate their residents from the rest of society, they were also segregated by ability within the centre. 

Residents without disabilities or with fewer needs were used for indentured labour, tasked with cleaning, taking care of other residents and so on. Nonverbal residents like Alfred and others with greater needs were housed together and given no opportunity for training or education. No matter how intelligent they were, residents weren’t educated past Grade 5. 

Beyond the neglect, HRC was rife with abuse. Many residents were molested or raped. They were often subject to dehumanizing treatment like being locked in a dark and dirty pipe room alone for days on end. Residents were also restrained chemically by medication and physically through straight jackets and caged cots and cribs. Some were even sterilized against their will.

The anger Cohen felt on behalf of the residents led her to a question: what is it about human beings that makes us treat the most vulnerable among us so poorly?

“We don’t think of ourselves in Canada and North America doing this in the 20th century to people, and it was done,” Cohen said. “This is one of the answers I learned, and as a Jew steeped in Holocaust history, you understand this also: when you dehumanize another person, all bets are off in terms of care and rights and love that you think they deserve.”

After the class action lawsuit over hospital schools was settled in 2013, institutions such as schools for deaf and blind people were the subject to lawsuits as well, often for similar claims of abuse. That along with the discoveries of unmarked graves at residential schools made it clear to Cohen that the problem isn’t just about bad apples. Instead, there’s a systemic problem with these institutions.

Cohen emphasized that the goal is not to condemn small towns or the people connected to these places. It’s about an ineffective and dangerous model of care that allowed the government to push people out of sight and out of mind. She hopes viewers will come to the film with open eyes and ears and consider the contemporary institutions, such as long-term care, that are moving toward the same problematic patterns.

“Ultimately, it’s not about Orillia or about Muskoka, or even about Ontario,” Cohen said. “It’s about a model of care that was very dominant and that we took for granted throughout North America and to some extent in Europe in the 20th century, and to some extent now.” 

When Cohen heard the news about the unmarked graves at residential schools, she wasn’t surprised. Indigenous people had been speaking about these injustices for many years and there were similar issues at HRC. Cohen’s half-brother Louis was buried in an unmarked grave after dying at the centre and the cemetery on the property lacked proper markers as well. The absence of a proper burial is “a way of robbing people of their humanity even in death,” Cohen said.

For decades, graves were only marked with numbers signifying the order of death. Instead of using existing records to restore the graves, the government made plaques for each row in the cemetery, listing resident names and death dates. The lack of birth dates was a disrespectful attempt to avoid acknowledging the number of children that died within the walls of the institution, said survivor Betty Bond, and many of the markers aren’t even accurate.

Bond is proud to be a member of Remember Every Name, a group of survivors and supporters who aim to honour the people buried in the HRC cemetery. The group created a monument using left over money from the HRC class action lawsuit and they host a memorial procession on Mother’s Day each year. 

“It’s really important to bring this out of the depths of hell basically, and say, ‘Hey, there’s a history here. Do not forget this,’” Bond said. “That’s why we are called Remember Every Name.”

Bond was admitted to HRC in 1963 after becoming a “permanent ward of the Children’s Aid,” and people would be shocked by the things that went on there, she said. She suppressed many memories, but when she visited HRC as an adult following the lawsuit, painful pieces of her childhood came rushing back. It’s a terrible part of Canadian history and she hopes the documentary will open a lot more people’s eyes to the difficult truths behind these institutions.

“At first, I thought it was a nightmare, but then on the other hand, hey, we’re part of history,” Bond said. “We can tell our stories and let the public know and this is what we want.”

During Bond’s time at HRC, fellow resident and survivor Bev Link cared for her. They developed a close bond that remains in tact today. They live together in Bracebridge, and since Link is nearing 82, Bond now has the chance to return the favour and care for her.

After HRC, Bond went on to study wildlife for a semester at Guelph University, which was coordinated through Aspen Valley Wildlife Sanctuary in Rosseau. In addition to volunteering with organizations like the OSPCA and Community Living, she helps locals care for their animals. Though the early years of their lives are full of tough memories, she’s worked hard to move past the trauma.

“We’ve gone on in life,” Bond said. “It’s part of our history, it’s part of our past. It’s not our future and that doesn’t define who you are.”

Bond is part of a group of seven survivors that will be travelling to the Isabel Bader Theatre in Toronto to see the premiere on May 3. She’s nervous to see the final cut of the film since she knows it will force her to relive some of the hardest parts of her life, but she doesn’t want to hide from it anymore.

In fact, she’s looking forward to the documentary exposing the truth to people across Canada. “It’s about bloody well time people know about it.”

See the trailer for Unloved – Huronia’s Forgotten Children below. For more information on how to view the film, visit the Hot Docs website.

The post Upcoming Documentary Details Neglect And Abuse At Orillia’s Huronia Regional Centre appeared first on Muskoka411.

The documentary was released in theatres Nov. 2016 and later won a Canadian Screen Award for Best Biography or Arts Documentary. Since the death of musical legend and Rush drummer Neil Peart on Jan. 7, Gardner has been reflecting on his time editing the film, which started as a way to document rock’s most loyal fan base and their relationship with the band, according to Gardner. It ended up as an homage and farewell to Rush’s touring life, which was characterized by high energy athletic three-hour sets that showcased their exceptional musical talents. As editor for the film, Gardner was given hours upon hours of footage along with the task to craft it into a narrative.

“It was probably the toughest project that I ever went through for a lot of reasons, but the amount of footage was definitely one of them,” Gardner said. “When we first set out to do this project, it was not in any way about saying it was the end.”

In total, Gardner was given 12 terabytes of footage to work with. After going through it and seeing Peart’s interview for the film, it became clear to Gardner that the emerging story was one about the end of an era.

“Real storytelling isn’t to try and control the story and make it what you want,” he said. “It’s like how artists say, ‘The sculpture was always there, I cleared away the pieces.’ That’s really what I tried to do was boil it right down to what the real hardcore story was.”

Gardner was asked to work on the project by Allan Weinrib, producer of the documentary and brother of Rush bassist and singer Geddy Lee. Gardner and Weinrib worked together on a 10-episode docuseries called Draft Year, which introduced Weinrib to Gardner’s storytelling abilities.

“Bryan was instrumental in helping structure the film,” Weinrib said. “He brought a lot of storytelling skills to the table, and he helped balance it out between what the director wanted and what production felt like should be happening in the film. It takes a little bit to try and find the story in the documentary, and Bryan certainly helped immensely in that.”

For Weinrib, it was difficult to see the band’s touring life come to an end, but it was clear while making the film that the band was not going to be a touring entity anymore.

“It’s a bit of an emotional roller coaster for the fans as well as myself because I had worked on so many tours leading up to it and all that work is going to come to an end as well,” Weinrib said. “Watching the film, you become that fan yourself and you realize what a momentous occasion it is that you’re witnessing. That emotion always just overwhelms you, so it was difficult at times to watch the rough cuts because you just get reminded of that moment in time.”

The process was an emotional one for Gardner as well, but for him, his emotions were a sign of success. He said he knows he’s on point with a project when he’s laughing and crying with the footage and with the direction of the story that he’s putting together.

“Every word that’s said in that film, every dialogue, every order, every shot change, I put there out of those 12 terabytes that boils down to 90 gigs of data,” Gardner said. “That took a lot, and I left a lot of tears on that keyboard.”

As Gardner sifted through the massive amounts of footage, his wife, Christina Shane, witnessed his dedication to the project as he worked away in his home editing suite, which looked over the Kee to Bala, where Rush played their only show in Muskoka in 1975 — the same year Gardner was born.

“It is always interesting to watch a creative process and I find this particularly true of Bryan and his craft,” Shane said. “He is a storyteller by nature and he invests himself into getting to know the character and their respective story.”

Sometimes she would find Gardner at his computer working through countless hours of footage while other times she’d come across him reading Peart’s book Ghost Rider on the dock or listening to Rush while he sipped his morning coffee. He would work in his home editing suite for hours on end, sometimes 16 to 18 hours at a time, toiling into the early hours of the morning. 

“He worked on the film in his suite just below our bedroom and, as much as he tried to be respectful of my sleep, he often worked into the late hours of the evening and more times than I can count I woke up to the same music and words,” she said, recounting the first few lines of Rush’s hit song “Tom Sawyer.” “It became like a funny lullaby as I drifted back off to sleep.”

While Gardner wouldn’t have called himself a fan at the beginning of the project, he’s since become a fan, not just of the music, but of the members themselves. To him, the fact that the band members worked together happily for more than four decades with much of the same crew over the years says a lot about them.

“Long relationships are an indication of quality character people and that’s really what I became a fan of more than anything else is who these people are,” he said.

After feeling like he got to know the band members throughout his work on the film, it was difficult for Gardner to learn of Peart’s passing, but he also immediately thought about how devastating the news would be for their many diehard fans.

He noted that at various places in the film, it appears that the same footage is being used because of the presence of the same people, but really, they were fans that would come to show after show, spending as much as $2,000 to $3,000 on floor tickets. Rush fans are often described as the most loyal fans in rock and roll, and their love for the band has been evident in the days and weeks following Peart’s death.

“It’s one thing for the band to stop touring, it’s another thing to know that they’re gone outright,” Gardner said. “It feels like how you would feel for a really good friend or a family member when they lose somebody that’s in their family. These bonds are that tight and that close.”

One scene in the film shows crowds of Rush fans protesting the fact that the band had not yet been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Hundreds of people stood clad in Rush gear, holding signs in support of the Canadian rock legends.

“For the excitement and energy they had when they finally got the recognition, there’s that same energy in the sadness and the devastation of the loss because 67 is far too young for anybody, let alone an artist like Neil,” Gardner said.

Gardner sat down to watch the documentary the day that he heard of Peart’s death. The band members and others around them made many comments in the film about the significance of the end and, though they were talking about the end of touring, hearing their comments after Peart’s death made them much more powerful, Gardner said.

“I just feel very, very proud and very fortunate that I was drawn in to be able to craft a story of this magnitude for a hardcore, traditional Canadian institution,” Gardner said. “There’s really nothing else like it that I’ve ever done in my career, and I don’t know that there ever will be.”

Find Rush: Time Stand Still on services including Crave, Bell Fibe, iTunes, Qello, Youtube and Google Play. 

The post Bala Resident Reflects On Time Editing Rush Documentary Following Drummer Neil Peart’s Death appeared first on Muskoka411.