The production of Christmas With Tucker, a Hallmark movie, was filmed in the Chisholm/Powassan area wrapped up Friday night.
The production gave local talent and crew more experience and yet another glimpse at all the hard work that goes into film production.
Christmas With Tucker, a novel by Greg Kincaid, is a touching prequel to the bestselling novel, A Dog Named Christmas, a heart-warming story which was adapted into a successful screenplay and becoming one of Hallmark’s Hall of Fame Movies.
The movie, starring veteran actors James Brolin (Marcus Welby, M.D., The Amityville Horror), Barbara Gordon, John Tench (Brokeback Mountain, The Colony) and up and coming actor Gage Munroe was produced by Hideaway Pictures (Northern Boys, Year of the Dog), and employed many area cast and crew in order to bring the project to completion.
It’s a remarkable thing to think how lucky we are in the North to have these world class productions going on right out of our backdoors and giving the experience and skills of movie making to so many local people in the area.
Baytoday.ca was fortunate enough to speak with Film Producer and President of Hideaway Pictures, David Anselmo, and ask a few questions to gain some insight as to what it’s like to be in his shoes and why & how it was decided that the North Bay area would be the shooting location.
Anselmo, who was born in Sudbury, Ontario and resides there, knew that when he landed the big production that there was no better place for a snowy winter production with a hometown Christmas feel than in Northern Ontario.
Q: What are some of the biggest challenges you face(d) in pre-production/production/post-production? How easy or difficult was it to bring the cast and crew to the North Bay and Powassan area?
A: When shooting on a remote location, the coordination of travel and hotels, and the cost associated with it always plays a factor. But it will always be made up in the production value on the screen as the area is gorgeous and a perfect setting for this film.
Q: Why film in Northern Ontario? Did you receive any NOHFC (Northern Ontario Heritage Funding Corporation) funding for this film?
A: As bringing a production to Northern Ontario is a lot more expensive than shooting in Toronto, the NOHFC has incentives for the region with an investment in the production. That being said, all NOHFC funding must be spent in the region and matched dollar for dollar by production. So for every dollar NOHFC invests in a film, $2 is spent locally, creating economic development and job creation for the North.
Q: Christmas With Tucker is a bestselling novel. How did you manage to translate the book into a movie?
A: We had a great screenplay writer by the name of David Johnson who did a masterful job on the screenplay.
Q: Did you anticipate the cold weather and did it slow down production or did everyone manage to stay the course?
A: We are glad for the cold weather and snow this year in Northern Ontario. It would be hard to make a Christmas movie without it. The scenes we’ve captured for this movie look great and a winter wonderland.
Q: Could you please tell me about Hideaway Pictures?
A: Hideaway Pictures is a Sudbury based production company with the mandate of “creating long lasting cinema in the North.” It has always been my goal to help bring film and television production to this region and to capture the beautiful Northern Ontario landscape, people and way of life. I’m very fortunate to be able to do the thing I love and at home, close to my friends and family. I hope one day to be able to inspire those who want to be filmmakers in the North, that they don’t need to move away to work in this industry.
Q: Any idea about when and where this production will be aired?
A: The movie will air in late November or December of 2013 on the Hallmark Channel. Just in time for Christmas. It will also air around the same time in Canada but the dates have not been determined as of yet.
Q: Is there anything else that you wish to say?
A: We are very thankful to have had the opportunity to film this movie in the area. The people of North Bay and Powassan have been great hosts and I am very proud to be from Northern Ontario. The people here are so supportive and very accommodating to film production. I look forward to filming in the area again.
