This time our film had an official premiere, at the Canucks vs. Red-Wings game on March 16. It’s one thing to see your film on a jumbotron, but add about 15,000 people on a legendary night with the team wearing the Millionaires jersey, that be crazy! Ironically though, none of these were the personal highlight for me. It was being there, watching it all unfold with my little buddy Thane, the 5 year old “Little Johnny” who stars in the film. He’s the son of one of my oldest friends who also came to the game with us, along with my beautiful girlfriend Sonya, who produces the films.

It was Thane’s first game, first time in the arena, and it was the first time he had seen the movie of which he stars…and when he came to his seat he was mesmerized for the rest of the night. He counted the shots aloud as the Canucks racked them up, with wide eyes he pointed at the jumbotron asking if that’s where the movie will play, and he always knew where Fin was roaming.

Imagine being 5 years old and soaking all this up, all these huge moments and memories. Now add a live interview on the jumbotron after the movie played.

We were guided down to the interview location via the inner chambers of Rogers Arena. We passed through the hallowed halls, past the dressing room, the press room, and towards an exit leading to the ice. As we waited to move to the exact interview spot, as if it was scripted Fin appears from behind us and walks straight up to Thane and shakes his hand. Fin, you rule.

We were then ushered to two seats behind the net, when our movie started playing. Thane was transfixed despite the chaos of cameramen and bright lights setting up around us. The audio was tough to hear because of all the production setting up, so I recited the lines of Johnny and the Millionaire into his mini ears as he watched.

It was in this moment, that I lost myself. Seeing little Thaner watching himself in a packed stadium on a giant screen, smiling…I got teary eyed. Then he asked me “did you make this movie?” in a surprised manner, and we laughed. All I thought was, what a cool memory for a kid. That’s real life magic.

One of my earliest memories was going to a Canucks game with my Dad, against the Flames. I remember walking into the arena and thinking “They make buildings this big?”. Maybe I asked my Dad this question, and maybe we both laughed after, but those memories are lost forever.

Anyways, we did our interview, Thane watched himself on the jumbotron as he squirmed away while I answered some questions from a gorgeous Dawn Chubai, who I met 2 years earlier with the first film.

We finished the interview, and turned to walk back through the halls, back to our seats. Then some strangers, some very cool and kind strangers, changed a kid’s life. As we left the interview area, a group of beautiful girls made sure to let Thane know that he was awesome, a couple sitting near us shook our hands and congratulated Thane, and many others cheered and yelled “Johnny” niceties. Whoever you all are, I seriously love you.

As we left the ice area, and headed back to our seats we had to walk through the insanely busy between period gate hallways, and the kindness continued. We posed for pictures, shook hands, and little Thaner just kept looking at me smiling at the weirdness of it all.

We returned to our seats, where Thane’s Dad, also slightly teary eyed, was there to hug him. What a cool moment. Maybe it will be Thane’s earliest memory, because I’ll never let him forget it.

From experience I’ve learned that all great characters have history, flaws, instincts and as a director or actor, they need rules. The following details some of the main laws we put in place for our simple Johnny Canuck character.

Johnny’s Universe and its simple rule

One of the first rules I established for our specific Johnny Canuck Universe, was that nothing should seem out of place from the 1940′s or earlier. Sure some items and wardrobe might resist this rule, but this rule became a quick and comprehensible way to block out tempting concepts that could weaken the film’s consistency. For example, would Johnny use a modern chainsaw? That would mean he would work less and Johnny does not understand laziness. He’ll stick to the axe thank you very much.

Johnny’s Gotham

Johnny will challenge anyone or anything that threatens his surroundings, namely his forest. When I was determining this instinct for Johnny’s character, I kept relating to Batman and Gotham. Johnny’s Gotham is his forest, his life, his livelihood and his greatest care in the world. What Batman would do for Gotham, Johnny would do for the woods.

Character vs. Actor

In regards to acting as Johnny Canuck for the films, my goal was and still is to keep Johnny in his film world as much as possible. If I were to act as Johnny and sit on a talk show couch as Johnny, Johnny would get a whole lot less intriguing. This rule also went the other way, in that if someone or something, or even a concept or Canucks reference appeared in the films, they would have to conform or reinvent themselves to enter into Johnny’s Universe.

I live for this type of character and universe development, and learned much of it from working with the Dark Knight film creators and comic book legend Marv Wolfman. Whether it shows on film or not,  these previous rules we followed are pretty common and obvious, but important none the less.

It was shared almost 500 times from the Canucks Facebook page.

PRE-PRODUCTION

The process begins with general and loose ideas of images, moods and messages I want to convey in the film’s entirety, which then turns into hand sketched storyboards and shot planning.

One of the crucial steps in the early stages is to track down the right music in order to nail down the mood. Once we’ve found the right music, I like to direct movement in the shots and time the edits to the music as early as possible.

For shooting we plan everything around the editing process, and shot transitions required to tell the story properly. This becomes our rough guide for location scouting, costumes, props, gear and people requirement.

Once we track down everything needed, or find better alternatives, we revise the storyboards and set a rough schedule.

FILM PRODUCTION

As we shot everything outdoors in the wilderness we are completely controlled by the weather and the lighting it provides. It has always been our intent to film only with all natural light as we feel this portrays Johnny as a real person, and not a highlighted Hollywood actor.

If the weather is appropriate, we head on out to the location we found in advance and shoot the storyboard requirements, sometimes with over 20 takes to capture the subtle nuances that are found later in editing. Beyond the planned shots, we improvise shots and action based on our surroundings, new ideas, backup shots for edits or shots we could possibly use for scenes in the future.

Once shooting is complete we review every shot in the editing program, look for flaws or effectiveness, and either move on to the next scene or reshoot when it’s appropriate. Some scenes we’ve had to re-shoot 4 different days as weather or non ideal results voided our efforts.

POST PRODUCTION aka “sitting at computer and not sleeping much”

Once most of the shooting is complete, the majority of work hours begins.
I am relentless in seeking out the best option during the structuring of the storytelling and edit timing to the music. It’s only once I feel like I don’t want to separate a combination and flow of shots do I know it’s working. Once this process is somewhat complete and nailed down to the music track, then comes extensive colour tuning, visual fx, sound fx and scene transition tuning.

Once all of this is roughly 90% attained, only then do I actually write the specific dialogue. Of course in my mind I have a rough idea of what general message needs to be said, but that too can often change up to the last stages of production. Ironically some of the dialogue we like the best was written hours before we finished the film, and even whole messages within a scene change entirely last minute.

Here’s an example…. “When your heart breaks, you find out what it’s really made of” was initially themed towards losing your identity and passion amidst the haunting of the loss. This identity struggle never sat right until the end, and we struggled to support any particular line rewrite along the way. So, within an hour of posting the video to You-Tube, we changed the dialogue towards the broken heart, and then changed the final line in the wheat field scene to accommodate it. Thank goodness we did as that was the key shift of emotion in the whole film, and it needed to be strong.

Purposely ignoring the boring technical side to everything and the speed bumps along the way (losing my voice, suspenders breaking, Hakai the dog getting way too excited about the lamb meat in my axe hand, llamas crashing the shots…) that’s the general process we undergo to make these films. It may not work for many, but it works for us, and it’s pretty fun to boot.

The Heartbreak of Johnny Canuck

Our general philosophy for storytelling and visuals is that everything should have a purpose, symbolize something or suggest into the following shot. Here’s a few in practice from “The Heartbreak of Johnny Canuck”.

The Cave Scene
In the opening scene we see Johnny get closer to the bear shot by shot, with each shot getting tighter and tighter in the frame. We wanted it to feel more and more claustrophobic as the scene progressed, as we wanted to convey the feeling of the game 7 loss. The game had little to celebrate, and it was a slow and painful realization that we would not win the Stanley Cup. We wanted the scene to feel that way too, followed by nightmare realization it was all over, as portrayed in the Stanley Cup nightmare scene.

The Lone Tree-
A lone tree stands in a barren wheat field. We wanted this tree to represent a few things, including both the “one bad day” that Johnny could not overcome, but also as an obstacle in Johnny’s life that he must deal with in order to move on. As we see in the final scene, Johnny does return to take down the tree and battle once again.
We also wanted the tree to represent the idea that next year Johnny won’t be defeated by any one single obstacle or single day in his quest for redemption.

Johnny’s Beard-
Johnny’s beard serves a few purposes in the wheat field scene as well as later on in the film.
In the wheat field, the beard’s visual purpose is to obviously suggest that time has past since the bruin battle, and also suggests Johnny has let himself go since the loss.
As a metaphor we wanted the beard to represent the playoffs, as beards do, and that he hasn’t let go of that final day of the playoffs. Once the beard goes, Johnny’s drive to succeed returns as seen in the shaving scene later in the film.

Canucks logo framing FX-
You might have noticed the Canucks logo frames (the orange/yellow circle, the blue/green box and the flying V) serve as a scene transition, but are not perfectly centered as they complete their transition, until the mood shift when Johnny puts his toque back on.
We wanted this off balance of graphics to reflect the underlying story that haunts Johnny in this particular film. His pursuit of excellence fell one game short, but it was still an amazing journey. The graphics effect this unbalanced result and the conflict Johnny experiences through most of this film.
Only until the Johnny replaces his toque (bordered by the flying V) and in the final ice logo scene (with the circle graphic) are the graphics symmetrically balanced in the frame, as Johnny has resolved his mental struggles and focuses on next year’s redemption.
Did we need to do this or does this really matter? Absolutely not.

Numerology
Hockey and sports in general are riddled with numbers and time, and we base a lot of ideas in the Johnny Canuck films around the game’s key numbers.
In the opening Cave scene, we begin with the opening shot of the night sky and moon, this represented the one final game winner take all.
4 more shots of the cave scene follow, representing the 4 losses. You’ll notice this pattern loosely followed in the first film “My Name is Johnny Canuck” as well, with the Ranger scene played out in 4 shots, as well as the Islander scene. Johnny also had 3 different axes in the first film, each representing a time the Canucks have reached the final.
Of course ideal editing sometimes sneaks in an extra shot if we feel it needs it, but we plan to these numbers.

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TELEVISION
Shortly after releasing our films on the internet, they aired on various television programs and networks, either in part or in entirety.
These shows and networks included Entertainment Tonight Canada, CBC National News, TSN, Sportsnet, Global and more.
We also had interviews featuring the films on Global, CTV, CBC radio, News1140 radio and more.
We’ll never fully know how many people saw or heard our films in these television and radio airings, but our data suggests up to 4 million viewers. Even if it was a portion of that it exceeded our expectations.

YOU-TUBE VIEWS and EMBEDDED VIEWS
You-tube has view counts, but they are far from accurate.
As views from google searches and you-tube suggestions register in the hit count, sadly a small minority of embedded views register in these totals.
This is a known problem with You-Tube in the last year, and our data also tells us this is true. Others suggest that You-Tube only registers roughly 20% of all embedded views, and our external data would support at least this percentage.

This is unfortunate for us as our videos are embedded in hundreds of websites, including Huffington Post, CBS Sports and the Globe and Mail…but the biggest loss of hits comes from the embedded links in Facebook.

Facebook was the main advocate for getting our films seen, as they have been shared on Facebook over 70,000 times…which is slightly ridiculous but also amazing. That means each time this was shared on someone’s wall, it was watched by a certain number of their friends (10 friends? 50? 100? 250?). You-Tube’s data tells us it was viewed 18,000 times total from facebook…but it was SHARED 70,000 times so You-Tube lies like the devil. That means we’ll never truly know how many people viewed it on facebook, but obviously we’re ecstatic with the results.

You-Tube view counts currently total over 350,000 hits.
Our data for embedded hits within Facebook suggests a minimum of 700,000 more hits (roughly 10 views per shared video). This number could be 10-25x higher but we’ll never know. Oh You-Tube.
Other data we have from You-tube suggests that other websites’ embedded videos (Huffington Post, Globe and Mail…) add up to 300,000 additional view counts (based off of the 20% of the numbers You-Tube lists in embedded view counts).

CANUCKS WEBSITE
The Vancouver Canucks featured our films predominantly on their website, which ruled.
We provided them a raw video file they could use in the arena for game showings, which they also uploaded directly to their site. This means none of the view counts from the Canucks website registered to our You-Tube view totals. That’s fine with us, as the videos received as lot of views and attention from their website. How many hits did we get from their website? We don’t know at this point hope to find out shortly.

Overall, who cares what the final numbers are, videos of cats wearing costumes get 10 million hits so we aren’t so great. As long as you liked our movies, that’s all that matters, and if you do, Johnny has a crush on you.

PS. Johnny thinks Aaron Rome looks like a member of his family too.

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