Cooking is like Movie Making says chef Peter Evanchuck

'Cooking is like Movie Making' - Hard to believe that comparison ... let me explain further...

Recently (end of November) and for the past 5 years, i've been co-host and chef of the ONE&ONLY art/craft show in Ottawa. The  show and my buffet are well attended by about 1,000 guests - the food is appreciated and many compliments flow to those of use who make it.

This is seldom the way it goes with Canadian movies - there's no happy commerical outlets with happy customers for our directors/producers and their work. The usual reaction of the movie goer /american run theatres is that if it's 'Canadian' then it can't be good ... unless of course it's a Canadian making movies in Hollywood then we're lauded. So another James Cameron block buster gets all the compliments while another from Bruce MacDonald or Atom Egoyan gets little notice by the commericail theatre nor the movie going public


The disparity is in the market outlets - it's much easier to get ur creative work to the public if u're a chef than it is to get ur  creative work out if u're a director/producer. The outlets for Canadian food product are welcoming; whereas, for movies it's basically closed. Try to get a Canadian movie into a Canadian movie  house and i'll wish u all the luck 'cause the American product has it all tied up.


Years back Hollywood would send Jack Valente to Ottawa to make sure any change that would benefit Canadian movies would be stopped or hindered by his lobbying. Our politicians did not and still do not stand up for our movies and demand that the theatre chains in Canada show our movies as they stood up for our music and made it law for commerical radio stations to play Canadian music and that's why our musicians have thrived .. they get played and paid in prime time.

The Harper government does not wish to enhance or increase our culture - they prefer to have us bland with American culture - so the Harperites are doing what they deem necessary to realize the Americanization of our Culture'

Of course Quebec is giving them some problems... Bravo Quebec !!

Trying to find that right reality in a well shot, unscripted Doc.

I prefer to shoot unscripted docs... what they used to call CinemaDirect or CinemaVerite. A technique well used by such great cameramen/director's like Richard Leiterman for Alan King and Quebec film maker Michel Brault. This is where the reality of an event is captured on film/video then the story line, the content line is made in the editing room - the footage determines the direction of the story/the theme. The footage is there and then the director sets out in the editing room to find the sequence of events that best tell than story - there is no script to follow except 'reality'.

Well i don't want to get into 'does anything have reality' arguement but let's say that the most reality of how the story is 'in the footage' is closer by far to reality than a scripted doc. where one has to 'make' the events fit the script. That's false sort of a Michael Moore way of making entertainment dramas wrapped in the wool of 'real docs'. Or the highly stylized techinque of Guy Madden in his 'doc.' on Winnipeg which isn't a doc. at all but a personal view of the drama, the fiction, surrounding his Winnipeg.

For this director/cameraman much of recorded reality depends not only on the camera's ability to capture the best reality but on the subject to be 'real' oblivious to the camera... Neither is an easy task...

Peter Evanchuck

Publisher/Editor Peter Evanchuck Viewing His Motion Magazine on the Imac

self timer shot of Peter Evanchuck viewing his new MOTION magazine blog

Decades back PETER EVANCHUCK, along with a fine group of talented people, created, edited and published for almost ten years Canada's ONLY bi-monthly film/theatre/tv national magazine MOTION magazine. EVANCHUCK is shown here with his trusty iMAC working on his new web site/blogs for MOVIESHANDMADE.com and MOTIONmagazine.

Although published decades back MOTION is no longer being published but still remains the world's only magazine ever devoted exclusively to Canadian film, theatre and tv. Now in his 'elder' years Evanchuck plans to put 'on line'
all copies, all articles from MOTION to make them available to interested organizations and individuals.

MOTION was and still is a treasure trove of what happened in those earlier years of Canadian film, theatre and tv... when things in Canadian film were, sort of, getting 'hot'. Articles on the Toronto International Film Festival, Peter Pearson, Don Shebib, Richard Leiterman, Claude Jutra, Genevieve Bujold, Allan King, Centaur theatre, early Canadian Film Development Corp., Donald Sutherland, NFB, Budge Crawley, Carriere, Labrecque, Donald Brittain, Luce Guilbeaut, Harry Makin, Pierre Berton, Gordon Pinsent, Garth Drabinski,  and so on and on. In fact, every Canadian film, theare and tv person of those ten year eventually appeared or was mentioned in MOTION ... it was really a unique magazine.

It lasted for almost ten years 'cause it was supported for those years by devoted Canadian rental houses like Wm F. White, Quinn Labs, FIlm House, Alex Clark, Panavision, Kodak, NFB, CBC and eventually by 10,000 Canadian subscribers.

EVANCHUCK considers MOTION's impact on those areas of Canadian culture significant. In these times of Harper's desire to remove our culture or rather transform it into 'Harper's no Culture, Culture' MOTION's revival is even more important than ever. The historical articles of those formative years will help younger and new people understand the importance of what made and what continues to make our film, theatre and tv what it is today - American involvement, the difficulty of raising monies for Canadian movies, few theatres receptive to show our movies due to American hold on them and few tv stations willing to take Canadian product for fair monies still haunt Producers. When legislation demanded Canadian outlets play Canadian music in prime times, our music industry thrived and continues to produce dozens of great bands, musicians and music.

If theatres and tv stations were legislated to play Canadian content in prime time, like out music, our movies would have fair and reasonable chances to do as they did. Amereicans would loose hold of content. Canadian Movies and TV would soon enough hold the world's attention just like our music does now.

All that being said EVANCHUCK is looking for about ten missing MOTION magazines since he does not have a full set of the magazines produced - anyone with good pristine copies of MOTION contact Peter Evanchuck who is willing to pay up to $50. for good copies.


please go to  movieshandmade.com  then click on MOTION MAGAZINE to see the copies we have - u will see all the covers displayed if u have one that is not displayed then contact Evanchuck at movieshandmade@yahoo.ca