BEAUTIFUL BACHLORS the movie begins XmasDay 2012

Homeless Street Poet ROBERT THOMAS PAYNE & buddy AUGUSTUS LARROW

Yep finally back into the feature movie biz after a very long hiatus caused by cancer, care for ill/dying mother and last but least general malaise .... floating around town rather aimlessly at times - after all doing nothing takes time and energy.

That all over with ( i live with cancer and go in for annual tests ) i march to the creative folks tune once again. Yep BEAUTIFUL BACHLORS captures the life&times on Toronto's QueenWest of homeless Poet ROBERT PAYNE and his buddy AUGUSTUS LARROW both are living on modest or less income : ROB homeless living in an alleyway opening doors at Tim's for spare change, writing poetry and trying to sell it for living money and getting a small stipend from social assistance. He's adamant that he'll not accept urine smelling, fleabag, junkie filled, dirty rooms in rooming houses but demands to be treated as a normal human being despite being feral after 7 years living outside, urban camping in wet or cold year'round sleeping bags in alleys off Queenwest.
LARROW on the other hand has a small one bedroom apartment just off Queen where he's opened his door too often and to too many people in need who often steal from him but NOT ROBERT who helps shop and answers to his needs. They both survive, both marginalized surviving as the living poor in Canada's richest city, Toronto.

BEAUTIFUL BACHELORS covers 6 years in their friendship, surrounded by their declining health and life amid changing times of their neighbourhood as CONDOworld takes over, where the S&Ms invade like barbarians trying to make the art area of QueenWest resemble and remind them of ScaRBERIA or MessySAUGA with Loblaws, NewBanks, Newfurniture stores, ShopperDrugMart remind one of a wealthy section of Bloor rather than the grunge of former art colony - QUEENwest.

They are buddies in good and bad times helping each other as they survive the changing times of their worlds with humour, humanity and modest hubris.

Host/CHEF Peter Evanchuck with Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson

Host/Organizer Helene Lacelle, Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson and host/CHEF Peter Evanchuck

Kitchen volunteers, Francois Bregha, Marc Lacelle, Dallas Fletcher and Chef Peter Evanchuck

On Nov.18, host/organizer Helene Lacelle with partner CHEF Peter Evanchuck hosted the 6th annual Sandy Hill ONE & ONLY Arts+Crafts SALE. Peter's unstoppable spirit prepared and cooked food for over 1000 people for the event. With the help of his 'dream team volunteers' they chopped, boiled and fried all day to the delight of all vendors and visitors! What a day!

and then finally after compressing and uploading to utube the trailers came up MARKO'sMANIA easy and smoothly but thePOETRYofPAYNE just did not wanna come up clean and looking ok - hours later she be working ok - i think FCPro and me are not easy companions!

buddies in bad and good times ROBERT PAYNE street poet with PETER EVANCHUCK

Last weekend at Toronto's QUACrawl at Trinity Park about 20,000 guests and 250 artists including us showed&sold their creative work - buddies dropped by to help out and chat - good fun had by all - after celebrated at JAVA HUT with MILLS organic brews using my Garden 'sroom moola to pay the tab..

POSTCARD from TORONTO::: Photos from my two old buddies LARROW & GERRY

It's sad to see so many of my buddies passing away - while in Toronto i found out GUITAR PETE only 48 died last year heart failure/drugs - that's 27 guys i used to hang with have died in the past ten years - very sad indeed - poor LARROW is on his way out ... both bachelors are very thin but old GERRY being bi-polar is full of vim&vinigar came on the streetcar all the way to the Art show/sale which is about 5k's from his home - he had this, just met, young British gentleMAN help him off the street car and pushed his walker after finding out where in the maze of 250 tents/artists HELENE was located but they did!! - i said there were 5,000 visitors but that was wrong i just found out the count was more like 20,000 - a great show/sale and huge moola to be made - i sold 180 'srooms and could have sold more but of the 200 , 20 were not saleable i.e. cracked/forgot to put in spike - at $10. each mmmmmm moola for a month OR SO.. holiday this January in BELIZE & GUATEMALA (where I used to have a camp/shack/house not sure what one would call it - but in BELIZE it was called a house but it was sort of like RICK's shack/camp )

Photos from Toronto art show/sale QWAC ::: MARKO, ME, GERRY at 96 - he took the streetcar amazing !!

MARKO POLAKIWSKY's life with bi-polar illness is documented in Evanchuck's MARKO'sMANIA a half hour doc - GERRY McCORD plays a small part in it walking along Queen west with MARKO a decade ago or more ago...

The BIG UKE Lebowski's with small cameras

PETER EVANCHUCK and MARKO POLAKIWSKY pose for HELENE LACELLE's camera before they take off to continue the NB UNESCO World Heritage BIOSPHERE shoot. Based in Chipman, they will spend time shooting the Biosphere then camp overnights as they move thru NS capturing the UNESCO world Heritage sites at GRAND PRE, JOGGINS and LUNENBERG. This is a lifelong documentation for MARKO who has crisscrossed Canada many times shooting, like Ansel Adams, using a 6x4.5 format Mamiya 645 . He and Evanchuck first started the documentary MARKO'sMANIA  in 1999 when they went across eastern Canada recording the sites. After a ten year hiatus, MARKO has overcome his bi-polar illness to continue pursuing his dream to document and publish a book on all the Canadian Heritage sites. Meanwhile Evanchuck is, with the help of HELENE LACELLE and MC SARDA, completing several documentaries on marginalized, good people who have overcome serious problems to pursue a life in creative work to contribute to their life and the lives of others.

MARKO'S MANIA - poster

 Videomaker Peter Evanchuck, captures in his 29 minute documentary, a 14 year journey in the life of Bi-Polar Marko Polakiwsky.

THE POETRY OF PAYNE - poster

Videomaker Peter Evanchuck, documents  three weary winters in the life of Toronto Homeless Street Poet ROBERT THOMAS PAYNE.

BOY times and times fly in all directions in movie WORLD

Ok ok we're all busy busy busy and all of us who are new and learning all about FinalCutPro6 then gets FCPro7 and has to learn about that as well as all the other shit one has to fill their snappy cells with means - it takes away the fevour of keeping one's blogs 'up to date'

Well now things have slowed down a bit the movies are heading for the festival roundups and hopefully will make a big splash like me when i belly flop off the flotilla of my endeavours - sorry for the absence of malice the biting wit and heavy satire of my comments about trying to learn a new field when one is well over the hillock of life's shining light of youthfullness.

Blessed me those who never stop life by stopping to learn something hard and new....

Peter the Cancer Survivor now Peter the FinalCutPro survivor !!

PETER EVANCHUCK begins JOHNNY DOUGH-HO HUNTER - his first fiction movie in years

pic: Marilyn Mazerolle and Joe Blades pose in the pristine white marital cave of good and evil... home of the HOMIES:: Ms and Mr HUBBY

director/producer/cameraman PETER EVANCHUCK begins JOHNNY DOUGH-HO HUNTER - his first fiction movie in years

first shoot day with local actors/artists, Marilyn Mazerolle and Joe Blades, took place last Saturday with EVANCHUCK's usual no rehersals, no script, no meetings type of shoot - Mazerolle and Blades play a happiliy married couple of HOMIES living in a white cave - the former home of Bil Pigeon and Veronica Hasbeen - Mazerolle smiles shyly as she pretends to have enjoyed her honeymoon night with a man called HOMIE (BLADES plays HOMIE HUBBY a pubescent man about poems) who she met the night before at The LIBRARY pub in downtown F'ton:: home of the brave retreat of the yellow bellies.

Mazerolle enjoys acting when not bathing in the limelight of Queeneast where she's been a lifelong resident and gallery owner. Blades who writes poetry in the shower of salted water has run BrokenJaw press for decades catering to the lower strata of blockbusters who no longer watch videos but have returned to 'the written word'.

Their movie marriage is based on moronic lust,after a night at the LIBRARY drowning their sorrows in brews, look up from their daze and gaze on each other since even all the loosers have left and they, being the only two left in the bar, decide they were meant for each other so form a marriage of convenience and are married by the bartender who happens to be known as Mr Tattoo and is released from the NuttyHouse on weekends to marry loco locals.

Each knows JOHNNY DOUGH but neither knows of his whereabouts and cannot help DEPUTY CRUMBUM (played by Evanchuck) find the HO HUNTER - Deputy Crumbum is desperately trying to find a HO before dawn and while he still has a woody.

more to come.... as the director attempts to imagine the next scene in his big head ...

The DECLINE FALL & RISE of PAYNE - notes by docMAKER PETER EVANCHUCK

Making a doc. on a rather famous, homeless poet, ROBERT PAYNE is NOT all a bed of feathers. I've known ROBERT for decades thru thick, thin and the ups and the downs of his and my life. We've managed to remain in contact sometimes with difficulty and sometimes with much difficulty over those decades. Driving 5 hours from Ottawa, or 17 hours from NB isn't the easiest way to make a doc. on a very money-poor, self-financed movie. Recently, ROB's home of 4 years got closed down and one a recent trip down to get some 'pick-ups' i was confronted with a 'No Trespassing' sign where his blue tarp 'cocoon' used to be tucked alongside the wall. So i went looking for ROB but without success - he was no longer at his usual haunts .... so i returned home. Then after an email hiatus, ROB communicated with me again and eventually we managed to hook up and i managed to get my pick ups but his clothing had changed and his appearance had changed so that required a major shift in how the doc. would be structured and that caused some real concerns since the new footage would not be inserted at various points in the doc. as anticipated but would have to be cut and placed as a complete scene and that means a new opening which just isn't working out as planned since we had already structured a rather good opening and closing of the doc.... now as the saying goes, 'what to do; what to do'

The DECLINE, FALL and RISE OF PAYNE is slowly moving toward it's completion and i'm slowly learning more and more about FINALCUT pro 6 and 7 since I do believe that all moviemakers or as we used to call ourselves 'filmakers' should know about camera/editing to make their movie THEIR MOVIE and not the cameraman's or editor's movie ... more on this later...

ROB tells me that that someone somehow wants to take my title and put it on their doc. mmmmmm now that's a no no, guys!!

GERRYlive - the life and times of a man who at 96 struggles to live fully and for himself

Sophia and Gerry McCord at the Paddock Tavern on Queen W. in Toronto, 1991

I met GERRY McCORD decades back when i rambled along biking up and down QueenWest in Toronto's 'art&create' district - back in the 80's into much of the 90's it was the 'Main' of Toronto where dozens upon dozens of very talented and wild real people, freaks, doppelgangers and the like hung and hugged and embraced the creative live full out and high throttle - nights never ending 'till dawn - night after night after month after years. Away from most of that stuff were the normal or near normal regulars who lived in the area sort of not even aware that it was taken over by creators of creations - artists who always look for interesting cheap places to live, love and linger. For many of them it was a bit run down, cheaper than living elsewhere and right downtown in the heart of everything that was anything.

GERRY was and is one of those normal citizens who lived in the area in the senior citizens aparatments. He was always out and about always walking, checking things out paying attention to things that inerested him which were very unusual.  The locals knew him as the man who was out every day and night wandering in and out of places. He was a man who was then in his 70's who loved geometry, who actually met and spoke rather often with world famous, projectile geometer, Coxeter. GERRY would bring his geometric ramblings into the Paddock tavern at Bathurst and Queen and amid the BOPkids on BOPnight would want to go thru his endless meanderings of point a, point b and so on. He was wild about geometry, women and life and, he was and is, an undiagnosed bi polar who is now at the age of 96 still filled with the fevour of the mania but settled in his senior citizens apartment and with failing eyesight and failing health finally calming down fearing that a fall on his replaced hips might cripple him for life and that he says would mean suicide, 'No point living like that .. in a chair!'

I have been recording bits and pieces of my encounters with GERRY over those decades, sometimes nothing more than notes on a pad, other times photographs, sometimes video or film but always memory placed his personality into my movements thru life -

As my life took me away from Queen west, I never forgot GERRY and still, when in Toronto, go see him and listen to his hours and hours of thoughts of his life, his actions, his way of living those many decades as a single man attached only to himself and as he says, 'I'm always in love... in love with myself.'

An odd way to sum up ones life but an honest one and i do believe after those decades of listening to GERRY and watching his life unfold, that he really does mainly care for himself more than any other person and admits it openly; whereas, most people do that but few admit it so boldly...

At the present time when i'm in Toronto i record his life and thoughts and may one day put them into some form of a document that will reveal his life to others - there's only one GERRYlive, believe me!

Peter Evanchuck Looking for MOTION MAGAZINE!

Co-op Members PETER EVANCHUCK and HELENE LACELLE have spent part of their hibernating winter months building new websites/blogs - in particular, EVANCHUCK, who originated and was the publisher and editor of MOTION magazine, figured it was important to gather together all the issues of MOTION and exhibit available copies on line since it's probably one of the important pieces of Canadian Film/Theater/TV history - 'We would like to make the contents of MOTION available to all interested organizations/persons so figured the best way would be to put them on line.' - and so they've been worked at it and now slowly but surely, it's appearing on line.

Articles on probably all the the early flim/theatre/tv personalities up to 1980 were probably in one or many issues of MOTION - this could range from very popular persons like Alan King, Claude Jutra, Pierre Berton, Don Shebib or Donald Sutherland to lesser known ones like Peter Pearson, Michel Breault, Richard Leiterman or Daniel Pilon. 'MOTION was the only national magazine of it's sort before and at that time and perhaps still is the only one. It was such fun looking at all those old articles. Nostalgia just poured out of me as i recallled those days. We were 
all so very hopefully that somehow the Canadian 'scene' would blossom, bloom and explode but unfortunately then, like now, it was held back by bad political decisions and the force of Hollywood.'  

Since they are missing some issues anyone who may have knowledge of those issues to sell (we'll pay up to $50. for pristine copies) - "It would be mighty fine to have a complete set of all the issues but so far we're still missing about a dozen."

u can either go to our web site at www.movieshandmade.com and click on MOTION or click the links below

A life of recording each and every week of it - sort of that is ...

Guitar Pete and Movie Pete. Just another wild and wooley night at the Duke of Connaught Tavern, Toronto, May 16,1994.

Like other artists who've led an interesting, full and active life living somewhat on the 'edge' of it all,  I managed to record much of it. The people, the parties, the never ending nights that turned into dawns, the rought and tumble, the highs and lows, the energy of doing it night after night for decades all added up to a rather interesting array of snaps, videos, stories.
  So in my elder years i've been reviewing some of that stuff. sort of cleaning out the basement of my life's informal work one might say. Coming up with stuff that was never seen or seldom seen by others. For example, i've recorded much of the life of a wild and woolly 96 year old man, GERRY who was and still is to some degree the most active 'old timer' i've every known because his mind has always whirled from youth thru middle age into his elder and now his old age. His feet don't move him fast anymore by his mind moves his as fast as ever.
  He's one of the few males I know who have walked thru manic depression without treatment/meds of any sort. His bipolar-ness was never diagnosed because in those days he was simply called 'moody' sometimes very moody.  So moody that he sort of had to leave home in southern Saskatchewan and strike out on his own from coast to coast to coast in this country ending up in Toronto 60 years ago when he was almost 40 (yes today he's 967 alive and living on his own albeit with home care, a walker and almost blind. )
  So over the past 25 years, Gerry, is one of the amazing people that i've been recording over those years and last year i started to collate the material i had on him and realized that this man was much to interesting, now that i lead a much more boring life than i ever have led, to let this material linger and turn into dust.
  This meant that last Spring/Summer I started to get more footage on his present life and ideas to augment what i have to bring that archival stuff on his early days into the 21st century. After all in only 3 years he'll be a century old and one of those rare individuals, like Napoleon, Lincoln or Churchill, who have never been treated for an mental disorder we not call bi-polar. 
  This is one of several docs i'm now working on with footage shot over years on very interesting people who have rather remarkable stories to tell and lives to show ... at least I think so and my present dull life only reinforces that these individuals are really startlingly unique...

Peter Evanchuck

Just when u think u know enough BANG and FCPro tells ya 'Learn more'

 So i'm setting up a new project on FCPro so the first thing I do is click on file and select 'name new project' which I do then I name and date that project then I set the scratch disc which can be a tricky enterprise since some say make a folder for all ur docs and others say save it to the Desktop - as usual one determines what they prefer and that's often the answer when one gets to learn say a little more than a little in FCPro - each editor i've talked with to help me understand FCPro over the past year has his or her own way of arriving at the time line finished movie - overall i prefer the drag and drop method whenever possible and seldom use the keyboard but use the top menu tabs and scoll down for many procedures but sometimes the movement of the timeline, the ins and outs, the increase or decrease time line length and so on i don't use the menu tabs but use the keyboard soooooo the 'pint is' my dear amigos is that as one learns;  one learns what suits their character in the 'making this damn thing' work well so that one spends most of their time in the creative work of making their movie rather than spending time wondering what the hell went wrong... and that sort of 'what the hell went wrong' was half of my work day today ... I'm going to say my prays tonight and light a candle ... wondering if that'll help my poor aging brain work more effectively. see u in the morning ... perhaps

Peter E.

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 

Peter Evanchuck muses on movie 'PAGE EIGHT'

{photo is a self timer one that's Peter Evanchuck with his handy mini full HD Sony HC3 equipped with Sony mini shotgun HGZ1 a very fine mini unit that really does the job - on iMAC screen is the famous  Cdn Photographer, Edward Burtynski, (Manufacturing Landscapes et al.}


NB FILM CO-OP member PETER EVANCHUCK takes in TIFF...

It's only 17 hours to TIFF from tinyTOWN, NB (Chipman) but it was worth it to chat with Bruce MacDonald et al and to screen the closing entry at Toronto's Film Fest - PAGE EIGHT. David Hare the writer/director of PAGE EIGHT is a brilliant man to listen to and learn about sciptwriting and making films. He's not got a cliche in him as opposed to most others who only talk in trite cliches. PAGE EIGHT is a must see for movie makers. It's a thriller/suspense movie that has such a quiet reality the viewer is taken aback. Once again a film that all filmmakers should put on their 'must see' list.

Another fine filmmaker is Canadian Bruce MacDonald. Bruce has a unique way of raising moola for his movies (he was showing a follow up to his amazing HARD CORE LOGO) by selling credits - yes you read right, Bruce is selling producer, director, etc., etc., credits to raise money for his movies! Now that's a really dedicated filmmaker i.e. make 'em at any cost and isn't it in the making that counts not the buffet or the prestige or the baloney one encounters along the path of the making of the film - the great act of creating something, like David Hare, that shows others something they never quite thought of before in a way they never really though of... wow that's Voice in the BIG sense, eh?

Bruce never really told me exactly how raising money that way was 'raising enough money' for his movies. (by the way, pass that old cheese sandwich was heard on his frugal set.)

Peter Evanchuck & Marco Polakewski on screen

PETER EVANCHUCK has a very strong viewpoint on video/film-makers. 'To all those filmmakers who call themselves 'filmmakers' I'd say if you make films/videos you have to be involved in all aspects of the process before you earn that title; otherwise, you're just a director or camerman or editor. I do think that those of us who really want to show the world our viewpoint on a particular subject/story have to learn all aspects of documentary video/filmmaking. If the 'maker' doesn't shoot and edit his project they loose vital parts of the process that will show their unique point of view. This is especially true when it comes to docs that are not factory structured/designed but those docs that allow the reality of the subject/location to allow the maker to 'feel' his subject. I never pre-structure my own docs. I always know my subject, have to some degree, lived my subject. Taking the time, making the effort to learn all that, allows the 'maker' the uniqueness of 'voice' that can never come with pre-structured designs of docs. I never have meetings 'cause I'd be the only person at that meeting since my crew is 'a crew of ONE'.... me.'

PS: When Richard Leiterman was shooting A MARRIED COUPLE with his Elcair NPR for Alan King, he made that movie as much as King made it, in that he took over that first stage of putting the subject on film ... King directed/shot nothing; he was never there for more than a few moments. King would go on to make the movie in the editing room with Richard's footage and there was lots of it - Richard should have been given credit as co-director since he shot it ... right?

Peter Evanchuck & Nelson Adams second pic Peter E. taping music for Doc.

Producer/Director PETER EVANCHUCK with his Canon A1s and Rode shotgun mic documents NELSON ADAMS of Lincoln, NB narrating tales of his times in Lake Harbour, Baffin Island in the 1930's. Mr Adams was one of the first of five Canadians hired by the Hudson Bay Company to run their trading posts in the high arctic in the 1930's. Previously, they only hired Scotsmen from the northern Scottish islands who could handle the remoteness and weather of Canada's Arctic. Mr. Adams, a Newfoundland at the time, figures that he and the four others were hired by the Hudson Bay Company due to political pressures (the depression of the 1930's Canadians seeking jobs) and their choice of hiring Newfoundlanders who were from outports because they could stand the isolation and harsh conditions of the high Arctic as good as the Scots.

Filmmaker Evanchuck along with 4 or 5 scientists intend to sail next year from NB north along the coast to Nfld & Labrador then into the high arctic and arctic ocean heading thru the north west passage in a 32' C&C sailboat. 'We all think the passage will be clear enough of ice to allow a sail through' - this small adventure will be recorded by Evanchuck and narrated by Nelson Adams who recently celebrated his 95th birthday.

RECORDING MUSIC TRACKS IN MY KITCHEN FOR HOMELESS DOCUMENTARY
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MEMBER UPDATE - PETER EVANCHUCK

Producer/Director/cameraman Peter Evanchuck recording music tracks for his documentary THE DECLINE, FALL AND RISE OF PAYNE - a 30 min doc that traces the life of street poet Robert Payne over two winters 2010 and 2011.

This is called 'smartBUDGET' movie making, used to be called 'low' or 'no' budget moviemaking - as you can see my MACbook Pro 17" is on table with Lacie 1T remote HD - we screen a sequence - I babble about the 'feel' I'd like the sequence to invoke in the viewer then BROCK LEMINKSI and HEATHER MACDONALD would improvise on some of my suggestions - since they are very talented student musicians from UNB, then got it fast and furious. After only 3 hours we had laid all the music effects bed tracks and then worked on laying down some BACH they had already used in their final recitals for entry into advanced music studies at McGill - so they were happy with the money I paid them for 3 hours work - I was happy too since I got all my original and classical public domain music/music effects for my 30 min doc. - now that's 'fast and furious' moviemaking in the cowboy manner i.e. in the 'smartBUDGET' manner.  I used my CANON S1 and RODE shotgun to record both sound and image which is very easy to log and capture on FCPro - get rid of the image and only use sound where required - BINGO!!

Peter Evanchuck & Robert Payne

In making docs, I do not believe in wandering into a scene/story/subject without having gone through it myself for a reasonably long period of time; otherwise, one can be fooled into making something 'not real'. An example of that is my recent project, now 'in the can' called THE DECLINE, FALL and RISE of PAYNE which traces the life of Robert Payne over a period of a couple of winters. I've known ROB for over a decade and have had a long term friendship with him. He's been an actor in my previous fiction films as well as in my theatre pieces. In other words, I've known him through thick and thin, ups and downs so he can't pretend some things that he's not - for all of us who really have experienced our subject, the truth is not only 'out there' but 'in there' i.e. in the doc.

Another problem when making a doc on a homeless person; how do you find him or her? Well I’ve managed and volunteered in various soup kitchens in Toronto so know the scene and the people in that scene. This enables me to wander through it asking the right questions to find ROB. Each time I travel to Toronto to shoot I have to 'search him out' since he does have regular digs called 'the cocoon' a blued tarped 'home sweet' in an alley south of Queen West but he sleeps/rests at very irregular times so I search him out knowing the places he eats and rests which usually proves fruitful but sometimes it takes a day or so to connect with him.

This type of doc also requires the filmmaker to camp out to do what they now call 'urban camping' so to 'get the shot' one wanders through the night and day searching not only for the subject but also for the shot .... one becomes homeless; albeit for a short period of time a few days or a week rather than the 4 years that ROB"s been on the street.

If you want to get old fast go on the streets one year equals ten... ok I'm off to find ROB; he didn't show up where he said he was going to be....

Movie-makers, Peter Evanchuck & Helene Lacelle greet u to our new site in progress

Hello, please be patient we are now constructing our new site's web page - so far we've cleared the name, paid the provider and now we're setting it up and populating it with some goodies...

Movie-makers, Peter Evanchuck & Helene Lacelle greet u to our new site in progress

here we be - info for u viewing pleasure of our movie activities - comments welcome