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Creating Hollywood North

The gangster-style film Triggermen features two con men, Andy and Pete (Adrian Dunbar and Neil Morrissey), who take advantage of a crime boss, then run to save their lives.

LYNDA ALLISON
[ 2002-05-22 ]

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John Gillespie, the 34 year-old executive producer of the Toronto film, finds the movie set like being with the mob.

"Sometimes people are happy and it's great. Sometimes people are unhappy. You have to be patient and deal with it."

"My wife and two daughters find the film set magical. They enjoy being with stars from massive studio films," says 42-year-old co-producer and writer Tony Johnston.

But Johnston's industry experience gives him a different perspective.


"It is very mechanical. Very methodical. You are utterly focused on whether you are getting what you are supposed to that day," he says.

After obtaining a BA at the University of Toronto, Johnston worked for IBM and then Winston Stevens in commercial real estate. To stimulate his imagination, he took night film courses at Ryerson.

"I wrote a screen play and it attracted a lot of attention. So I quit my job and followed my dream like a fool," he says.

Gillespie, on the other hand, caught film fever from his father.

"My father watched a lot of them and when I spent time with him I would watch," he says.

At Queens University, he majored in law and minored in film. After watching a double-bill one time -- Man Facing Southeast and Mean Streak -- at the Mayfair Theatre in Ottawa, he was convinced he wanted to make movies.

"For the film maker of either one of those two movies to have an influence on a kid riding home on his bike in Ottawa is pretty powerful," Gillespie says.

His got his first break working on commercials as a production and prop assistant. From there, he went to Moscow to work as a production designer on the feature Crime and Punishment.

"It was a huge leap. It was either going to be a disaster or it was going to be a great success. I think it worked out nicely," Gillespie says.

Johnston loves the collaborative process of screen writing.

"You work with production partners, distributors, the director and sometimes with actors. When it works, it is a lot of fun," he says.

According to Johnston, it's the editing that effectively makes or breaks a movie.

"At the end of the first cut we go 'we better quit our jobs and open a Polynesian restaurant.'" But after weeks of editing, the magic finally happens and a movie is made.

Together, Gillespie and Johnston have partnered to film Hollywood North, the story of a filmmaker who, according to Johnston, "dreams of doing the right thing and making a really nice movie."

Johnston enjoys watching everything go horribly wrong for the protagonist. But he'll live this misadventure vicariously, preferring to continue living his dream and achieving the next one in the future -- forming Canada's largest film production and distribution company.

(Lynda Allison is a freelance writer and educator, and operates Write-Up Writing Services, a researching and writing business. She can be reached at lallison@durham.net.)



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