Lynne R Kamm

Where is Smithers, British Columbia? It’s two blocks and one mountain range south of Sarah Palin’s house. Pop 5509. Town dining comprises of the Japanese, the Chinese, the Italian, the burger place or the pizza joint. On Friday nights after a bender of karaoke at the Hudson Bay Lodge, the strip joint closes at 11pm and all the loggers, snowboarders and retirees amalgamate in the over-flowing toilet melting pot of the only dance bar. A night of cheap whiskey hits a frenzied pitch when the blown-out speakers rumbles out “Thunderstruck” and a brawl erupts – usually amongst family members. This is where wildlife also shop in the grocery store parking lot. This is where if you hear a shotgun blast – you just run and keep going. This is where the Zeller’s gal told the sport’s store owner what you bought yesterday. This is where an extension on a trailer is admired as practical architecture. This is where I was for three months. Welcome to nowhere.

Now add us to the scene. Overly-gortexed with a disposable per-diem, away from family responsibility and just plain bored.The locals did not know what to expect when the traveling cinema circus came to town. Snobs? Assholes? Freaks? Friends?They got all that and more. This was the location for the film Eight Below with DOP Don Burgess, directed by Frank Marshall for good ol’ Disney. Frank is a good guy. He just simply likes to make stuff. “Lynne, actually my first love isn’t movies, it’s music.” He hauled up his DJ equipment and spun tunes at the Lodge for the crew. I gave him his new handle: “FM Radio.”

Each morning at 5am, with the world still dark, an eerie glow of headlight dots wind their way up the mountain road to base-camp. The crew arrived dressed head to toe in thick arctic gear, hoping for a not-to-hot tent for breakfast and then piled like clowns into a Swedish amphibious war machine to traverse the next half hour up to the top. Last person in was squished on the steep incline by sliding butt cheeks in snow pants. The sucker position.

Hagglund

There is something about a crew on the road that creates a bond. Maybe it is the harsh conditions, maybe it’s the fact we all took up curling (I took up running for fear of shotgun pellets), maybe it was the secret whoring, the late night poker, the extreme white outs, the extreme cold, the extreme drinking, the cliff rescues, the snowmobile races, the girl posse, snowball fights, those stupid dogs from LA that never did their tricks cause they had never seen snow and us waiting, talking all day about life and nothing…

This was my last official show as a technician. Back in a Van studio, I was lifting a techno crane platform with twenty other people when my cell phone vibrated. Everyone dropped it like a hot potato. The Canadian Film Centre accepted me into their screenwriting residency. The champagne came out. Frank Marshall witnessed my CFC contract (yes it is a trend). They took me out for dinner to celebrate. That was the last time I worked with my crew. A gentlemen’s crew. A part of me was left behind in nowhere Smithers. I miss the circus. I miss my film family. Good times. But I don’t miss those darn stupid dogs.