To Spirit Island explores how five young friends from Toronto cope and engage with a Canada reminiscent of a past century. We will follow them on a journey to a remote, secluded old log cabin on the southern beaches of Manitoulin Island in order to put modern society and technology in a context and give the audience an opportunity to reflect on the meaning of both.
PREMISE
This documentary investigates how five acquaintances from a world city experience a secluded patch of northern wilderness. Through following them on their journey, throughout their stay and later to-camera interviews we get an in-depth look at how each of them dealt in this remote refuge away from modern technology of smart phones, Internet access and electricity. As the location starts to impose its own necessities and rhythms the viewers become part of dinner conversations and debates in a rustic setting. The remote environment sparks and brings to life discussions of who they are and how they relate to a Canada both old and new and make sense of modern life in a multicultural metropolis and a remote place that evokes feelings of nostalgia and romance of something lost.
THEME
Our personal histories and where we are situated have a major impact on us. But it is also in how we engage with significant others that we define ourselves. Personal and Canadian identity, identity individually and shared are the dominant theme of this documentary as these five characters from modern Toronto experience this unique, remote place that is reminiscent of an older Canada, of a century past, a place of wilderness and untouched by modern civilization.
We are leaving from Toronto, an alpha-world city and fast-changing multicultural metropolis. Life here is dominated by people that are more and more fully immersed in media and communication devices through a growing number of platforms. Social networks, smart phones, tablet devices have permeated our everyday lives in unprecedented ways. We are constantly in contact with something or other whether it be our work, our facebook friends, the twitter group we follow, the latest breaking news on our news channel. But as a result our lives have become more fragmented and traditional borders of public and private seem to disappear. Travelling towards the shores of Manitoulin some of these preoccupations fall away for a time and as our senses adjust we might see and relate to our surroundings differently. As this journey is a return to a place that I came to deeply associate with what I thought to be Canadian other themes of memory, nostalgia and even romance of a place lost become minor themes that will be textualized and interwoven throughout the documentary. It will be fascinating to find out how these themes will contrast or resonate with our other four characters and how the cultures of a modern and old Canada speak to one another.
POINT OF VIEW/TONE
The journey from Toronto to Manitoulin and our stay there reveal two very different places. We start in Toronto, the capital of Ontario also known as the “world in a city”, a mosaic of different neighbourhoods and cultures. It is a place of modern technologies, of fast pace and little reflexivity, a North American city with all its complexities and social problems.
In contrast Manitoulin presents itself as a refuge, a romantic and nostalgic vision of an older Canada, northern and wild, a picture that is filled with nature, with fresh air and clean water, with canoes and campfires. How do those two places relate? What connects them, if they are connected at all? The POV of this documentary is somewhat ambivalent on these questions but hopeful that an exploration of the controversies can shed some light on how the two places can complement each other.
CONTENT
Place
Manitoulin island is the largest freshwater island in the world. It is situated in lake Huron one of the five Great Lakes. The island is about 160 km long and a continuation of the Bruce Peninsula and the Niagara escarpment. From May to October a daily passenger-vehicle ferry “MS Chi-Cheemaun” operates between Tobermory and South Baymouth on the island. The cabins themselves are located about another hour from the South Baymouth and can be reach via a logging road that ends approximately 10km from the cabin. The bigger cabin was found on the western side of the island and disassembled and rebuilt and restored in its current location. Without electricity the cabin is lit at night with antic oil lamps and heated with an old iron stove taken from an old school house.
Characters
A … just came back from his cottage getaway about a week ago. He is very social and loves the outdoors. He seems to be quite a hands-on person and open to new experiences.
B … is finishing her PhD in English literature. She is very familiar with Canadian novelists such as Michael Ondaatje, Margaret Atwood and Joseph Boyden has an interest in the Canadian arts. To her this place might speak to a last century of Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven.
C … is of Trinidadian, Chinese and aboriginal origin. She is funny, blunt and not afraid to voice her views. But she is easy to be around and doesn’t hold a grudge. She is character that might provide comic release and lighten the conversation.
D … is a young man who grew up in Toronto. Among the four he is probably the most citified and it will be interesting how his views will contrast with Mike’s. He is immersed in modern media technologies such as iPhone, iPad and Facebook but also likes to read. He has a sharp intellect, tends to think for himself and come to his own conclusions.
Secondary Characters
Ron Tasker is an old friend who introduced me to the island and is coming along on the trip. He grew up in a Toronto of the seventies and eighties and has been to going to the island and the cabins his whole life. When I first met him he was very much an individualist. He still loves the outdoors and enjoys the solitude of Manitoulin. He will provide texture and history to this place and will help in providing us with the context of different chores and tasks.
I will be one of the four characters in the documentary. When I came to Canada in the 90s I worked in Kingston. My friend Ron convinced me to come along on a trip to Manitoulin Island and I immediately fell in love with the place. It was this place that I started to associate with Canada. The solitude of the cabin, the expanse of Lake Huron, the raw beauty of the place worked its magic on me. Now after coming back to Canada over ten years later, I live in Toronto, a very different place. The modern and diverse city differs from my earlier experiences in Canada. The larger GTA is one of the five biggest urban centres in North America. It is a place of fast pace, highways, technology and modern media. Whereas Toronto is a place of modern civilization Manitoulin is a scene of nature and solitude. Now over ten years later I will take along these four friends to see how they experience and make sense of two places that lie only five hours apart but speak of two opposite worlds.
Conflict
In the documentary I want to explore the significance of this unique place on Manitoulin through the eyes of our characters as they experience and explore parts of the island. The location and its needs impose their own obstacles and rhythms that takes all participants out of their everyday life. They will have to deal with the absence of cell phone access, the lack of electricity and or running tap water. They will also have to participate in some of the work that is necessary to run these cabins. The cabins need to be opened up after not having been used or visited over the long winter. Water tanks need to be cleaned and fresh water needs to be pumped from lake, the place needs a thorough clean and some maintenance work might be necessary. This involves hard work and it will come as a surprise to some of the characters that this idyllic getaway also requires hard work to run and maintain. There are a lot of small details that all participants will learn about. Garbage needs to be separated, some of it composted, fire wood to be split and meals to be prepared. It will be fascinating to see how the characters will adapt to their new surroundings and how they will be able adapt to or avoid some of the tasks that are put in front of them. Also, participants are being asked to contribute or bring a few things to the trip that speak to them personally. At the end of the day we will see them around a dinner table, gathered around a meal. All of them will have brought, prepared or cooked some of the meal and this will help to further contextualize their personalities and background. It is here that their experiences are shared and some of the interpersonal conflicts of the group play out. I expect their differences in character to contribute to the development of this part in a very organic way.
Structure
The documentary will be one hour in length. It will start with an opening tease that will speak of a memory and of a different place. It will then continue in the form of the journey. We will be following them on their way to Manitoulin, their stay at the cabin, their return and their reflections two weeks after coming back. At this point they will have seen a rough cut of the entire trip and get a chance to voice their own reflections on the journey. They will respond to a few questions, clarify and explain some of their reactions on the island. The outcome of these interviews is to be included in the final documentary.
Any form of crisis or conflict will most likely occur during the dinner conversions at the cabin. Both their reflections and the history of these cabins (including a poem that is associated with the island) might provide material for the falling action or a form of resolution for the project.
Style
The documentary will have a look and feel not unlike cinéma verité. I decided to include myself in the documentary as it provides a way into the story and a point of view. The camera work outside the cabin will be mostly hand held to give the viewer a sense of personal and close involvement in the experience. The dinner table conversations will be filmed with three cameras to capture both action and reaction shots during the conversations. Warm colours will help to invoke a sense of nostalgia. The location at Manitoulin Islands will add an important dimension to the story as it evokes the image of an older Canada and what it might represent. The to-camera interviews after the return will be direct shots, using a long lens with the interviewer close or behind the lens to give the audience the feel of facing the interviewee directly.
