Svalbard Adventure (2024)

I have been photographing bears since I was sixteen when I was hired by Parks Canada to be a campground attendant.  One my chores was to chase bears out of campgrounds.  Since then I have captured thousands, probably tens of thousands, of images of bears, not to mention hours of footage.  But prior to my 2024 trip to Svalbard, I had never seen a polar bear in the wild.  

The Svalbard trip was spectacular.  And not at all what I expected.

I made this short film with Stephie Bright as a training exercise.  I wanted to test out some new tech and experiment a bit.  The piece was filmed in 10 segments over about 11 months.  We never told our cast that we were actually connecting up all the segments into a sort of story.

In the aftermath of Shattered (2008), I found myself with all sorts of research done, people interviewed, footage logged.  The idea of a documentary found a front burner.  I picked up my camera and a microphone and started walking the streets of downtown Victoria.  I was amazed by the people who were willing to speak to me, including doctors, outreach workers, police officers, and addicts.  I learned a ton about drugs, addictions and youth.

The financial crisis of 2007/2008 hit hard.  Contracts disappeared and suddenly I had free time on my hands.  Never being good at being idle, I started researching an issue that had bothered me for years: why do people become addicted to drugs? 

At the back of my head I had an idea for a documentary. But what I really wanted to do was a feature-length film.  I wanted to try something bigger, diver deeper, really explore a topic.  And to have some fun.  Thus Shattered was born.

I think of this as a "found" video -- it happened almost in spite of itself.  I was on a filming trip in the UK and was told to stop by this odd little museum called the Falstaff Experience to see if there was anything worth photographing.  The museum didn't offer what I was looking for, but the people who worked there certainly did...