Preproduction 3: Location Scouting

Location scouting!

So we are at the phase now where the script is very nearly ready to be locked down, the storyboards are more than half done, we are almost finished casting, and we are heading for locking down the physical aspects of the shoot: locations, costumes, and props. Over the last week and a half, the Sisu production team has visited various indoor and outdoor spots, and we feel that we are very close to having all of our locations locked down. Now these sets are probably not all entirely accurate in terms of furnishings or design, but at this level of film-making you take what you can get! We'll do as much research as we can to get things right and what ends up slipping through will just have to be chalked up to artistic license. And the main thing is the story, anyway. I look forward to announcing our cast later this week, who will do an awesome job of telling the story.

To see any of these images larger, just click on them.

Our first trip was to the Sukanen Pioneer Village Museum, where we are planning on doing most of our interior shooting. There are some great exterior shots, too, like this establishing shot of Front Street (it's not really Macrorie but will be in the film; I couldn't resist trying out the sepia treatment we'll be using for all of Tom's memory shots and adding the title).

Just like the real thing!

Here is the general store interior where we'll shoot a couple of scenes. It's pretty awesome, and looks even better in sepia, which is how we'll treat the footage in post.

Lloyd's general store

Tom's kitchen

Finnish boss' office (circa 1899)

another angle of the office

Dami's bedroom (Finland, 1890)

This could be Arne's bedroom (Minnesota, 1910) or...

...maybe this one.

There is a dance, possibly in a barn. This is a little small and we'd have to do a little set dressing (like tossing a piece of canvas over that red seed machine in the corner) but I think with the right lighting and camera work it could be just great.

Can't you just hear the fiddles?

Tom's bachelor bedroom in his homestead

Our wonderful friend, Paul Johnson, the president of the Sukanen museum, points out one of the many cars that could be parked along the street, or even drive through a scene.

We are hoping to be able to shoot a scene set in about 1912 that is a demonstration by a salesman for the local farmers of a newfangled steam-powered threshing machine. The Sukanen museum, like many of the heritage museums in Saskatchewan, has special events throughout the year, including a threshing bee and antique tractor parade. We may be able to get in there a day before their big event and shoot a scene with a group of farmers in period costuming watching a demonstration. Paul's working on getting the steam engine a few days early so that we can make this happen. If we get this shot, it will be another one of those dream shots...

So that was the Moose Jaw area scouting jaunt, then last week Brette took us on a great road trip east of Regina. Our first stop was at the Harding's farm just outside of Fort Qu'Appelle. It's a beautiful piece of land overlooking the lake.

Location scouting is always fun. What a day it was.

The Hardings have hand-seeded this stretch of prairie with alfalfa, so it will be a great place to shoot some scenes from the film that take place before the land is broken and planted to wheat.

There is a scene in the film where Tom Sukanen looks up a hill and sees the ship rocking on the edge of it, almost as if it is on the water. This is a great place for this shot.

Just imagine that Brett and Janet are a ship.

Of course the dogs always have a great time when they get to go on location scouts...

Django running in the grass.

Next stop was the Abernethy Nature and Heritage Museum in Brette's hometown, where we met some wonderful folks who may be able to help us find a few props and also might have some period costume connections.


Raul, as always, did a great job of documenting everything and in going through his pictures from the museum later I came across this old picture of a barn that was hanging on the wall. On the way home in the car we were talking about the possibility of compositing CG buildings onto the raw prairie shots, and I'd love to see this barn get built in 3D. The ruins on Tom's homestead are all field stone foundations like this one, and many, many of the barns and farm buildings I saw in Finland were built this way. It would be amazing to recreate this kind of barn on the Hardings' raw prairie. One thing about the homestead buildings when they were new is that they had no trees around them. It is very difficult these days to find an old farmhouse that is not surrounded by protective hand-planted trees, so going CG is a great solution.

So cool.

Tom of course was a craftsman, and tools will figure prominently both as set dressings and as props in the film. The Abernethy Museum has a great selection and we may be able to snag some for the two weeks of shooting.

As I mentioned, Raul did a great job of documenting everything. One of our favorite things at the Abernethy Museum was this stuffed raccoon, who looks like he's just discovered that the 'egg' he rolled 2 miles is a fake and that all the other forest animals are laughing at the practical joke played on him by some bird.

"Son of a --!!!"

Our next stop was at the beautiful Motherwell Homestead Museum just outside of Abernethy.

The house is amazing and while we can't really use it for the film, it was great to walk through it and get some shots of the interior for ideas when it comes to dressing our sets. Flo gave us a great tour and spent a lot of time showing us things and explaining the history of the site.

the Motherwell kitchen

All of the folks who work on the farm at the Motherwell homestead dress in period costumes, which is really cool. They use old fashioned farming techniques, and have a couple of teams of beautiful draft horses.

...almost like stepping back in time...

If we shoot at the Motherwell, we may be able to get a shot of the team pulling a farm wagon, which is at the moment only a dream shot.

Here is another example of a building I'd love to build in CG on the Hardings' field. This is a hired man's home on the Motherwell farm, and it looks simple, something like the way I imagine Tom's house might have looked.


One scene in the film requires a rather large area for a dance and party. Originally I pictured this scene taking place in a living room, but all of the farmhouse living rooms we've seen are tiny. So now we are thinking of a barn dance instead. This is the beautiful barn on the Motherwell farm. Our tour guide, Flo, said that they could clear out the machinery and let us use the back half of the barn. We're still not sure what this would cost, and ultimately it will come down to money. We have a great deal at the Sukanen Pioneer Village museum, which is closer and 'cheap-to-free', although their barn is smaller (above), so we'll see how things go.


Probably the biggest score at the Motherwell was the costume room. Flo says that we can have access to this amazing collection of period clothing, which ranges from farm and work wear to a few really nice pieces for both men and women. There are multiples of everything in various sizes, and there are even hats and boots. There's a bunch of kids' clothes too. Again, we don't have the price list for renting these costumes but it really was a goldmine! Hopefully it'll be within budget.

Brette likes this one.

This photo shows some of the variety of costuming we would have access to.

After this we got some slices of fresh-from-the-oven pie and headed to the last stop of the day, which was Brette's family's farm. They have a beautiful place with lots of cinematic prairie type scenery. If we end up going to shoot at the Motherwell and Abernethy areas, we may use some of these locations. If we stay in the Regina/Moose Jaw areas we will try to find locations that are like these:

This is a nice meadow...but according to Brette, "there's a snake who lives here."

This is exactly the shot down the dirt road that I have had in mind for the past three years! Except maybe without the dingoes.

This field is really nice right now but in August it will have a nearly mature crop, so will look quite different.

This is a great toolroom that would work as a backdrop for the toolroom at the shipyard in Finland in the 1890's. It's in a barn but I think it's generic enough that if we shoot and light it right, it would pass.

After this we drove back to Regina and had a well-earned beer or two.

We were still wondering where we might find a room that looked like a hospital room from 1943. Many folks have suggested actual hospitals, like Fort San and Weyburn, but both are closed and neither seem to be accessible for shooting. Old hospital buildings that are still in use have been modernized inside, and there is no way to shoot around the televisions and modern fixtures, so after looking at some real hospital photos from the 1940's, we realized that we just need to bring a vintage bed and a little furniture into an old room in an institutional building. Here are a couple of actual hospital shots from the era:

So we were on the lookout for an old institutional building with water radiators and tall windows. There is a bed at the Sukanen museum that we can borrow that looks just like these, and an old white wheelchair as well. If you live in Regina, you will recognize this building, the old Regina College, built in 1911.

Just put a couple of doctors in front of the bike rack and this will make a beautiful establishing shot.

This building bears a strong resemblance to the actual North Battleford Hospital, which was built around the same time. This is the best picture I could find of the actual hospital where Tom spent his last days, but you can certainly see the similarities. Anyhow, it's the movies. We get to make believe a little, right?

North Battleford Mental Hospital, now called the Saskatchewan Hospital

Inside the building is amazing. This is a great shot for when Vic comes to the hospital to see Tom. Disregard the hippie on the stairs.

The basement is also great, and has a perfect hallway for the scene when Tom leaves his bed and is found and escorted back by the night nurse. It's a great long shot down the hallway and I can just see Tom tottering along in his hospital gown, walking slowly and leaning on the nurse.

"Let me help you back to bed, Mr. Sukanen."

I kind of like this slightly crazed angle that Dauminique took of this hallway too:

Room 206 in the building is perfect. It has the high windows and the water radiator. The room is deep so we can move the bed and cheat shots; there's room to get behind the bed with camera and lights if we want to shoot towards the door, and room to push the bed against the window and set up the camera and lights the other way as well. Here's a shot of one of the angles we've pictured, of Tom (temporarily played by me) looking out the window of his hospital bed.

For some reason we didn't get a good shot of the radiator and window, but if we get approval to use this room (and as it's part of the University it shouldn't be a problem) we'll go back and get some better documentation. For now, here are two doofuses next to the window. You can get a glimpse of the radiator in the corner and a sense of the look of the windows.


The room currently has a table and chairs in it, and lots of stuff on the walls, so you sort of have to use your imagination to see this room dressed and with a hospital bed in it, with a sick old guy lying there, but I am convinced it will work. Now it's just a matter of getting it confirmed that we can use it.

Maybe this can help to visualize it! All of the hospital scenes will be real color, but I had to go with the sepia as I took the bed and furnishings from an old black and white photo. The only thing that makes it look modern is the carpet, so we either have to avoid shooting the floor, or get a cheap roll of white linoleum to put down.

It's perfect!

Well, that's it so far. There's a little more location scouting to do and we're hoping to get all of the locations locked down by the middle of next week (by the 8th of June at the latest).

Next post I will hopefully be able to announce our cast!

Until next time... Sisu!