Saultbie Chris Nash, a product of Central Algoma Secondary School, has been named as a co-recipient of the Jackson-Triggs Award for Best Emerging Canadian Filmmaker.
The award, for Nash's short Day of John, was announced last night at the Canadian Film Centre's Worldwide Short Film Festival in Toronto.
Reflecting Nash's love of B-grade horror films, Day of John is set in his hometown of Desbarats and was filmed in Toronto over a six-month period of time.
Filming was fraught with complications but Nash and company were persistent.
He used York University equipment for much of the production but ran into a few problems with that.
"We were using a director of photographer from outside the school (Ioana Vasile)," Nash told SooToday.com. "So we had to make up stories about who was shooting it and try to get people to be a front for who was using it."
Because of the length of the shoot, the crew needed equipment longer than is customary for York University student short-film productions.
"We signed out the equipment for about 20 days in total and that's just unheard-of because some people just take it for two days," said Nash. "So they were wondering when we were actually going to shoot a movie."
Nash and company managed to string staff at York University along for most of the time they needed the equipment but the boom finally dropped near the end of production.
"It was constantly like, 'yeah this is the last time,'" said Nash. "Then they just said 'Yeah, this is the last time for us, too'."
So he had to find a camera to finish the production.
"Turns out my roommate had this awkward Russian kind of wind-up camera that nobody knew how to use," said Nash. "We had to fight our way through it and it was just really scary for me the whole time."
Nash said that some of Day of John's most important scenes were shot with this camera.
Up until he started editing, he doubted that they would be usable.
On his website, Nash credits the demon Boognish with giving them the ability to successfully finish the film with that camera because there were no English instructions with it, no one on the cast or crew understood Russian and no one had ever used one of these cameras before.
"Boognish is actually a reference to a Ween album," said Nash. "Inside they have their press release on the back cover and all it talks about is how they worship the demon god Boognish."
Day of John is an ensemble dark comedy about a high school teacher, John Travis.
It follows Travis through the worst year of his life.
Nash was standing in his backyard in Toronto, wearing nothing but a pair of boxer shorts and a big smile, when he found out that Day of John had been nominated for the Toronto Film Festival's Best Canadian Short award.
A third-year York University film student, Nash had been taking a nap on a blanket on the floor of his empty apartment.
He'd just packed a moving truck at his old apartment and was moving to new digs in the basement on the corner of Bloor and Bathurst.
That's when his cell phone rang.
"I was laying down on an old comforter in nothing but my boxers when the phone rang," said Nash. "So I ran to my window ledge because it's facing outside and I can get reception."
"Hello, is this Chris Nash?" the voice said.
"What, I can't hear you!" Nash responded. "I'm sorry, I'll have to go outside, I can't hear what you're saying."
So Nash went outside, answering his new neighbours' burning question - boxers or briefs - as he got the news that Day of John had been nominated in the Toronto Film Festival's Canadian short category. Last year, Nash also picked up the Best Short Film Award at the Shadows of the Mind Film Festival here in the Sault, and the Best Amateur Video award at the Sudbury Film Festival.
Both those awards were for another film he made in his second year at York University, called Hawaii for which he created a loveable puppet made from chicken bones.
(NOTE FROM DAVID HELWIG: Earlier versions of this article indicated that Nash was a product of Bill Howe's media lab at St. Mary's College. This editor-inserted information was incorrect and I regret the error.)