MOOSE JAW — Moose Jaw-based screenwriter Dustan Hlady was blown away when he learned that online streaming giant Amazon Prime Video had picked up the first season of his multi-episode show.
“I was pretty stoked. I didn’t expect to get a streaming service that’s so recognizable,” he said recently. “The people I was working with, they (distributor Filmhub) work with over 2,000 streamers, and so I was expecting to get on with some streaming service I’d never heard of.
“So, it was exciting in that Amazon Prime gave us the go-ahead.”
Hlady described the 19-episode show, “SIN3056843,” as a “light-hearted psychological thriller” about a documentary filmmaker who is obsessed with a late 1970s experimental cult-classic film and attempts to meet the reclusive director to understand the meaning of the convoluted film.
During her journey, the documentarian discovers there might be something paranormal about the film, while her existence is also called into question.
The series will debut in June.
The Moose Jaw filmmaker worked on this project for three years, starting with the pilot episode, which he used to generate money for the first season. He worked with a team to shoot and edit the series — the director of photography was Jeremy Ratzlaff, a well-known Moose Jaw filmographer — while he worked to find a distributor, which was “a whole other task.”
“So, it’s a lot of work along the way, but it’s starting to pay off,” he remarked.
The series is set in Los Angeles since the fictional documentary filmmaker’s quest takes her to the southern California city. While Hlady did visit the City of Angels to acquire secondary footage, he shot 95 per cent of the series in and around Moose Jaw.
Meanwhile, he worked with a cast and crew of more than 100 people, which he said was small compared to previous productions on which he’d worked. While there was only one main actor, there were many supporting actors.
Christina Persson, an actress and producer from Regina, is the series’ main character, while she is also a singer with the band The Wonts.
Hlady developed the storyline himself, noting that he wrote the synopsis years ago, since it takes time for a long-form project to be created. Once he’s ready to write a script, he looks back at his synopsis and attempts to determine what the most interesting idea is from his initial thoughts.
The screenwriter credited another Moose Jaw filmmaker, Jeremy Ratzlaff, with introducing him to the 1977 American independent surrealist body horror film “Eraserhead,” which “mesmerized” him and showed him that there were no rules to storytelling and that everything was acceptable.
“I just kind of had this really crazy idea and I thought, ‘That’s interesting to me. Maybe it will be interesting to somebody else,’” Hlady said.
Hlady said he was “very proud” of the first season, noting that people who have seen it have reacted in different ways, with not every reaction positive since the show “can be a bit much for some people.” However, he is OK with that and is glad he made something to which people are responding.
The Moose Jaw screenwriter says it’s unlikely that there will be a second season anytime soon, since he must finish with marketing and promotions for season 1.
Meanwhile, Hlady said season 1 was supposed to be longer, but he was forced to cut it down because it was too long. Moreover, he didn’t have the money to make it as long as he wanted.
“There’s still a lot more story left to tell,” he added.
In his career, Hlady has made two full-length features and several pilots and short films, while this latest project is his first series. While he felt that a series can be considered a disposable medium compared to films, he found it much more difficult to make a series than a film. For example, the first season is just under four hours long, which is equivalent to making three movies.
Hlady added that it’s still possible to make feature-length films in Saskatchewan and that this province is just as good as Hollywood.
