Bass: Tim Norman
Guitar: Mike Kelly
Guitar: Mark Norman
Drums: Perry Murphy

Recorded and Produced by Nick Bagona and Dead Reckoning at Metal Works in Toronto

Shot and edited by Roger Maunder

BAND
Fred Eaglesmith – Vocals, Guitar
Justine Fischer – Bass
Kori Heppner – Drums
Matty Simpson – Electric guitar, Banjo
Roger Marin – Pedal Steel
Scott Merritt – Organ, Tambourine, Guitar

Partners Colleen Power and Roger Maunder – a.k.a. her New Townie Man (“What was she doin’ with a townie?”) – have collaborated on a music video with Canadian alternative country singer Fred Eaglesmith.

The video is for Eaglesmith’s song “I Would” from his latest album “Cha Cha Cha.” It is set to premiere Thursday online on YouTube and at the home of Maunder’s Up Sky Down Films.

Power and Maunder have worked together in the past to create Power’s own music videos. The videos, such as “New Townie Man,” “Dead Bird in the Garbage” and “Sketchy Jerome,” have clocked more than 100,000 hits on YouTube.

Eaglesmith’s “I Would” has a more serious tone.

Power, whose own music has taken more serious turns, connected with Eaglesmith some time ago, Maunder said.

“They met years ago when she was living in Hamilton, back when she was just starting out in the music industry,” he said. “So the last time he was here to do a show she opened for him. We all went out to dinner and there was conversations about doing a music video. Then after the second night of him playing, he asked us out for breakfast the next morning.”

The breakfast talk turned to music videos and the ideas started brewing. And, how’s this for a timeline: before Eaglesmith had left town, they had completed the project.

From the point of deciding to shoot the video to actually beginning to tape, Maunder said he had about two hours to pull the concept together.

“It was ultra low budget. By the time we came up with what we were going to do, I had a camera and a tripod, we had to go with natural light and my two actors were Fred Eaglesmith and Colleen Power. And the location was his hotel room and around the hotel,” he said.

Maunder borrowed the camera from a friend and already had the tape, left from other film projects.

The Telegram was able to acquire a preview copy of the video for “I Would.” It has a man, played by Eaglesmith, waking up in a hotel room. The visuals actually connect to the real-life Eaglesmith in that sense, Maunder said. “If anybody knows Fred, he’s on the road, you know, more than 300 days a year.”

Yet the video opens on a female character.

“Colleen plays a character in it that at first glance you would think she’s a groupie or a call girl. A lot of people will have their own kind of thoughts on it,” Maunder said, adding that the artistic intention was to have Power be a personification of the music industry.

“No matter how much you’re on the road, she’s always there looking for something,” he said. Despite the demands of the woman, the man is still drawn to her.

The lyrics of “I Would” reflect a sense of self-sacrifice.

“If the bullets were flying and you didn’t feel like dyin’, I would,” Eaglesmith sings. The video for the song, runs about 3 1/2 minutes.

As for distribution, Maunder is now into the first steps. He has submitted the video to Bravo, MuchMusic and CMT for review. He is prepping the online launch.

“Fred’s pretty well known in the (United) States and Canada, so that opened up a few doors anyway – just mentioning I had a video for Fred Eaglesmith,” Maunder said.

He also does not take the online aspect lightly. “I’ve had a lot of luck with YouTube so far,” Maunder said, referring to his previous work with Power.

The filmmaker said more of the fun videos with the Wish Crosby and Flo Murphy (“Dead Bird in the Garbage”) characters are already in the works. He said there has also been talk of doing more videos for Eaglesmith.

Meanwhile, Eaglesmith’s album “Cha Cha Cha” is being made available through Lonesome Day Records.

Eaglesmith is scheduled to perform on a boat tour around Atlantic Canada in September.

afitzpatrick@thetelegram.com

Roger Maunder has been selected for the Atlantic Film Festival’s Inspired Script program. The filmmaker’s work is geographically centered around his second home of the Newfoundland Independent Filmmakers Co-operative offices downtown. – File photo by Ashley Fitzpatrick/The Telegram

Filmmaker and filmmaking mentor at the Newfoundland Independent Filmmakers Co-operative (NIFCO), Roger Maunder has been selected for the Atlantic Film Festival’s Inspired Script program.

The program offers a rare opportunity to develop a screenplay from first thought to first draft, all while working with a professional script editor and receiving continuous feedback from other writers. It concludes at the 2010 Atlantic Film Festival (Sept. 16 to Sept. 25), with a pitch event sponsored by Telefilm Canada.

There, according to the program website, “the writers will pitch their feature film idea to a room of industry professionals with the aim of attaching a producer or director to the projects. The presenting sponsor and mentors will then decide on the presentation of the $10,000 Astral Media Harold Greenberg Development Fund.”

Maunder is one of four participants, one of four potential best scripts, each selected to take part because of their submitted screenplay synopses. In addition to Maunder, the selected writers are: Joadie Jurgova (Antigonish, N.S.), Don Aker (Middleton, N.S.) and Megan Wennberg (Halifax, N.S.).

Maunder said he is excited about walking out of the project with a viable first draft, as well as potentially some financial support for his first feature – or at least an assist for finding it.

“This is something that you can put into your proposals when you do apply for development, for funding,” he said.

“I’ve never gone through this process. I’ve always gone and sat down and started writing the script without planning it. The story just unfolds as it does. But this way, you have to kind of submit your treatment – between five and 10 pages – of how the story’s going to be done,” Maunder said. “It’s going to be interesting.”

Creator of the production label Up Sky Down Films, Maunder is no stranger to film projects. Short films developed under Up Sky Down Films include “Swallowed” (2004) and Maunder’s 22-minute short “Cut From the Same Cloth,” screened at the 2009 Atlantic Film Festival.

As for writing, he is already a published author, with the novel “Mundy Pond.” The story began as a screenplay, said Maunder, one he has been reworking since the completion of the novel. He originally wanted a “Mundy Pond” film to be his first feature, but has since reconsidered.

“Mundy Pond” is a huge film, a period piece to make my first feature. … I figured I wanted to do something else before I went and did that one,” he said.

The idea led to writing his concept for “Sweet Cove,” the story that has earned him a spot in the inspired script program.

“It’s about a guy, Nigel O’Neill, who has to take care of his nine-year old daughter, Rosie,” Maunder said. “Nigel has a back story where he was in a band, called The Brigade.”

The band is from a small town.

“These guys are huge there, they come to town, they make it huge here, then they go off to Toronto and they’re about to make it big and then he falls in love with this girl,” he said. That girl becomes his wife and the mother of his child.

“He chooses her over the band,” Maunder said.

Nigel’s wife receives a cancer diagnosis and the family returns to her home town of Sweet Cove, Newfoundland.

“They go back there because her grandmother lives there,” said Maunder, who explains the woman had been raised by her grandmother.

“There’s other things that happen between him and his family,” he said.

“But he keeps going back to Sweet Cove.”

Catching himself in an excited description of the film, Maunder eases up.

“I’m not going to give it all away,” he said, smiling. Still, Maunder is promising a “huge happy ending.”

“Of course, everything I told you about the story could change,” he said with a laugh.

Maunder recently flew to Halifax and completed his first workshop periods with the program. He will be returning for the second of three workshops in June.

afitzpatrick@thetelegram.com