Windmills

By day they're the unsung troupers on a movie set -- the wranglers and assistant directors who see to it that the crowd in the background is in place and looks right, or that the stars are escorted from costuming to makeup to the film set on time, and maybe with a fresh cup of coffee. 

But two of these guys have a dream under their ever-present radio headsets. Lance Peverley and Patrick Stark have been working nights and weekends on a bit of movie magic of their own. And some high-profile co-workers dating back to their X-Files days have pitched in to help. 

Stark and Peverley met as entry-level crew members on The X-Files' Vancouver set. When Duchovny, Anderson and Co. headed south in May 1998, Stark and Peverley kept running into each other on other jobs. 

They got to talking about Tilt, Peverley's tragi-comic script based on the Don Quixote story. In Peverley's version, the Don is a delusional Vancouver street person and his companion is a businessman just trying to get home on a night when the SkyTrain breaks down. 

The plan was that Stark would produce and Peverley would direct the 30-minute film, with the pair calling in what favours they could. They kept talking during breaks on projects that included Dudley Do-Right and the upcoming Romeo Must Die. 

Peverley had been tinkering with the script for years and eventually rewrote it to tailor the main character for Tom Braidwood, a director and producer who came to onscreen fame as one of The X-Files' Lone Gunmen. 

Thing was, Peverley was a bit shy about showing his work to the more-established Braidwood. 

"I never would have asked Tom Braidwood to do my little thing," says Peverley. "I wouldn't have had the nerve -- he's got a great career and I was a production assistant, literally sweeping up cigarette butts on The X-Files." 

So Stark took the script to Braidwood and within a month the actor had agreed to play the businessman. 

The X-Files connection paid off as well when the pair got that show's camera operator Marty McInally as director of photography, and sound mixer Michael Williamson, who had won an Emmy for his work on The X-Files. 

"All of a sudden it became a larger project," Peverley says. "If I hadn't worked on The X-Files, none of this would have happened. I never would have worked with a cast like this." 

The connection has drawn some buzz for Tilt from online X-Files fans and in foreign magazines. 

Tilt unfolded over a year and a half during breaks from the paying jobs -- 10 days of filming on weekends and nights off -- when Peverley and Stark could sweet-talk crew into working for free. And they had no shortage of people volunteering time and money. 

"Everybody floats in and out of their real jobs," says Braidwood. "The crew changes from day to day but the people doing it are people who want to be there, doing their part without getting paid." 

Even the first day's filming hinged on help from a fairy godmother. Barry Shelton, who owns a fleet of on-set movie trucks, ponied up the seed money during a late-night chat with Stark after the pair had wrapped Dudley Do-Right. Shelton cut Stark off in the middle of his spiel, wrote out a cheque and slid it across the table. 

"My eyes just bugged out," Stark says. Thus did Shelton become executive producer. 

Novice director Peverley first got to say "action" in January 1999 after a long last day of his usual duties on a Donald Sutherland TV movie. 

Stark had assembled a crew of 60 as well as 30 extras at the Stone Temple Cabaret for an indoor scene. "I was scared to death -- was everyone I phoned going to come?" 

They did a Steadicam shot through the crowded bar, close-up dialogue scenes featuring Braidwood and actor Glenn Taranto, who played Gomez on TV's The New Addams Family. 

They were on their way. They shot six pages of script the first night and, when they next got together six weeks later, the cast was able to watch the uncut dailies as they worked on the next scene. Word started getting around and others in the industry started to join in. 

John R. Taylor, the actor playing the old street person, doubled as the show's production designer. Veteran director-actor Braidwood had between-scenes tips on camera angles and production details for Stark and Peverley. 

"That was just habit," Braidwood says. 

Shooting took place as money was raised from industry colleagues, at the rate of about one day every month to six weeks. It's an odd double life -- Stark and Peverley make their living running errands on movies with the likes of Brendan Fraser, Kenneth Branagh and Arnold Schwarzenegger, while on their own time they are learning to call the shots on Tilt. 

In total, about 200 crew took part on Tilt, paid with regular Starbucks runs out of the show's meagre budget. 

David Duchovny's stunt double James Bamford did a couple of days' work, as did veteran stunt co-ordinator Jacob Rupp (Reindeer Games). Those guys helped the novice producer and director realize that filming little stunts throughout their script -- like one involving a man colliding with a bicyclist -- was more complicated than it looked. 

The 11th and final day of filming is set for April 8, when they'll film a stunt man atop the Rogers Sugar waterfront silo. Stark had to arrange a helicopter and a special camera. The chopper company gave him a break -- their usual minimum rate is four hours, but they'll let Tilt get away with paying for just two. It'll be the show's most expensive shooting day -- still a bargain by movie standards at $10,000. 

Then they'll be into post-production and they hope to have the 35mm film ready for next fall's Vancouver Film Festival. Allan Bartolic, who was a location scout on The X-Files, has an editing suite at home for them to work on. A few minutes of edited footage show feature-quality camera moves and acting, as Braidwood launches into his character's adventure. 

"I'd love to get it to Sundance," Stark says. 

"We hope to get noticed with this. We hope somebody watches it." Peverley says. "I know the cast is carrying it, I know the look is carrying it, I just hope the story is carrying it." 

TIMELINE ON TILT 

- May 1998. The X-Files finishes its last Vancouver-filmed episode. 

- July 1998. Former production assistant Lance Peverley and trainee assistant director Patrick Stark resolve to make a short film from Peverley's script. 

- August 1998. Tom Braidwood. producer, director and Lone Gunman, agrees to star. Other cast follow, including Michael Roberds and Glenn Taranto of TV's New Addams Family. 

- December 1998. Truck owner-driver Barry Shelton comes up with the money needed for the first two days' filming. 

- Jan. 10, 1999. "Action." The first day of filming. 

- January to December 1999. Tilt takes shape, with time and money donated by about 200 industry types. 

- April 8, 2000. The 11th and last day of filming.

Note: This article originally appeared in the March 8, 2000 issue of The Vancouver Province